Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
After decades of wondering why some people come home from a barbecue looking like a mosquito-bitten Braille edition of War and Peace while others stroll away untouched, researchers have determined the culprit: beer. And also other stuff, but they buried the lede deep. Keep reading.
This mosquito prefers a DDH IPA with Citra and El Dorado hops. So pretentious. (dragi52/depositphotos)
In what may be the most festival-appropriate science experiment ever conducted, researchers from the Netherlands dragged 500 unwitting music festival-goers into a series of shipping containers repurposed as mosquito thirst traps. Because if you’re going to science, you might as well do it while listening to Dutch EDM. Their goal? To scientifically determine why some people get bitten more than others. Their method? Having festival-goers stick their arms into boxes full of mosquitoes while a camera recorded the bug version of a speed-dating session. How they got anyone to agree to do this, even while high as kites, no one knows.
The cages were designed so the mosquitoes could smell, but not touch, a setup also known as “a strip club.” On one side of the box: your unshowered, sunscreen-free wrist. On the other: a sugar cube. The bugs chose. The footage rolled. The scientists judged. And lo, some patterns emerged. People who drank beer were 35% more likely to be mosquito targets, which frankly seems low given what beer does to your judgment in general. But they also found the bugs had a thing for people who had slept with someone the night before. Which means mosquitoes are either pheromone detectors or judgmental roommates.
Also making the skeeter shortlist: people who hadn’t showered, didn’t use sunscreen, or, one can only assume, smelled like the inside of a tent that’s been marinating in drum circle sweat since Thursday.
“We found mosquitoes are drawn to those who avoid sunscreen, drink beer, and share their bed,” wrote the researchers, apparently just describing Coachella.
Look at all these tasty Coachella victims… I mean, fans. Tasty fans. (Moffly/depositphotos)
Oh, and for the public health people in the back: mosquitoes still spread malaria and dengue fever, so if you’re using this study to justify drinking less beer and showering more, congrats. You’ve evolved.
But if you’re planning to continue your festival lifestyle with a six-pack and minimal SPF, maybe invest in a beekeeper suit. Or just start dating someone even more mosquito-attractive than you and hope for the best.
Either way, we salute the brave researchers who did this work in the middle of a music festival surrounded by unshowered Dutch techno fans. That’s commitment to science. And probably hepatitis. Or, alternatively, maybe they just wanted to do science at a music festival.
This story is based on fully factual news, but if we got it wrong, blame these guys, we’re just here to make it funny.
