Author: Samir S. Patel / Source: Atlas Obscura
At the moment, the favored way to catch mosquitoes is to use a human leg as bait. This method, called “human landing catch,” has long been used by researchers to track outdoor mosquitos and the diseases they carry, including malaria.
It’s not complicated—roll up your pant leg and catch visitors in a vial—but it takes a lot of work. The results can vary depending on how good someone is at catching them while resisting the urge to swat. More importantly, it can expose people to the infectious diseases they’re out there to study. One alternative is a light-based trap, but it doesn’t work quite as well as a tasty, exposed leg. There’s got to be a better way.There are a lot of things that attract mosquitoes—the carbon dioxide animals exhale, body heat, smell, and even visual information, like the dark outline of a large animal. Bernard Abong’o, a doctoral student at the Liverpool…
The post To Build a Better Mosquito Trap, First Put a Cow in a Tent appeared first on FeedBox.