14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists speaking at a recent meeting of the American Chemical Society detailed their plan to keep people safe from mosquitoes by making it impossible for the latter to use their sense of smell to locate their next victim.
As the researchers put it, their goal is to make people invisible to these pests.
“We are exploring a different approach, with substances that impair the mosquito’s sense of smell. If a mosquito can’t sense that dinner is ready, there will be no buzzing, no landing and no bite,” Ulrich Bernier, Ph.D, explained.
According to the scientists working on this project, a mosquito's ability to smell is not too difficult to shut down.
What's more, it appears that various chemical compounds that are naturally present on human skin are fairly effective in terms of leaving these insects without a sense of smell. These compounds are called inhibitors.
“If you put your hand in a cage of mosquitoes where we have released some of these inhibitors, almost all just sit on the back wall and don’t even recognize that the hand is in there.”
“We call that anosmia or hyposmia, the inability to sense smells or a reduced ability to sense smells,” Ulrich Bernier summed up their effect on mosquitoes.
The only problem is that, more often than not, these substances are accompanied by others that the mosquitoes find fairly attractive and therefore rely on when out hunting for their next meal.
The researchers wish to identify which chemical compounds act as smell inhibitors, and which act as lures. Once they sort out this issue, they wish to use the data to develop new mosquito repellents.
They are also confident that some of the inhibitors they will identify while carrying out these experiments will prove suitable to be incorporated in various cosmetics.
Ulrich Belnier and his fellow researchers explain that, apart from being incredibly annoying, mosquitoes carry several diseases. In fact, they are estimated to be responsible for about 1 million yearly deaths.
Therefore, no efforts should be spared to keep them off people's backs. And arms. And whatever other body parts these insects might find appealing.