"If you've ever attended an outdoor music festival and wondered why your exposed skin was serving as a feast for mosquitoes, the answer might have to do with your drink of choice. In what might be the most impressive choice for fieldwork ever, a group of researchers arrived at the Netherlands' Lowlands Music Festival seeking to answer an existential question for many music fans: Does drinking beer make someone more attractive to mosquitoes?"
"Among the scientists' findings: drinking beer does make someone more attractive to mosquitoes. The authors wrote that "mosquitoes showed a clear fondness for those who drank beer over those who abstained from the liquid gold." Attraction itself also sparked interest from the airborne insects. The scientists observed, "participants that successfully lured a fellow human into their tent the previous night also proved more enticing to mosquitoes.""
"As for what turned mosquitoes off, the use of sunscreen and an aversion to showering made the bugs less likely to feast. Which may leave some hygiene-focused music fans with a dilemma on their hands. The researchers who conducted the study concluded that mosquitoes "simply have a taste for the hedonists among us." As Paul Arnold observed in an article on the study for Phys.org, the scope of these results is limited, with a focus on only one festival."
Researchers set up a lab at the Netherlands' Lowlands Music Festival and collected participant data on hygiene, diet, and alcohol consumption. Each participant placed an arm in a cage where mosquitoes chose between biting a human arm or feeding on sugar. Results showed beer drinkers attracted more mosquito bites. Attraction correlated with recent social success at the festival. Sunscreen use and an aversion to showering associated with fewer mosquito bites. Findings derive from a single festival cohort and may have limited generalizability. Conclusions suggest mosquitoes preferentially target hedonistic behaviors.
Read at InsideHook
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