Scientists Try Feeding Diet Drugs To Mosquitoes To Stop Them From Biting
What if human diet drugs curb the appetite of bloodthirsty mosquitoes? That's the question a new study set out to investigate.
Splat! A lucky strike and the telltale red splurge that your nightly tormentor has sucked its last blood vessel.
Staring at the mess on the wall, you might find it hard to believe that so small an insect can carry so much blood. But female mosquitoes have a knack for eating, doubling their body weight with each meal.
"They can barely fly," laughs Leslie Vosshall, a neurobiologist at Rockefeller University, who's hoping to control mosquitoes, and the diseases they carry, by switching off their enormous appetite.
In a paper Thursday in the, Vosshall and her team demonstrate how human diet drugs satiate mosquito bloodlust for several days— so they are less likely to feed on humans and spread diseases, and will also produce fewer offspring.
