Mosquitoes can learn to love the gold standard repellant
How DEET becomes a treat. When you apply repellent may matter more than how much Given the choice between two arms — one bare, one coated in DEET — and a mosquito will avoid the treated one. Unless it has learned otherwise . Researchers at Virginia Tech used the same conditioning method Pavlov made famous with his dogs. They let the species of mosquito that transmits dengue, Zika, Chikungunya, and yellow fever feed on a volunteer, then introduced the smell of DEET. After just 4 repetitions, more than 60% of the insects tried to feed when they caught the sc...
