Scientists already know that smell attracts mosquitoes, but researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine are trying to determine if genes also play a part.
"Human odor is known to be controlled, at least in part, by genetic factors, and it is possible that variation in our attractiveness to mosquitoes is also modulated via the same mechanisms," James Logan and his colleagues wrote in the journal PLOS One. The researchers tested 37 pairs of female twins, half identical (who share all their DNA) and the other half fraternal (sharing no more DNA than a pair of sisters). Everyone washed their hands using the same soap, and then stuck their hands into a Y-shaped tube before hungry female mosquitoes were released into the far end of the tube.
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