I wish I had more repulsive body odour

I HATE mosquitoes, but they love me. My body odour is to blame — it’s not repulsive enough!

Mozzies are drawn to humans through a combination of our breath and the colour red.

We exhale carbon dioxide, which a mosquito can detect from 100 metres away.

This switches on a guidance system in their eyes that makes them seek out anything glowing red or orange. And that, to a mosquito, means a human: whatever our actual colour, we appear as big, bright, shiny and delicious red-orange objects. As to why they prefer biting some people over others, the answer is that they produce less of a natural insect repellent — my body odour is, apparently, not sufficiently revolting to keep mozzies at bay.

While protecting against bites involves wearing longsleeved shirts and covering your feet (they love ankles) — and obviously using insect repellent — in California, where I am at the moment, they’re going one step further: later this year they’re releasing 2.4 billion male mosquitoes modified to have a ‘self-limiting’ gene. This means their offspring will quickly die.

The company doing this says it’ll only release modified males that don’t bite humans (only females bite and carry disease).

I imagine the plan is to do the same in countries where millions die every year from diseases carried by mosquitoes, such as malaria. I, for one, won’t mourn their passing.