Posted on 05/24/2014 11:28:23 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It's Memorial Day weekend, which means the time for barbecues and nights outside has begun. But, unfortunately, it's also the time that mosquitoes see as open season to dine on humans.
If you can't spend a summer night outside without slapping your ankles — and you still end up with dozens of mosquito bites — then it might be true that the flying pests really do love you.
And those lucky people who say they don't get bitten? They exist too.
But it's not because one person's blood tastes better to the small hovering bloodsuckers — or at least, not just that. In a TED 2014 talk earlier this year in Vancouver, microbial ecologist Rob Knight explained that the bacteria, or microbes, on skin produce different chemicals, some of which smell more attractive to mosquitoes.
The trillion or so microbes that live on skin are a small percentage of the 100 trillion bacteria that live on and inside the body, but they play a huge role in body odor. Without those bacteria, human sweat wouldn't smell like anything.
However, those different bacteria vary greatly from person to person. Knight explained that while we share 99.9% of DNA with other humans, most people only share about 10% of their microbes.
To demonstrate that mosquitoes are overwhelmingly attracted to certain types of skin microbes, researchers asked 48 adult male volunteers to refrain from alcohol, garlic, spicy food, and showers for two days. The men wore nylon socks for 24 hours to build up a collection of their unique skin microbes.
Researchers then used glass beads that they had rubbed against the underside of the men's feet to pick up their scent as mosquito bait.
Nine men out of the 48 proved to be especially attractive to mosquitoes,
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Cigar smoke seems to deter them. Yet another reason to support my vice.
For my first post here at FR.
My late mother never got mosquito bites. The rest of us kids looked like we had measles during the spring and summer. Mosquitos seemed to chase us and mom never understood why.
Not sure about skeeters, but I’ve had three or four women tell me I was the BEST smellin man they ever well, smelled!
My wife used to fall asleep with her nose right near my pits.
Skeeters seem somewhat ambivalent. If somebody else is around, they tend to go for them.
Here’s my solution. Find those 9 men and invite them to all your out door activities. Problem solved.
Actually, I don’t know if it’s an old wives tail or not. I like to put brewers yeast on my popcorn. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t.
I never had to wear bug repellent around my ex. The skeeters would fly past me and get her. Heck, they would come out of hibernation in winter to bite her.
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Never thought I would run into you on this forum, you SOB!
oh. you’re not Charlie? ...er...sorry.
I think some of it has to do with how overweight a person is.
It’s harder to hit veins (and presumably the tiny blood vessels mosquitoes probe for) on victims who are a little overweight. Just ask the nurses who draw blood all day long.
It's just not fun being appealing to mosquitoes. Poor Mom — not even repellent, screens or netting helped. She couldn't enjoy the outdoors. She would wear long sleeves and long pants tucked into her shoes. The mosquitoes still got to her.
It’s harder to hit veins (and presumably the tiny blood vessels mosquitoes probe for) on victims who are a little overweight. Just ask the nurses who draw blood all day long.
_
capillaries are everywhere there is living skin.
Most are too small for a mosquito’s proboscis.
The drought is keeping a lot of mosquito eggs from hatching. In some places in Texas there are bull frogs that are six months old and haven’t learned how to swim yet.
Somewhere along in my thirties I realized I hadn’t been bitten by a mosquito in years. As a kid they attacked me as much as anyone else. They still leave me alone.
Easier to just buy a bottle of tea tree oil and use a tablespoon ful with a cup of rubbing alcohol, to spray your clothing and you ... Mosquitos might even leave your neighborhood with that strategy. Add a tea spoon of lavender oil or Eucalyptus and you have a nice carpet spray to treat your whole house inside. BTW, spray the bedding with the mix and the mattress cover when you change sheets. Works like magic.
I thought that was Avon.
Socrates also said olive oil cured baldness. Socrates was bald.
They drill and suck
Not capillaries.
Yes capillaries.
My mom was a natural redhead, with pinky-white pale skin, and had what seemed to be a natural vanilla-like fragrance. (Perfumes always smelled completely different on her and me.) Mosquitos couldn’t get enough of her! But they rarely bother me. (I’m also pale but with a yellow undertone to my skin rather than bluish like hers, and I don’t think I smell like vanilla! LOL!)
Average capillary is 5-10 microns in diameter, while the average proboscis is 25. The arithmetic is easy.
They are picky eaters, landing, prodding and poking the skin until they find a likely spot where a sufficient quantity of blood can be drawn. That rules out most capillaries, as mosquitoes gorge themselves 2-3 minutes per feeding and most capillaries cannot provide them with the volume of blood they need. If they don’t find such a site on the skin, they fly off in search of the next victim. They do not drill every time they land which, of course, they would if any capillary would do.
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