What’s in our blood, and why do mosquitoes love it? Why is it tasty for them? A team of scientists led by Leslie Vosshall genetically modified mosquitoes in order for them to identify “which neurons fire when a mosquito tastes blood.”
“This is definitely a technical tour de force,” says neuroscientist Chris Potter of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who studies mosquito repellents. Identifying the specific taste neurons associated with blood might be something “we could use against the mosquito,” he says.
How can this knowledge be used against mosquitoes, you ask?
One possibility might sound like science fiction, Vosshall says, but there is precedent. “I just gave my dogs their monthly flea and tick medication, which is oral,” she says. Perhaps something similar could eventually be done for mosquitoes – a drug that humans could take before going to a mosquito-infested area that would interfere with mosquito’s taste for blood.
So what characteristics does our blood have? How does it taste like to mosquitoes?
Answers over at Neuroscience News.
(Image Credit: CDC/ Wikimedia Commons)
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They will just create moskitos that adapted to love any kind of blood!
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well my blood is full of pizza and frozen coffee so..
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