Melissa: 00:09

Okay. So oh, no. I start with this. Hey. I'm Melissa.

Jam: 00:14

I'm Jam.

Melissa: 00:15

And I'm a chemist.

Jam: 00:16

And I'm not.

Melissa: 00:17

And welcome to chemistry for your life.

Jam: 00:18

The podcast helps you understand the chemistry of your everyday life. Edition. Edition. Oh, wait. You know what we haven't done in a while?

Jam: 00:27

What? That I thought about the other day? If you haven't watched or listened to our show much, and you're relatively recent.

Melissa: 00:35

Oh, yeah. This we used to do this pretty regularly.

Jam: 00:38

Yeah. About every 5 or 10 episodes, something like that. When we say, Melissa's a chemist. She really, truly is.

Melissa: 00:44

Real life chemist, baby.

Jam: 00:46

She has a bachelor's, a master's, and a PhD.

Melissa: 00:50

Yeah. Which is wild.

Jam: 00:51

Yep. And I have a bachelor's in knot chemistry, and she's the expert in chemistry. She researches stuff, looks up things, creates the puts the episode together. Heats it to me, not a chemist.

Melissa: 01:06

Actually, Jam's degree is in this, all of this Right. Radio, television, and film. So he is the reason it sounds amazing when you're listening and that we have cameras, etcetera. But, Yeah. He doesn't have a background in chemistry.

Jam: 01:24

And each each episode that you watch will still teach me something that I've never learned before unless it Relates to other episodes we've learned in the past, but it's totally new to me, and she just not prepped me at all. And I have no unfair advantage, And I'm just learning along with you guys.

Melissa: 01:40

The one unfair advantage I think Jam does have is that he listens Back to every episode. So he listens when I teach him, and he listens when he edits it.

Jam: 01:50

That's true.

Melissa: 01:51

So to be on Jim's level, you probably need to listen to it, Like, 3 times. That's true.

Jam: 01:56

Although, I don't have to do that quite as much as I used to because we have changed our production stuff. Oh, yeah. You know? And then having to listen intently looking for every cough and and, you know, whatever else. Like, we used to do a lot more of that.

Melissa: 02:09

That's true.

Jam: 02:10

And so now I don't have to listen with that level of in intensity. You know? So We try to keep it all 1 live show thing.

Melissa: 02:19

Yeah. That's true. I do like that we've switched to that and that it's more, like, conversational and a little bit less production heavy.

Jam: 02:26

Yes. Me too.

Melissa: 02:27

Which speaking of that, I was in the middle of telling you a mosquito edition, and I was excited you are gonna be like, oh my gosh. Mosquitoes again. And it said you're like, wait. Let's do this other thing.

Jam: 02:35

Yeah. Sorry. I am excited about this, and I was just it was as you were saying that, I was like, oh, wait. Before you even had said mosquitoes, I was like, oh, I was gonna do this thing that we used to do, mosquito edition, and we haven't added a chapter to the mosquitoes thing in a while. Right?

Melissa: 02:50

Like, a year. Is Yeah. I think it was last fall is when we Last talked about this.

Jam: 02:55

That sounds right.

Melissa: 02:56

So there's a new chapter in the mosquito saga.

Jam: 02:59

Okay. Nice.

Melissa: 03:00

And, I wanna shout out listener and our IRL Friend Nicole of Kathryn Nicole Photography. If you live in the DFW area, she's amazing.

Jam: 03:09

Mhmm.

Melissa: 03:11

So she sent us an article from The Washington Post that highlighted a new study that's sort of the next Stair step in the saga of the mosquitoes and humans story.

Jam: 03:24

The war that has been Mhmm. Raging for Millennia. Yeah. Probably.

Melissa: 03:29

It's a research update. We do research updates in group meeting. Like, oh, here's a little update on how my research is going. Yeah. This is me giving y'all a little update on how the mosquito research is going.

Jam: 03:38

Nice. Nice.

Melissa: 03:40

So I was really excited. And I a part of why I really like this journey, I think I said it last time, is because I feel like you're really getting to experience as nonscience People, what the scientific process is like. Genuinely, like, an exciting thing happens once a year, usually. Mhmm. And it's these little Deps that build on what came before until something some kind of conclusion is reached that solves a problem.

Melissa: 04:09

You know?

Jam: 04:09

Okay.

Melissa: 04:10

So I really like that. And, we also so, you know, about 3 years ago is when we first started this. We talked about why mosquitoes bite people and do mosquitoes bite some people more than others. And then we also talked about what is DEET and what the potential future was for, mosquito repellents. Mhmm.

Melissa: 04:30

And in those episodes, we also kind of talked about approaches you can take to research. So one is sort of Throwing everything at a wall and seeing what sticks. So that's how they actually came up with DEET, which arguably is the best thing we have at this time to, repel mosquitoes. K. And it was in I think we talked about maybe it was part of some military research.

Jam: 04:51

Oh, yeah. That sounds familiar.

Melissa: 04:53

And then the other pros part of the process, which I think is a little bit more thorough because it understands the underlying causes, I do think it can take a lot longer is, you know, how does this thing work, and then what do we need to do to solve the problem? So in the case of mosquitoes, it's like, How are mosquitoes finding us? And once we know that, then we can know how to stop them from finding us.

Jam: 05:16

Right. Right.

