Some mosquitoes have a near-foolproof thirst for human blood. Previous attempts to prevent the insects from tracking people down by blocking part of mosquitoes’ ability to smell have failed. A new study hints it’s because the bloodsuckers have built-in workarounds to ensure they can always smell us.
For most animals, individual nerve cells in the olfactory system can detect just one type of odor. But Aedes aegypti mosquitoes’ nerve cells can each detect many smells, researchers report August 18 in Cell. That means if a cell were to lose the ability to detect one human odor, it still can pick up on other scents.
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