Do you know why mosquitoes bite certain people?

Prof. Know Why answers:

It’s strange, but amazingly true that mosquitoes may not bite all the people in the same place. And only a selective set of people may fall prey to these tiny blood suckers that put millions of lives at stake by spreading malaria - the most prevalent life-threatening disease in the world. Scientists have worked out the answers why and how mosquitoes make a beeline for certain people and leave others almost untouched.

Specific cells in one of the three organs that make up the mosquito’s nose are tuned to identify the different chemicals that make up human body odor. To the mosquito, some people’s sweat simply smells better than others because of the proportions of the carbon dioxide, octenol and other compounds that make up body odor. It’s those people who are most likely to be bitten.

Mosquitoes use three organs to smell and taste – a feathery antenna which can identify a wide range of different chemicals, a proboscis used for short range detection and the maxillary palp for longer range smelling.

Scientists have found that maxillary palp contains a series of highly specialized receptor cells used to detect the different components of human body odor. Professors of biological sciences believe, mosquitoes are good transmitters of malaria because they are extremely good at finding people to bite, and maxillary palps serve as the malaria mosquito’s long range detection system.

So, if you think you are the mosquito’s delight, better take care!

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Do you know why women are marrying younger men?

Miss Finder –The Journo, investigates:

When a woman marries a man, who’s a few years older than her, we take it as normal. But when it’s the opposite, it becomes a topic of gossips! Let’s see why this inverse relationship is picking up pace in this modern times.

Though there’s a lot of debate about this issue, according to psychologists, - as women gain economic equality, they no longer marry for economic protection. Instead they marry purely on the grounds of attraction.

Relationship counsellors feel that older women are seeing younger men as someone who they can have fun with and also who doesn’t necessarily want to have children. They want somebody who is young enough not to feel threatened by their career as well. While on the other side, an older woman come across as being lot more mature and confident about herself, which can be very attractive to a younger man.

Psychotherapists believe that this has a lot to do with women’s increased position as a sex. They are doing better than men, with better education and more powerful jobs. They are therefore able to be more demanding and essentially doing what men used to do, - go for the younger, more beautiful models.

Some younger guys even told me that they find older women more sexy as they put on more flesh at right places with their age, transforming into a wholesome super curvy figure. Well, the debate may go on, but there’s surely an increasing change in the ratio of the role reversal, i.e. more older women marrying younger men. And gossipers, you are certainly going to get more engaged as this promising trend picks up more flames in the coming days!

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