Melissa: 05:17

So this is another stair step in that part of the research where we're learning more about how mosquitoes are finding us, and you're getting to actively sort of Watch this staircase be built as we learn a little bit more year after year. So that is what I think is really fun.

Jam: 05:34

That's definitely fun. The way you said that we have to find out how mosquitoes are finding us, for some reason, the way you worded that made me envision, like, This, like, a classic sort of movie, police interrogation scene, where it's like, how are you finding us? Like, Like, they're, like, you know, grabbing them by the collar, grabbing a mosquito by the collar. Like, tell us. Tell us.

Jam: 05:56

This is like he's just not telling us. They're just not gonna break. This is like a crime. We're trying to get one of these mosquitoes to fess up to something. Yeah.

Jam: 06:04

But they just won't tell us. We have to keep just finding it out ourselves.

Melissa: 06:08

Well, they they gave up a little more information on this saga. That's a funny visual. I hope we have some really gifted artistic listeners that One of you wanna make a sketch of a mosquito being interrogated, that would be hilarious.

Jam: 06:21

Yes. 100%.

Melissa: 06:23

Okay. So the other thing I do wanna shout out as well is So I I read this article, and it mentioned the researchers by name. So I went to, one of them. He is actually, a postdoc named Diego Geraldo, and I saw he's had a Twitter. And then he had tweeted recently about this paper being published with scientists do a lot, and he had quote tweeted From his research group, a little bit from their perspective in everyday language, Twitter appropriate level, a summary of their research.

Jam: 06:58

Uh-huh.

Melissa: 06:59

And a lot of scientists will do that. And so if you have something that, you know, you read a paper or you like, an article in the newspaper or you Here's something. If you can find the scientist's name, you can usually go to Twitter, and there is a corner of Twitter for academic people who tweet about their research.

Jam: 07:15

Wow.

Melissa: 07:16

Usually, like, if a paper comes out, they'll tweet about it. You know? Yeah. So this was really fun. So shout out to Diego Geraldo, he's a a postdoc.

Melissa: 07:27

That's also what I am. So a lot of times we talked about this last time as well. A lot of times research done primarily by the postdoc and the grad students. They're the ones actually, like, sort of designing and running the projects with the supervision of The, what they call a primary investigator or principal investigator, PI for short, that's the person who Sort of came up with this field of research as something that they wanted to do and wrote grants to get money to fund it because you need money to do

Jam: 07:55

research. Right.

Melissa: 07:57

So a lot of times, the postdocs and the graduate students are the ones sort of running the experiments. And in this case, That was what Diego Geraldo did, and then, so that'd be doctor Geraldo. And then the PI would be doctor McMenemin. I think it's how you pronounce it.

Jam: 08:13

Okay.

Melissa: 08:14

And so you can go to, either one of their Twitters. We'll retweet some of their posts so that you can see them. That's exciting.

Jam: 08:21

Yeah. That's cool.

Melissa: 08:22

I love that you can hear it research from their own, their own mouths. Oh, and there was, like, think 1 or 2 short, like, 5 minute podcast interviews that you could listen to with the, the principal investigator. But it it was definitely interesting and really good information, but I really wanna put This research in the context of the conversations we've had before and also maybe, like, shed some light on the behind the scenes of research that You can't talk about it in a 5 minute conversation.

Jam: 08:51

Right.

Melissa: 08:51

So that's that is good information. Definitely, you can go listen to those. They're gonna be linked in our resources, but That's not exactly the same conversation we're gonna be having here.

Jam: 09:02

Okay. So I

Melissa: 09:03

wanted to share that as well that you could hear from the scientists. I think that's really important to Lift up their voices. Yeah. Okay. So now we're gonna get into it.

Melissa: 09:13

I just realized I even wrote okay so in my I guess I really think about how I'm gonna talk through things with you. Okay. So Here's what's different about this study than all the studies before that's really exciting.

Jam: 09:26

Okay. I'm ready.

Melissa: 09:27

This study was done in Probably as close to a natural environment as can possibly be done for a study like this.

Jam: 09:35

Okay.

Melissa: 09:36

So instead of being, in a lab with a lot of glass Pass boxes, you know, that's kind of what we talked about before, and they used nylons to get human scent, you know, and it's usually just between it was between 2 different, Like a March Madness round robin style?

Jam: 09:51

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa: 09:52

This is actually unable to compare multiple humans at once.

Jam: 09:57

Okay.

Melissa: 09:58

So it's it's outside sort of in a natural environment, and there are multiple humans being compared at once.

Jam: 10:05

Okay.

Melissa: 10:06

And we've talked about before, but you have to do this ethically. And you also have to have some scientific control. Right? So I think they did a really good job in this study of trying to put it in nature, but they still had control over the mosquitoes to some extent, and They also protected the human subjects really well. And we've talked about when you have human participants, you have to agree to have your study reviewed and by a board of people in the United States.

Melissa: 10:34

All research done in the United States has to do that. I'm pretty sure they have equivalent things in other countries. And then, also, you have to agree to certain guidelines to protect them. So, like, for mosquitoes, one of the guidelines is you're not allowed to have people be bitten by mosquitoes because it's really dangerous. Full stop.

Melissa: 10:51

So the setup of this study addresses that really well. So it looks like a really large cage.

Jam: 10:58

Yeah.

