Why do insects prefer to bite certain people?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 21 February 2020
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A lovely day out in the countryside can be blighted when swarms of midges or mosquitos invite themselves to the party. A CrowdScience listener in New Zealand has noticed that, when sand-flies come a-biting, she and her daughter are targeted, while her husband and other daughter escape unharmed. She wants to know why some, but not all of her family become bait for insect bites. CrowdScience delves into a world of smells, called semiochemistry, which explores the aromas one animal uses to attract or repel another. Does our attractiveness as a blood meal to insects come down to what we wear, what we’ve eaten or is it all in our genes? Host Marnie Chesterton discards the DEET and bravely offers herself up as a meal for mozzies, in a quest for answers.
(Photo:Mosquito on skin. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.5 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:31.6 | Welcome to Crowd Science from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:35.0 | Meet Liston of Vivian from Christchurch, New Zealand. |
| 0:38.0 | New Zealand is a beautiful country. |
| 0:40.0 | It's got fabulous beaches and then it's got a fabulous bush mountains and it's just a great place to go |
| 0:47.4 | tramping and spend time with your family. |
| 0:49.7 | That family is husband Sean and daughters Lucy ensues, all fans of hiking. |
| 0:58.0 | However, it does come with problems, one of which is these annoying little insects called |
| 1:08.9 | sandflies. |
| 1:10.1 | Vivian describes one particular run-in that led to her email in crowd science. |
| 1:18.0 | So last year in January just after New Year we're on a sort of family holiday. The girls are always |
| 1:25.6 | keen to camp so that's what we thought we'd do so we took all our tents and |
| 1:30.3 | camping gear in and we probably got into the camp site about six six o'clock at night and we |
| 1:37.6 | started setting up our tents and I sort of looked over to my youngest daughter, Susie and she was just sort of surrounded |
| 1:48.9 | by a haze of sandflies. |
| 1:51.9 | So I don't know if you know about sandflies but they're annoying |
... |
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