Why do mosquitos bite people?

10/11/2022 27 min Episodio 51
Why do mosquitos bite people?

Listen "Why do mosquitos bite people?"

Episode Synopsis

#051 Rebroadcast
This week, Melissa and Jam begin a multi-faceted topic: mosquitos. Now of course mosquitos are insects, so studying them would mostly fall into biology. But there's a lot of chemistry here too. The first question, why do mosquitos bite humans at all? How do they find us, and why do they want to bother us? And perhaps more importantly, how is it related to chemistry? Let's find out.
References from this episode

Mosquito Life Cycle - United States Centers For Disease Control
Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes Detect Acidic Volatiles Found in Human Odor Using the IR8a Pathway - Current Biology - Joshua I. Raji, Nadia Melo, John S. Castillo, Sheyla Gonzalez, Valeria Saldana, Marcus C. Stensmyr, Matthew DeGennaro
Mosquitoes detect human sweat by sniffing for volatile acids - Chemical & Engineering News - Alla Katsnelson
Multimodal Integration of Carbon Dioxide and Other Sensory Cues Drives Mosquito Attraction to Humans - Cell - Conor J. McMeniman, Román A. Corfas, Benjamin J. Matthews, Scott A. Ritchie, Leslie B. Vosshall

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