Melissa: 10:58

So imagine outside actually, you know what it reminded me of is if you're at, like, a a public park and they have those picnic pavilions that are They're like a pretty big solid r, like, supporting structures. I wanna call them arms. And then, like, a solid roof. Yeah. It looked almost like that, but then it seemed to be covered in some sort of mosquito netting.

Jam: 11:19

Okay.

Melissa: 11:20

So that mosquitoes stay in. Normally, mosquito netting, I think, keeps them out.

Jam: 11:24

Right. Right.

Melissa: 11:25

But the, the person on the interview, the primary investigator, he talked Specifically about how they designed it in such a way that the temp the natural temperatures that change Mhmm. And the winds that are changing and the air pressure dropping and things, which could be impacting the mosquitoes are still true to their natural environment.

Jam: 11:45

K. Oh, yeah.

Melissa: 11:47

And they set this up actually in a region in Zambia Yeah. Where malaria is relatively common, and they use the type of mosquitoes that are present in that area.

Jam: 11:56

Okay.

Melissa: 11:57

So all of that is Really good in terms of we're not in a lab anymore. These mosquitoes are experiencing the outside world. It's not like a clean room with 5 smells only. You

Jam: 12:09

know? Right.

Melissa: 12:10

Or 2 smells only. Yeah. So I thought that that was really impressive that they were able to do that.

Jam: 12:15

Yeah.

Melissa: 12:16

And then they have these And they did have some controls to make sure that it was really actually also working. We'll talk about that in a minute, but they seem to have done that successfully. And then they have some tents Placed around the outside that have it seemed like one way air pumping from the tent to where the mosquitoes were. So you can imagine one of those park pavilions and then say there's, like, 4 or 6 little tents around it on the outside. Side.

Melissa: 12:44

Uh-huh. And there's a tube going from the tent to the pavilion.

Jam: 12:48

Okay.

Melissa: 12:48

But the air is not coming back out.

Jam: 12:51

Got it. Got it.

Melissa: 12:51

So air is being pumped in from the tints.

Jam: 12:53

Got it.

Melissa: 12:54

And in those tints, you can have humans or it can be a control.

Jam: 12:59

Got it. Okay.

Melissa: 13:00

So you can either take the odor from the human and pump it into the mosquito enclosure, or you're just taking Control air from the enclosure or from the tent and pump it into the mosquito enclosure.

Jam: 13:13

Right.

Melissa: 13:14

Okay. So that keeps the subjects, The human subject's safe away from the mosquitoes or not being bit, but it is genuinely the odor that they put out into the air that we're pumping it.

Jam: 13:24

Right.

Melissa: 13:24

Okay? So that's different because normally, you know, it doesn't have the mosquitoes outside in their natural environment, and it's usually, you know, like, something that the people have worn. I it's also pretty common. Right. The other thing is in order to test those odors now, They had hot plates that were warm to the temperature of the human body, and they had infrared cameras that detected motion only when a mosquito landed.

Melissa: 13:50

So any, like, Searching behavior, flying above behavior, that was not Uh-huh. Taken into account only if they were like, yeah. We're gonna come here and get a snack.

Jam: 13:58

Got it. Got it.

Melissa: 14:00

And so the They, had the warm top plates, and they had the infrared cameras, and then they had the air they could pipe over the top of those plates. So it was like, This warm spot has human odor.

Jam: 14:12

Mhmm.

Melissa: 14:13

And if it seems real enough to the mosquitoes, they could land, and then, yeah, it can count.

Jam: 14:18

Got it. So trying to make make the turn the mosquitoes into thinking, hey. Here's a human over here. Mhmm. And this surface is will will seem like a human to you in terms of heat as well.

Jam: 14:30

Yep. But then they can They could change out, based on the different tense they're having, which types of humans or what things might cause them to prefer some humans over others.

Melissa: 14:41

Yes.

Jam: 14:42

Got it. Okay. But when when they land, they that's the only thing they were trying to see. Which do they prefer in terms of landing, not just, like, kind of Hanging out nearby.

Melissa: 14:52

Right.

Jam: 14:53

Got it. Okay.

Melissa: 14:54

And they did a lot of tests to actually make sure that this was working the way they think that it would work. So We do this in in my field a lot. But in any scientific field, if you have a new instrument, which is sort of what this is like, Yeah. So in my field, we call that validity and reliability.

Jam: 15:16

Yeah.

Melissa: 15:17

So in my field, we call that validity and reliability. Valid, is it really doing what we think it doing, and is it doing that reliably?

Jam: 15:24

Mhmm.

Melissa: 15:24

Or accurate and precise or, accurate and consistent are also ones that you've heard. You know? Yeah. So, you know, like in a thermometer, If your water is boiling and it says 32 degrees Fahrenheit, that's a problem. Mhmm.

Melissa: 15:40

That's not a valid measurement.

Jam: 15:41

Right.

Melissa: 15:42

And if you have a thermometer and you're you're getting inconsistent results, so sometimes it's 32, sometimes it's 212, and sometimes it's 500. That's not a good sign either. Even though sometimes it's valid, it's not consistently valid.

Jam: 15:57

Right.

Melissa: 15:58

So in this case, they did something similar. They, piped in just regular air with no excess carbon dioxide, just like background Ground air is what they called it from the tents and had a hot plate and saw if mosquitoes are more attracted to the hot plate or without Heat. Mhmm. They did the same thing with carbon dioxide. Heat and carbon dioxide, but not body odor did that impact, and the mosquitoes were more attracted to the carbon dioxide, which We would expect from previous experiments, and then also they checked to see if, Then they did test with just 2 humans to see how that would go.

