Cesar Sanchez of the TwistedBacteria blog alerts us to this new study, which was derived from the Ig Nobel Prize-winning work of Bart Knols and Ruurd de Jong (who showed that many malaria mosquitoes are attracted equally to the smell of human feet and the smell of limburger cheese):
“Sugar-fermenting yeast as an organic source of carbon dioxide to attract the malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae,” Renate C Smallegange, Wolfgang H Schmied, Karel J van Roey, Niels O Verhulst, Jeroen Spitzen, Wolfgang R Mukabana and Willem Takken, Malaria Journal 2010, 9:292. The authors, variously at Wageningen University, The Netherlands, and at the University of Nairobi and International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, Nairobi, Kenya, report:
“Human foot odour was released from nylon socks (40 Den, 100% polyamide, HEMA, The Netherlands) worn by WHS (laboratory experiments) or KJvR (semi-field and field experiments) for 12 h prior to the experiments…“
Here is an image from the study, showing one portion of the experiment:
