Hate mosquito bites? New research suggests wearing certain colors could make you a target
CBSN
Mosquito bites are an unfortunate inevitability of summertime — or are they? Scientists recently found that mosquitos are more attracted to some colors than others, which could potentially prove useful to those trying to avoid the itchy bites.
The study, which was published Friday, found that after a common type of mosquitos smelled CO2 — the gas humans breathe out — they decided to land on some colored dots but ignored others.
"Imagine you're on a sidewalk and you smell pie crust and cinnamon," senior author Jeffrey Riffell, a professor of biology at the University of Washington, said in a press release announcing the study's findings. "That's probably a sign that there's a bakery nearby, and you might start looking around for it. Here, we started to learn what visual elements that mosquitoes are looking for after smelling their own version of a bakery."
