Scientists Discover How Mosquitoes Can 'Sniff Out' Humans (theguardian.com) 17
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: [R]esearchers say they have found the mechanism behind the insect's ability to home in on humans. Humans give off a fragrant cocktail of body odor, heat and carbon dioxide, which varies from person to person and mosquitoes use to locate their next meal. While most animals have a specific set of neurons that detect each type of odor, mosquitoes can pick up on smells via several different pathways, suggests the study, which is published in the science journal Cell. "We found that there's a real difference in the way mosquitoes encode the odors that they encounter compared to what we've learned from other animals," said Meg Younger, an assistant professor of biology at Boston University and one of the lead authors of the study.
Researchers at the Rockefeller University, in New York, were baffled when mosquitoes were somehow still able to find people to bite after having an entire family of human odor-sensing proteins removed from their genome. The team then examined odor receptors in the antennae of mosquitoes, which bind to chemicals floating around in the environment and signal to the brain via neurons. "We assumed that mosquitoes would follow the central dogma of olfaction, which is that only one type of receptor is expressed in each neuron," said Younger. "Instead, what we've seen is that different receptors can respond to different odors in the same neuron." This means losing one or more receptors does not affect the ability of mosquitoes to pick up on human smells. This backup system could have evolved as a survival mechanism, the researchers say. "The mosquito Aedes aegypti is specialized to bite humans, and it is believed that they evolved to do that because humans are always close to fresh water and mosquitoes lay their eggs in fresh water. We are basically the perfect meal, so the drive to find humans is extremely strong," said Younger.
Researchers at the Rockefeller University, in New York, were baffled when mosquitoes were somehow still able to find people to bite after having an entire family of human odor-sensing proteins removed from their genome. The team then examined odor receptors in the antennae of mosquitoes, which bind to chemicals floating around in the environment and signal to the brain via neurons. "We assumed that mosquitoes would follow the central dogma of olfaction, which is that only one type of receptor is expressed in each neuron," said Younger. "Instead, what we've seen is that different receptors can respond to different odors in the same neuron." This means losing one or more receptors does not affect the ability of mosquitoes to pick up on human smells. This backup system could have evolved as a survival mechanism, the researchers say. "The mosquito Aedes aegypti is specialized to bite humans, and it is believed that they evolved to do that because humans are always close to fresh water and mosquitoes lay their eggs in fresh water. We are basically the perfect meal, so the drive to find humans is extremely strong," said Younger.
didn't we just do this? (Score:5, Informative)
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The knowledge was lost in a fire, millennia ago or possibly a few hours, it's hard to tell really. Since then, they rediscovered the lost knowledge and published the result... at the same URL! HAIL SCIENCE!
They found and stung my family except mum! (Score:1)
Re: They found and stung my family except mum! (Score:5, Funny)
She's not human, duh
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Each summer, my father, brother and I were stung by mosquitoes out in our garden. They probably came from our fish pond. Yet somehow they never troubled our mum! Any ideas why they could be?
You could read the article and find out. (or just the first sentence of the summary if you're pressed for time.)
If you have lots more time, try an experiment. Self identify as female and see if the research is wrong, and the mosquitoes are just being sexist.
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Old news (Score:1)
Is this true (Score:1)
Who cares? (Score:2)
They already figured out how to eradicate the disease carrying mosquitos so lets focus on implementing that one.
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P.S. if anyone is curious look up 'gene drive'
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Can we eradicate dupes next?
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That is a much more difficult challenge.
... but slashdot editors can't sniff out duplicate (Score:3)
Fatal Attraction :) (Score:3)
Given that the scent cocktail will vary based on genes, diet, etc, there really are people who are more appealing to mosquitos, and others who are less so. Now we have theoretical support for the "I must be really tasty, because I get bitten to hell every summer", or the "I hardly ever get bites" lines that have had empirical evidence for so long.
With a little bit more research, we should be able to (a) potentially find a few specific attractants that are the result of diet, and (b) hopefully find better ways to make people less attractive to mozzies in the first place, improving the deterrent sprays that people in some environments need.
Alter our DNA so as to smell like mosquitoes? (Score:2)
That'll show 'em!