Jam: 16:36

K.

Melissa: 16:37

And for those of you who haven't listened to our Previous episodes about mosquitoes. Just to give a quick overview of why we even care about human body odor. I guess I meant to say this at the top, but, It's okay. We can circle back. Essentially, we do know that carbon dioxide seems to play a role in mosquitoes detecting us.

Melissa: 16:56

Temperature seems to play a role in mosquitoes detecting us, and there is evidence that mosquitoes prefer some people over other people. And we, last just a year ago, saw a new study come out that also reinforced the idea that mosquitoes were consistently attracted to some people more than others, and that was because of the presence of certain volatile organic compounds. And those are our body naturally releases those, which is kinda funny because Some people who are, like, trying to make you scared of chemicals say, oh, this thing has volatile organic compounds. That's terrible. Well, we also have those.

Melissa: 17:31

It sounds scary and bad, especially when you say they're carboxylic acids. You're like, oh, no. There are acids on my skin, But it's not bad. Carboxylic acid is just a an a functional group, which is just an arrangement of atoms, and it's not super acidic. If it was dangerous.

Melissa: 17:47

It would hurt us. Right? So it's it's safe for it to be on our skin, in our natural environments, but those Carboxylic acid specifically seem to be attracting mosquitoes. And if you wanna hear more about that, the episodes are called the very first one we did was called how can mosquitoes Smell you. Oh, no.

Melissa: 18:05

The first one we did was why do mosquitoes bite people? Then do mosquitoes bite some people more than others? And the one just a year ago is how can mosquitoes smell you? New research.

Jam: 18:16

Mhmm. Yeah.

Melissa: 18:16

So that was when we found out that carboxylic acids were, you know, the suspicious thing. So they did these tests where they saw, oh, yeah. They were attracted to heat. They were attracted to carbon dioxide over regular air, and, they We're attracted to 1 human over another human. You know?

Melissa: 18:33

So that all of that tracks with previous research as expected, And it reinforces the credibility of both the old research, you know, reproducible results. That's good. And it Strengthens the credibility of this tent setup working.

Jam: 18:51

Nice.

Melissa: 18:51

It indicates that we're getting the expected results. That's A good sign.

Jam: 18:56

Right. Our instrument seems to be getting results that we can depend on.

Melissa: 19:01

Yes. And that we would expect. Yeah. So it seems valid. It seems reliable.

Melissa: 19:06

This is a big deal because now that means that, oh, we can Try to see if we could test multiple people from the different tents in here. But they did those tests just to make sure before we even start. Okay. Is this really working? And one thing they even noted when they had multiple subjects, when they blew in background air before the human odor was present, there was not landing activity from the mosquitoes.

Jam: 19:31

Yeah.

Melissa: 19:32

So it really seems like they're doing what they think that they're doing, and that's very exciting.

Jam: 19:37

Nice.

Melissa: 19:38

So that's the background of the study. Let me make sure I covered everything because I am so excited about this research that I kind of went off track From my notes, I was like, it's just so exciting that we're doing this. Okay. Yeah. So I think we talked about it being reliable and consistent, and they did The test, you know, to make sure, are these things happening the way we want?

Melissa: 19:58

And then so then they started their comparisons between Multiple humans. So they had 6 humans in 6 tenths, I believe. The picture only had 4, I was like, why aren't there 4 tenths in the picture, but 6 in the study? But they may just have not taken a picture of that part.

Jam: 20:16

K.

Melissa: 20:18

Or maybe who knows? Maybe the tents are split. I don't know. So they had, 6 humans, and they even rotated which tent the humans were in To make sure that it's not like mosquitoes are attracted to any human odor that's in this area more than the other. Right.

Jam: 20:33

Or they love north. Yeah. Did musicians love North?

Melissa: 20:36

Yeah. Like that. Yeah.

Jam: 20:38

It's like, okay. Okay. We know they don't love North. Right?

Melissa: 20:40

Yes. We don't we know they don't love North. If we rotate it, we're still getting consistent results. And they were able to find that I guess I could just kind of give you some conclusions that they gave. Okay.

Melissa: 20:52

So they found the mosquitoes do prefer the smell of 1 human over the other. K. But in this group of 6 people, when there were Six odors being blown in. And imagine, like, there's 1 area that the odor is being blown over the hot plate

Jam: 21:09

Mhmm.

Melissa: 21:09

And that mimics a human body, but the rest of the tent is just getting dispersed odor similar to what it would be like if there were 6 people standing in the tent. Okay. So the mosquitoes are in their naturalist environment, and they are drawn to certain areas based on those odors is what it seems like. And there was consistently one of the participant participants was more attractive than the rest to mosquitoes. When I say attractive, I mean to mosquitoes, not how they look.

Jam: 21:39

Right. Right.

Melissa: 21:40

And one of the participants was much less attractive to the mosquitoes than the rest.

Jam: 21:45

Interesting.

Melissa: 21:46

So there was someone who was really attractive that had a high level of, mosquito attractiveness, a high level of landings, And then someone who had minimal over several I think they had them sleep in there. So over several nights of the people sleeping in the tents, Despite what 10th they were in, these results were consistent.

