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Why Are Some People Mosquito Magnets?
First time accepted submitter CherryLongman writes "If you feel as if every mosquito in a 50-mile radius has you locked in its sights, while your friends are rarely bitten, you could be right. Up to 20 percent of us are highly alluring to mosquitoes — and scientists have discovered some surprising reasons."
I'm guessing these people contain the sweetest of the red juice.
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mosquitos are attracted to carbon dioxide... im guessing some ppl exhale more/more often than others
You can ask any number of my former girlfriends--if you can keep them from stabbing you, setting fire to your house, or trying to poison your dog long enough to ask.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
How many more reports do we need on this? It's been done to death for years. This "article" is just a womens' magazine level fluff piece, not research. Why is /. posting reddit style TIL crap?
If you want to avoid the bugs, don't eat foods high in iron like red meat.
It's too bad that you need iron to make red blood cells though in the first place >.>
I have the same problem with chicks.
I keep Mosquitos away with the help of a good HOSTS file! The fastest and best way to secure yourself from external pests!
Yahoo Health? Are you joking?
One dumb lab tech sits in his underwear in his lab and reports the results?
I start getting bitten within seconds of entering a house with fleas. Same as mosquitos, I often have trouble convincing others that there is an infestation. Good to see the scientists confirming my observations. Again.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
Repeatedly trying to kill them using stronger and stronger chemicals would lead to resistance in surviving population. We should fight them by enlisting evolution on our side. One can try is to capture and sterilize the males and release them in very large quantities in regions with endemic mosquito problem. It would take a few years to make a dent. But these sterile males will compete with, and reduce the mating opportunities of, fertile natural born males.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I'd really be interested in actual differences not "Don't drink beer". I'm the exact opposite. As long as there are other people around I'm safe. If I'm out near dusk and alone I'll get bitten but other than that they leave me almost completely alone.
So people here can stop guessing:
Mosquitos prefer blood type O
Most people secrete substances that allow mosquitoes to identify blood type before they bite.
Beer drinkers beware
Swigging just one bottle of beer can significantly boost your risk of being bitten
Watch out for the full moon
The tiny bloodsuckers are 500 times more active when the moon is full
Keep your socks on
The pungent aroma of dirty feet is apparently irresistible to mosquitoes
Mosquitos know if you're expecting
Moms-to-be get bitten about twice as often as women who aren't pregnant
Running won't help you
Both the carbon dioxide we exhale and substances in sweat, such as lactic acid, help mosquitoes home in on their prey.
Dark-colored clothing can increase your risk of falling victim
Like vampires, they prefer dark clothes
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Anyone else NOT allergic to mosquito bites? I can get bit but have no reaction, no raised bump, no itching. I'm not sure when it happened but I know that when I was a kid I did have a reaction but now as an adult I do not.
Tastes like Slashken.
The article caused me to experience a Flashback to the worst Mosquito related incident I've ever been through.
Basically, the wife and I were driving through the Everglades one night, when the car got a flat tire. It didn't take *that* long to change it, but between me sweating from changing the tire and the wife holding a source of light, we got MASSACRED by mosquito. And these weren't your typical, run of the mill mosquitos. These were EVERGLADES mosquitos. I even had tons of bites on my feet--how the hell did they bite my feet when I was wearing shoes + socks? A week later, we were still scratching.
The moral of the story: keep a can of mosquito spray in your trunk (Those things don't exceed 120F right?) if you're going to drive through anywhere swampy.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
What, no mention of Marmite? Yahoo even have their own "answers" page about it, containing only slightly less information than this fluff piece.
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061113101418AAETa3c
The obvious downside is that you need to eat Marmite, and about half of the population would rather catch malaria.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
The one about beer is very simple: alcohol dilates your blood vessels, making you more attractive to mosquitoes.
* Rub yourself down with Olive oil. Extra virgin in particular. Oh, don't stand too close to the bonfire.
* DEET. Soak your cigar in it. The combination of second hand smoke and smell of chemical burns is a bit too much for them.
* Cover all exposed areas. A scarf works great for the neck and stocking cap for the head. I find an additional two layers of sweatpants and sweatshirts keeps the buggers from reaching you. Oh, three pair of socks and rain boots for the feet.
* Pig manure. It may sound crazy, but it works. Stop by your local pig farm on the way to your outdoor event and have a quick roll in the barnyard. Be sure to cover everything. After an hour or so, the manure dries to a hard crust which will protect you from being bitten for the rest of the day. Be sure to cover your face or they'll go for that in frustration.
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I've seen this myself in my own family. I'm of Mediterranean extraction and my daughter takes after me with dark complexion and oily skin. Neither of us are bothered anywhere near as much as my wife and son who show more Germanic ancestry (fair skinned)
This is so noticable that we comment on it all the time in the summer.
