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This is Scientific American 62nd Science. I'm Emily Schwing.

Imagine this. You're in a lab in Indiana. Your arms stuck in a box. The box is filled with

blood thirsty insects. And those insects? Well, they intend to feed on you.

The staff scientist who works with me, Dr. Samuel Rund, he has a very good arm

that he doesn't mind exposing to mosquitoes to feed off him.

Notre Dame professor Giles Duffield convinced a colleague to play the role of blood meal for his

research on mosquito genetics and behavior. It's published in the American Journal of Tropical

Medicine and Hygiene. Duffield cared less about whether his colleagues would be delicious.

That was obvious. What he really wanted to know was, like humans, kept awake by the light of

their cell phones, would artificial lighting keep mosquitoes up and biting deep into the night.

So Duffield and his colleagues created an experiment. They'd monitor the biting behaviors

of mosquitoes who'd been exposed to pulses of artificial light throughout the night.

The effect on the biting at night were approaching those that we would see during the late afternoon

when we expect to see their peak biting. It doubled their feeding activity. So it's not a small

change. It's a very robust increase in their biting behavior. There are a number of different

species of mosquitoes and they behave in different ways. Some bite only at night. Others are

...