This study’s goal was to understand how diet, beer in particular, impacts how attractive humans are to malaria’s primary vector in Africa, Anopheles gambiae Giles sensu stricto – or An. gambiae (or mosquito) for short. Diet is thought to be an important part of body odor, which has been shown to provide the female An. gambiae with an olfactory trail to human hosts. Therefore, diet may be an important factor behind variation in human attractiveness to mosquitoes — and possibly malaria risk.

To test this idea, the study’s authors randomly assigned 43 adult males to drink either beer or water. Participants in the beer group drank a local brew called dolo, a homemade concoction of fermented sorghum (reported to be the most widely consumed alcoholic beverage in Burkina Faso). The rest of the volunteers consumed a tall glass of tap water.

Guess who got the mosquito love? Answer here.

I wonder what a mosquito walk of shame looks like?