Jam: 22:06

Got it.

Melissa: 22:07

Isn't that exciting?

Jam: 22:08

That's crazy. That's awesome.

Melissa: 22:09

It's so crazy.

Jam: 22:11

Also, I didn't think about maybe you said this earlier. I've been trying to, like there's so much to take in. It's awesome. Trying to remember, what we learned last time, which is fuzzy for me, you know, or all the times we've talked about. But did you already say that they're also kinda ruling out any potential variations in body temperature by having these hot plates

Melissa: 22:28

Just be Yes. It's just ode.

Jam: 22:30

Yeah. That's, like, that's perfect. I was just kinda realizing that now. Like, oh, that's a great they've nailed that.

Melissa: 22:36

And the other thing they did was, they controlled for body mass because I I never even would have thought of this, but maybe a larger person is Putting out more volatile organic compounds because they have a wider surface area of skin or something.

Jam: 22:50

Right. Okay.

Melissa: 22:50

So they controlled for the body mass, and that was not a factor and who was more or less attractive.

Jam: 22:56

Cool. Cool.

Melissa: 22:57

And they did they did the statistics on the number of mosquito landings, and they did find it's significant result, which when we say statistically significant, that means that there's, like, a certain percentage more then likely. So if you're like, oh, I think, that's just random. It's like, no. There's only a five percent chance or whatever that you would get this many landings Mhmm. Randomly

Jam: 23:22

Got it.

Melissa: 23:22

Just by chance. It's like 5% chance that this is happening just by coincidence Mhmm. 95% chance that this is a meaningful result

Jam: 23:34

Right. Right.

Melissa: 23:34

Is a good way that can think about statistics.

Jam: 23:37

And I guess there's, like, lots of room for random chance stuff with in these scenarios if you We're able to, like, calculate that. But Yeah. Just thinking, like, what if a mosquito was already near

Melissa: 23:47

Mhmm.

Jam: 23:48

This tent Yeah. And they just decided to land there because it's more convenient. Yeah.

Melissa: 24:01

Far more likely that is meaningful than not meaningful Right.

Jam: 24:04

Is the

Melissa: 24:04

best way I can think to phrase that.

Jam: 24:05

If they're switching people's tents, then you that helps rule that out too.

Melissa: 24:09

Yeah. They did So much to rule out, like body temperature, mass, location of the tents, and they did it over several nights. So the weather Conditions aren't playing a role. You know? It's like they've they've let all these they've thought of all these different things in the experimental design, which is Really cool.

Jam: 24:25

Yeah. That's awesome.

Melissa: 24:27

So they found that, and then let me find my list of things that they, Oh, yes. The comparison between 6 people. And then they took the body samples, you know, the odor samples.

Jam: 24:41

Poles.

Melissa: 24:42

Mhmm. And they, looked at it. The they broke down in gas chromatography, which we talked about before, is similar to, like If you've ever done that experiment with the coffee filter where you draw with, like, a black marker and you put it in water and you see that all the colors that make a black separate out Uh-huh. That's based on the different properties of the different molecules and how they interact with the coffee filter. Well, you can do the same thing with gas, and you can put Gas with all of the different molecules in it through sort of a filter, and it will separate the different molecules based on their properties.

Melissa: 25:18

So you get the group of molecules, And then you can feed that into another instrument that tells us it's called the mass spectrometer, and it it kinda tells you the breakdown of the if The different molecules. It's a it's a beautiful art. Mass spectrometry is hard for me, and it's hard to interpret the results that it gives in my opinion, but people who do it are very skilled and very good at it. So you you separate out the different molecules that are present in the human's body odor, And then you run it through the, this instrument that gives you information that we can say, oh, this is this molecule. This is that molecule.

Jam: 25:55

Got

Melissa: 25:55

it. And what they found is the person who was very, not attractive, had less Carboxylic acids present in their volatile organic compounds.

Jam: 26:09

K.

Melissa: 26:10

But they had 3 times more of a specific compound called monoterpenoid eucalyptol.

Jam: 26:18

K.

Melissa: 26:18

It's what it sounds like, eucalyptus. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. It comes from eucalyptus and a lot of other plants 2. Uh-huh.

Melissa: 26:24

They also had more of a few other things. So less of carboxylic acid, more eucalyptol, More of a few other things that weren't listed as really, I guess, a significant level more.

Jam: 26:37

Mhmm.

Melissa: 26:38

So That's a big deal. Yeah. Because it could be well, there's a few different things it could be. We don't know the causal relationship. We don't know Is a person less attractive because of their volatile organic compounds?

Melissa: 26:53

Is it the are they less attractive? You know, whatever. We don't know. Is it because they have less of the carboxylic acid? Possibly.

Melissa: 27:00

Is it because the eucalyptol does something to suppress the evaporation of the Carboxylic acids that are may be present on their skin similar to how DEET seems to work, sorta like seems to smother our actual volatile organic compounds.

Jam: 27:16

Right.

Melissa: 27:16

Could it be that? And then the question is, also, why are their volatile organic compounds different? Yeah. Eucalyptol is found primarily in plants. I think this person had a high plant diet, maybe exclusively plant based.

Melissa: 27:30

So Could it be that our diet impacts the volatile organic compounds that then signal to mosquitoes that were there? We know that That sort of happens when you drink alcohol.

Jam: 27:43

Right.

Melissa: 27:43

So I was like, this is wild.

