The Day DEET is Done

September 04, 2008

This post is about a potential scientific development and it's about an exciting research prospect. It's also a nice excuse to talk about my new favorite activity for the first Wednesday of every month: the Secret Science Club in Brooklyn, which actually isn't secret, but it does get packed.

Last night I managed to squeeze into a standing-room-only lecture on smell given by Leslie Vosshall, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and the head of Rockefeller University's Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior. Vosshall told the mostly bespeckled and hipsterish crowd, which had "schnoz-mopolitans" in hand, how little is still known about the science of smell. Far more is known about our other senses.

One of Vosshall's key research areas is how insects smell, especially the way mosquitoes recognize scents because it's key for finding blood to suck. Ugh. I know. Recently the New York Times reported that scientists are close to figuring out why mosquitoes dislike the effective mosquito-repellent DEET and it appears to affect their sense of smell. (Vosshall's research was somewhat at odds with research from two University of California, Davis, scientists.) The trouble with DEET, as Vosshall points out, is that it's bad for humans. And it melts plastic. So if she and her fellow scientists can actually solve the mosquito smell mystery, we'll be on our way to a nontoxic insect repellent that works. Not a moment too soon.

Photo Credit: Josh Berglund.

Comments

[Alejandro Luna 401]

This is a very interesting article, I didn't know about mosquitoes smelling the blood, it's kind what a predator such as sharks do.
This repellent sound good, affecting mosquitoes sense of smell so they don't get to our blood would be perfect, except for the fact it is bad for humans, it'd be great that scientists figure it out for our good.

[Laura]

How will DEET affect the environment? What will happen to the environment is exposed to DEET?

[Alyssa]

Good question Laura--we've already been exposing DEET to the environment so time will tell.