If you’re in a tropical country and looking to avoid malaria, the scientists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine have an easy pro-tip for you: wash your damn socks.
Researchers placed several pairs of smelly socks –which they stank up by having someone wear them for 20 hours straight – in an enclosure filled with mosquitoes and several pairs of clean, non-smelly socks. The mosquitoes infected with the P. falciparum strain of malaria were more likely to land on and probe the dirty socks than the non-infected mosquitoes, though those also favored the dirty socks.
None of the mosquitoes – infected or not –showed significant interest in the clean socks.
[LA Times]
To contact the author of this post, email taylor@gawker.com