Jam: 27:47

Yeah. So

Melissa: 27:48

there's so many more questions than answers, but what's exciting is because they have shown that this setup is an effective way to compare Mhmm. They can start to control for those types of factors and try to see where correlations exist.

Jam: 28:03

Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa: 28:04

Do people who have entirely plant based diets versus people who eat exclusively meat attract mosquitoes differently?

Jam: 28:12

Right.

Melissa: 28:13

Is it something In their blood type, which is that's a question we get all the time. And in one of the interviews with the PI, he said, we hear that 2 a lot. You know? Is it our blood type? We could test that.

Melissa: 28:24

We could separate people up by their blood type and see if a blood type seems to attract. So Because we have this ability to compare multiple people in a seminary natural environment, it gives us more control. I'm saying we, like, as if I'm doing the research. I'm I'm not, but scientists. Yeah.

Melissa: 28:41

Yeah. It gives scientists more ability to control for control groups and try to identify new information.

Jam: 28:49

Right.

Melissa: 28:49

So this this is almost like they've developed a new we call, in chemistry education research, if we make a survey or an inventory that Check something, we call that an instrument. So it feels kind of like they've made an instrument Yeah. That they can use to identify by who's more attractive to mosquitoes, and that is the next stair step in knowing why and how to stop people from being Attracted. So I think that that's really cool.

Jam: 29:20

That's awesome.

Melissa: 29:21

And I'm really excited about it.

Jam: 29:23

Yeah. It's also it's amazing because I feel like Like, you explaining it well, and I can I feel like I can visualize it quite well now? It does feel like, oh, you could you could test everything under the sun as long as you Have this setup replicated as they had done it. Mhmm. And you have the controls in place.

Jam: 29:41

Mhmm. Then it's like, yeah, you could put whatever groups you want. And, like, Maybe there's a group that's attractive to mosquitoes and other groups attractive, then you can play them against each other and see which one seems more attractive if you take out other options and stuff like that. It seems like could just keep going, keep going. And then if you keep finding the same results over and over, then maybe you could see what causes that result too.

Jam: 30:01

Like, okay. These These people are always less attracted to mosquitoes. Now let's see if we can prove it's their diet

Melissa: 30:08

Yes.

Jam: 30:08

Or whatever after

Melissa: 30:09

that. Maybe we can make a One thing I thought, is it is it the eucalyptal? Yeah. Let's make a eucalyptal spray that's human safe. You know?

Jam: 30:18

And then try to, yeah, try to put that on people who only meet and see if it cancels out there or whatever. Yeah.

Melissa: 30:24

And they he also talked about in that same interview, like, oh, we know that pregnant women are more attractive to mosquitoes. Talked about that in a previous episode. So my question is, is it because their metabolism is higher, or is it because they're putting out Some compound because they're pregnant.

Jam: 30:40

Right.

Melissa: 30:41

And then is there a way that we could mask that or suppress it so that pregnant women don't have a higher rate of malaria? Because they have a higher rate of traction. And that's, you know, historically a group that is more at risk to get diseases. You know? So Right.

Melissa: 30:55

It's just like, Wow. The possibilities that this opens up, and and it's really, really exciting to me that it's in they called it, like, semi field. You know? Like, a field Study would be going out into the nature. You can't really do that.

Melissa: 31:09

I think you can't probably maybe control the number of mosquitoes and stuff as much, But it's as close to their natural environment as we're gonna get.

Jam: 31:18

Yeah.

Melissa: 31:19

So that's just Really exciting to me. I I think it's really cool research, and it's fun that we've seen the progression. It's like, okay. Well, we saw, you know, This study then last we saw all the original information that was out. And last year, we saw the new study with the nylons and comparing in these boxes.

Melissa: 31:37

And now we're not in a sterile lab type environment. We are in nature, and we're seeing consistently the same results with the acids. We're seeing the heat and carbon dioxide. And then now it does seem like those volatile organic compounds are playing a Significant role in the attraction of mosquitoes. So Mhmm.

Melissa: 31:56

What does that mean? How can we reverse engineer that to protect ourselves? Yeah. Yeah. So cool.

Jam: 32:01

That's really cool. And wow.

Melissa: 32:04

I know. Cool.

Jam: 32:06

Very cool update.

Melissa: 32:07

Thanks. I was like, Nicole, you're an angel. Thank you for sending this. Okay. So I thought you could try to summarize your major takeaways you kind of already did.

Jam: 32:16

Yeah. I kinda did it as we went partly because I wanna make sure I wasn't getting lost because of so many layers to it. And there's a lot of imagining having not seen the stuff myself or the pictures or whatever myself. I don't know if I have any major takeaways in addition to that, if that makes sense.

Melissa: 32:35

Yeah. You've already kind of voiced them as you went.

Jam: 32:37

Yeah. Yep.

Melissa: 32:38

Well, I'm glad that you did that, and I was had a fun fact for you. So since you did that, I'll give you a fun fact anyway.

Jam: 32:45

Nice. I'll take it.

Melissa: 32:47

Eucalyptol has already been shown to have some deodorizing and anti inflammatory properties.

Jam: 32:53

Nice.

Melissa: 32:54

And it has been approved by the FDA for use in food to improve flavor and smell.

Jam: 32:59

Okay.

