Do you find you still get covered in bites during the summer even when you have covered yourself in mosquito repellent?
Scientists may have figured out why, as it the bloodthirsty pests have evolved the ability to sniff out human body odour in more ways than one.
Most animals smell with the ‘olfactory receptors’ in their nose or antennae, which each detect a single, unique scent particle.
The receptors are connected to ‘olfactory neurons’ that transmit information about that particular odour to the brain.
However, researchers from Rockefeller University in New York, USA, have discovered that the neurons in mosquito antennae are connected to multiple types of receptor.
This means that their neurons are activated by more than one chemical produced by humans, so if one type of receptor is knocked out, they can still track us down.
Professor Leslie Vosshall, a senior author of the study, said: ‘You need to work harder to break mosquitoes because getting rid of a single receptor has no…
