Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Mosquitoes may like some people's genes better

Ah, spring, when a young outdoorswoman's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of insect bites. While I do own DEET-based repellant, my main trick for avoiding bites is inviting my friend Allie along on hikes or camping trips — when we return, she's covered in mosquito bites, and I'm scot-free. Yes, mosquitoes really do like some people better than others, and a new paper from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine suggests there's a genetic component to that preference.

In the study, scientists compared how attractive sets of twins were to mosquitoes, using groups of identical and fraternal twins. The identical twins were more similarly attractive to mosquitoes than the fraternal twins, according to the study, published in PLOS...

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