Melissa: 33:00

So I wouldn't be super surprised, honestly, if Some this is chemistry off the cuff. I wouldn't be surprised if people are like, oh, this is FDA approved. It's safe. Let's make a mosquito repellent spray before for the science supports that explicitly.

Jam: 33:15

Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa: 33:16

I wouldn't be surprised if that happened. So and then they used this study. You know? Yeah. There's a lot of publicity about it.

Melissa: 33:23

So be wary. Don't just trust it because there's this correlational relationship. We don't know the causation. But that is a good news To me, that it already is known to have some deodorizing and anti inflammatory properties because that does mean if the eucalyptol matters, we can leverage that.

Jam: 33:41

Yeah.

Melissa: 33:42

And And it also makes me kind of wonder if that had anything to do with, you know, we talked about how the native populations and indigenous People would braid certain types of grasses to keep mosquitoes as repellent. I'm like, what was in that? It's our eucalyptus.

Jam: 33:59

Right. Right. Right.

Melissa: 33:59

So those are just me speculating. Like, if I was in this study, these are things that I would be wondering. Like

Jam: 34:05

Yeah. Yeah. You

Melissa: 34:06

know? Totally. So that's cool. And I always love, honoring indigenous knowledge because they figured out a lot of stuff before Western science has figured it out. Yeah.

Melissa: 34:16

So that's so cool and exciting. I think that's everything I have. Be sure to go check out from these scientists their own words. And as more mosquito news comes out, you can trust me to update you.

Jam: 34:31

Nice. I love it. It's just like this story is unfolding over time, which is super cool.

Melissa: 34:35

And it's just Such a great opportunity to talk about all of what a scientific study is really like Yeah. And all the different players and things they have to Think about I mean, this wasn't exhaustive, obviously, but just like, oh, yeah. This is a good opportunity to talk about human subjects research, to talk about making sure our instruments are valid, to talk about The importance of study design. To talk about the fact that these there's statistic results, but we don't know what's causing what, So don't jump into it yet. We we still have more to do.

Melissa: 35:05

You know? I just think it's fun to unpack all of those little pieces that are present in studies That maybe if you just read a news article or listen to a 5 minute interview, you're not gonna get to hear all that.

Jam: 35:16

Yep. Yep.

Melissa: 35:17

And Those studies aren't assuming that we've already talked about or those interviews or articles aren't assuming that we've already talked about the other studies. You know? So it's fun that I get to talk back about it and how The body of science builds on itself.

Jam: 35:30

Yeah. Definitely. That's awesome.

Melissa: 35:32

Yay. Thanks for being on this journey with me.

Jam: 35:35

Oh, dude. This is the best, and thank you. I bet about a bunch of our listeners have that have listened to those earlier episodes of mosquitoes. It's like obviously, there's cool things that we already had. Mhmm.

Jam: 35:45

There's also, like, every time we've talked about it, it's been like, yep. But there's still mysteries left. So it's like Yeah. If you've been someone who's been along for the ride, Thanks for continuing to check-in and learn new research with us.

Melissa: 35:58

Yeah.

Jam: 35:59

They keep getting A little further, but still have cliffhangers, you know, which is pretty fun.

Melissa: 36:04

Which is also real life science for sure. Right. Just such a good example of, like, how the scientific process happens. Know, this guy had to write a grant and had to get money and then they had to plan it and they had to take all the other cities that exist into account when they're planning it and Then they had to go there and get human subjects. And who knows if they brought human subjects or if they recruited them there and, you know, it's just so They had to literally build a structure.

Melissa: 36:27

I mean, there's so much that goes into it. So Yeah. I think that's really cool.

Jam: 36:32

Awesome.

Melissa: 36:34

Okay. Well, speaking of cool things

Jam: 36:36

Yes? Is

Melissa: 36:36

there any fun cool things that happened in your week that you wanna share with our listeners?

Jam: 36:41

Yes. There is one that You and some of our patrons already heard me talk about. We had our, you'll recognize in a second. We had our monthly coffee hour with our Top tier of patrons last week. Super fun.

Jam: 36:56

But I shared about how I finished watching the show Succession.

Melissa: 37:01

Oh, yeah.

Jam: 37:03

And it's been one of my favorite shows over the past several years. It it had its 4th season finale last week, and it was the It's it's like the series finale, like, over over. And so it was, like, this big deal. It also feels sometimes, like, shows Don't always end on purpose sometimes or

Melissa: 37:24

Yeah.

Jam: 37:24

They keep going, but and you're kinda lost interest before they really actually end.

Melissa: 37:28

Mhmm.

Jam: 37:29

This was Now those situations, it was like it ended. It had a 4 season arc. They did a good job of, like, like, building to it, all kind of stuff. Very good. Very sad that the show is just over.

Jam: 37:41

It had a good ending. I mean, I would say it ended the way that it should have

Melissa: 37:46

Yeah.

Jam: 37:47

Without it being Obvious. It wasn't

Melissa: 37:49

like satisfying, but not, like, predictable.

Jam: 37:51

Exactly. Exactly. So but I'm I am mourning the loss of the show.

Melissa: 37:55

That's

Jam: 37:55

the biggest feeling I have. And it's not even one that, like each season has only a handful of episodes. It's, like, 8 episodes a season, something like that. But I think even when the other seasons ended, it I knew it wasn't over, and so there wasn't anything to mourn yet. It was like, oh, now I'm going back into waiting mode.