I really want to build a laser mosquito zapper (like this one: http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/gadgets/backyard-star-wars). However, this looks pretty pricey (multiple cameras and galvanometers).
http://www.intellectualventures.com/index.php/inventions-patents/our-inventions/photonic-fence
If patents are so good, we should have seen this on the market already. If IV puts this into the public domain, Walmart will have a Chinese mosquito laser system in stock by Christmas.
Have gnu, will travel.
I've been many in regions where mosquitoes thrive. I'm seldom bothered by them, however, and I attribute this to my long standing habit of snacking on hot peppers of one sort or another. Skip right by those jalapenos, though. They don't seem to work as well as some nice Scotch Bonnets, or Bird's Eyes (Thai). Habeneros work extremely well.
I eat a handful of hot peppers everyday ;-)
So, my 9 year old daughter, AB blooded, must be a beer addict, her white cotton socks must be too used to get transparent, the moon at the other side of the world must keep on affecting meanwhile she stays in the daylight with no moon at all in the sky, lying down in the sofa to watch Disney Channel must make her breath a lot of lactic acid, her white summer clothes must be dirt to death and... Dammit! She must be expecting!!!
At least it's not like in a colleague's case. That poor bastard attracts wasps.
In February 2000 at 20 years old I was diagnosed with a lung infection called Mycobacterium Kansasii. It is in the family of Tuberculosis and treated with a nearly identical pharmaceutical regimen.
I took:
Isoniazid:
myambutol
rifadin (turns your urine orange)
vitamin B 12 (for liver health)
Pyrazinamide for about a month until they ruled out Active TB.
I was on this regimen for 18 months, a while after I was declared cured myself, my Dad and my Brother walked to a local park to watch a total lunar eclipse. My brother and Dad ended up leaving early because they were getting bit so bad but I could walk into a cloud of mosquitos and they would disperse and I did not get bitten a single time.
Fast forward to now over a decade after being off of these meds and I might get 4 mosquito bites in an entire summer.
I havent ever found documented cases from other people where this happened, but the doctor who diagnosed and treated me said he had heard it in passing a few times.
and have fun while protecting yourself from evil bites: http://www.amazon.com/Executioner-Swat-Mosquito-Swatter-Zapper/dp/B000MU2MJA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373990707&sr=8-1&keywords=zap+racket If you do get bitten, try the hot spoon technique for getting rid of the itch. http://lifehacker.com/use-a-hot-spoon-to-instantly-relieve-itchy-bug-bites-615912899
We want to know how not to be a mosquito magnet. Like using a fan or eating garlic.
Its well known in various climates conducive to mosquitos that what you eat has a direct effect on how badly you are attacked. What gets excreted from your sweat and skin oils attracts or repels mosquitos and its easy to tell if you pay any attention at all.
Want to get eaten alive? Eat a few bananas and then go walk around a mosquito ridden area the next day.
It amazes me it takes years for some scientist to reprint what I read in boys life 40 fucking years ago.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Samwise Gamgee asked a good question: what do mosquitoes eat and why are there so many of them? They feed on blood from animals. So let's say you're in the middle of the swamp somewhere - where do all the mosquitoes come from? They obviously aren't eating very well because any animal that comes close will be driven off by the swarm of bites. So how do they maintain their clouds of insects when they can only reproduce with animal blood in their bellies?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
For those with abnormally high levels of glucose in your blood, you're not just an all-you-can-eat buffet on legs. You have the dessert bar thrown in, too.
... by the Dew of Mountains the thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning
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Explains why they always go after me first.
Actually, blood type is but one of several factors that they were able to allegedly correlate with slight statistical variations. They imbibe my AB- with with alacrity.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
It is journalism if they fix all of that.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
I have had a hellish (for southern Oregon) year, and the bats have let me down one too many times.
The war has already begun.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
We have about ten irrigated acres, with with two ponds and a little quarter-acre boggy spot off in the back. I have seen very few bluebirds this year and only one swallow nest. Like something bad happened on the migratory trail. I have watched generations come back to the same nests, and they all went empty this year.
Our bat house went empty three years ago, that made a big difference.
-the hoboroadie
LMAO. Good point.
It's actually a fascinating place to visit, but should be renamed Mosquito National Park.
Come visit the more wet areas of rural Manitoba, Canada. You don't know mosquitoes until you visit Manitoba.
My AB- seems to be like catnip for them, and they're telling all their friends where to get some.
From what I've understood over the years, it is because those folks emit slightly more carbon dioxide than others and that is what the mosquitoes are attracted to. I, unfortunately, am one of those people. However, I am able to make the claim that "I'm full of hot air" as a result :-)
But to be serious, a mosquito trap basically uses CO2 as bait.
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
they bite me more coz my blood is sweeter
I'm type-O, drink beer, have been known to not wear socks, I almost NEVER get bitten. People around me get eaten alive and I almost never have to swat. It isn't soap, cologne or laundry detergent, its something else.
Dear moronic article author,
There is no blood type "zero". That is a letter O, you fool.
Sincerely,
Somebody who is not a moron