VATupdate Newsletter Week 41 2022

Getting rid of mosquitos

Did you have a lot of mosquito-bites this summer? Some people say it’s the taste of your blood, your smell or your temperature that attracts these buggers, but almost everyone has been scratching his or her legs, arms, or other parts when they got bitten.

What can you do against it? Bug spray, deodorants, smelly candles, ultrasound devices: you can try them all. But now it seems that there’s also another solution: change the colour of your clothes!

What colours do mosquitoes like?

A study released in February 2022 showed that certain colours can keep mosquitoes away.

Don’t wear red, orange, black, and cyan. Instead of chasing them away, these colours actually attract the pesky insects. If you want them to sit on someone else’s arm or leg, you should be wearing blue, green, violet or white.

Why these colours? According to the study, it seems that there are various reasons for mosquitoes to avoid these colours. Well, not always good explanations, but perhaps more observations.

For example, mosquitoes in the study were interested in bare human hands, but when the researchers wore green gloves, the mosquitoes avoided them. Good to know! When it comes to blue, make sure you wear light blue clothing, and not dark blue: the latter absorbs heat and this attracts the insects.

For violet a more scientific explanation was found: violet has the shortest wavelength of all colours on the visible light spectrum. Mosquitoes are attracted to the long-wavelength red and orange colours of our skin, so it’s no surprise that they aren’t interested in violet.

Finally, the old classic: white. During the study, researchers put white in the test chamber alongside every colour they tested and the mosquitoes always avoided white when they saw colours they were interested in.

It’s a bit late now, after the summer, but the VATupdate Team of course now expects you to send us your pictures where you’re wearing light blue caps, violet shirts, white pants and green gloves. I mean, people already think that VAT people are weird, so why not dress-up like that?

If you have any comments, questions, or ideas that you want to share with us, please send us an email at [email protected] or leave a comment under the posts of this newsletter on LinkedIn.

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