Jam: 38:11

Yeah. And there's no waiting. It's over.

Melissa: 38:13

Yeah. It's over.

Jam: 38:14

So that's kinda sad, but it was very good. If you have watched that show at all or heard about it or whatever, I recommend it. It's not ever as cup of tea though, so just it's nice to know, without any spoilers, that, it ends in a properly. They do a good job.

Melissa: 38:34

Yeah. They don't let it just die out.

Jam: 38:36

Yep. In their shows. You're not gonna be, Like, bummed that you invested. Dive into it. So that's what I would say.

Jam: 38:43

But Great. Anyway so I'm I'm feeling that mixture of

Melissa: 38:46

It's Fun but sad?

Jam: 38:47

Yep. Satisfied but sad, that kind of thing. So Yeah. What about you?

Melissa: 38:51

I recently finished a very long book that I listened to the audiobook of it. It was, like, 20 hours, and I was like, man, now what am I gonna listen to? I gotta go back on the hunt. Yes. Yeah.

Melissa: 39:01

Or, like, if you if I mean, some of our listeners may have had this experience, but whenever I first Found out that there were podcasts. I was in a heavy true crime phase in my life, so was your wife. And we found this true crime podcast, and there were Literally 200 episodes when I found it. And I was like, oh, yes.

Jam: 39:22

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa: 39:23

And I was in the lab all the time at that time. So it's like I always had companions, and then it ended. And I was like, wait. I didn't think this would ever end. I didn't think I'd ever get caught up to this.

Melissa: 39:34

Right. And now I have to wait every week, but even that, at least, it's still coming out.

Jam: 39:38

Yeah. That's true. That's true. Yeah.

Melissa: 39:41

Okay. So That's not my happy thing, though.

Jam: 39:44

Oh, okay.

Melissa: 39:45

That was just a side note. That was just empathy. Last week, I think I talked to you about my nephew's graduation.

Jam: 39:52

Yes.

Melissa: 39:53

And the baby shower?

Jam: 39:54

Yes.

Melissa: 39:55

And all those are super fun things with my side of the family? Uh-huh. Well, now this upcoming week, Mason's family is coming in to do.

Jam: 40:03

Nice. So

Melissa: 40:03

I gotta spend time with my family, my sister. My brother-in-law surprised us. That was so cute. I didn't know he was gonna be there. And then, you know, my brother and his wife and the and the little baby that exists and the new baby that exists only in the womb Yeah.

Melissa: 40:17

They were all there. My dad, everyone, it was really nice and fun. And then this upcoming week, his that, like, same equivalent group of his family is coming.

Jam: 40:25

Nice.

Melissa: 40:26

And, Yeah. We're gonna go hang out at, a hotel and, yeah, just get some time together. So I'm really excited. I That'll

Jam: 40:33

be awesome.

Melissa: 40:33

Love spending time with family. I think it's really important.

Jam: 40:36

Yeah. So That's awesome. That's great.

Melissa: 40:38

Yeah. Well, thanks again, Jam, for letting me, Really nerd out hardcore about this chemistry study. I was really I guess not chemistry, but about this mosquito study. Yeah. I was really excited to share the next Step in that y'all have been on this journey with me.

Jam: 40:55

Oh, thank you for nerding out, and thank you for bringing us along. And Melissa and I have a lot of ideas for topics of chemistry in everyday life, but we wanna hear from you. What are things that you've wondered about? Things like mosquitoes that have a lot of chemistry at play. Things like Other just everyday either issues that need solving or things that are already solved, but you wonder how they work.

Jam: 41:14

Let us know your ideas. Some of our best Episodes come from you guys.

Melissa: 41:17

I think mosquitoes came from a listener.

Jam: 41:19

Probably did. I mean, it makes sense. So if you have questions or ideas, you can reach out to us on our website at kim for your life .com. That's kim, f o r, your life.com to share your thoughts and ideas. If you'd like to help us keep our show going and contribute to cover the cost of making it, go to patreon.com/chem for your life or tap the link in our show notes or the description to join our super cool community of patrons.

Jam: 41:42

If not able to do that, you can still help us by subscribing on YouTube and also on your favorite podcast app and rating and writing our review on Apple Podcasts. That also helps us share chemistry with even more people.

Melissa: 41:53

This episode of Chemistry For Your Life was created by Melissa Cellini and Jam Robinson. Jam Robinson is our producer, And this episode was made possible partially by the scientist who did the work. So shout out. Go check them out on Twitter. But especially by our financial supporters on Patreon.

Melissa: 42:09

We not do this podcast without them, and it means so much to us that they wanna help us make chemistry accessible to even more people. So thanks to y'all. Avishai B, Brie M, Brian K, Chris and Claire S, Chelsea B, Derek L, Emerson W, Hunter R, Jacob t, Christina g, Lynn s, Melissa p, Nicole c, Nelly s, Steven b, Shadow, Suzanne s, Timothy p and Venus R, thank you again for everything you do to make chemistry for your life happen and for letting us share such cool topics like this with the world.

Jam: 42:45

And like Melissa said earlier, if you'd like to learn more about today's chemistry lesson, you can check out the references for this episode in our show notes or in the description of the video. Yankee Machinery.

Melissa: 42:57

I like how that's just evolved into something we do. Yeah. The it's like, feels wrong. We can't finish without it now.

Jam: 43:03

You got some clear ending