Mosquitos, or the parasites they carry, have been responsible for more human deaths than any other cause in history, and they continue to be responsible for at least one death every minute even as you read this. New research from Caltech might give us some insight into why we're so susceptible. It has been known for some time that Anopheles gambiae have multiple strategies for detecting a tasty meal but it was never fully understood how these various systems worked and interacted. Many thought that one might be gated by another, for example, some believed that an initial detection of carbon dioxide from a person's breath would trigger activation of the thermal detection system that would home in on body heat. This new paper suggests that each of the mosquito's sensory systems; carbon dioxide detection, thermal detection, visual acuity and detection of volatile chemicals given off by skin (sweat); can work independently.
So why do we need to know this? Well this is the sort of information we need to know to come up with strategies to defeat humankind's greatest ever enemy and in this case: it's bad news. If the systems worked consecutively then we would only need to break one link in the chain, preferably high up the chain, to defend ourselves; if they all work together in concert then we would likely need to counteract all of them at once to render ourselves undetectable. A tall order, indeed. As someone who attracts mozzies like an N52 neodymium magnate attracts steel this makes me sad.
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