Mia Williams
A popular alcoholic drink could make you more attractive to mosquitos, according to experts.
There's usually a common theme that the more alcohol you drink, the less attractive you become.
But when it comes to mosquitos, apparently quite the opposite rings true.
Anopheles gambiae (the mosquito that transmits malaria) believes you are absolutely at your best after a few pints, and expects have carried out an experiment to prove it.
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Mosquitos track down their victims via smell, and by wafting the human smell around thousands of the creatures, Thierry Lefevre managed to find a connection between beer drinkers and mosquito bites.
As National Geographic reports, Lefevre recruited 43 men from Burkina Faso in west Africa, and sent them into one of two outdoor tents that were sealed.
One tent was unoccupied, but in the second, volunteers either drank a litre of water, or a litre of beer. A fan started to pump air from each of the tents, down various tubes and into a cup full of mosquitos.
The insects then had a very difficult decision to make, as to which tent tickled their fancy.
Instead of letting the mosquitos rip into lots of people, they were caught just in time.
But the experiment was important, as Lefevre showed that the smell of a beer drinker, 15 minutes after downing a litre, increased the proportion of mosquitoes inclined to fly into the tubes by 65 percent.
And what's more, is that the smell of water-drinkers had no effect, nor did the smell of the occupied tent before its inhabitant started drinking.
But what is it about people who drink beer that is so inviting to a mosquito?
The question actually remains unanswered.
Something about the smell attracts mosquitos, but the experts are yet to work out why that is.
Mosquitos are also quite drawn to body heat, which becomes ironic, as beer actually lowered the volunteers body temperature.
There are, however, some loosely connected things that might explain further.
Mosquitos always strike in the dark, which probably coincides with the time of night people consume beer.
Drinking heavy amounts can also suppress your immune system, meaning that you are more vulnerable to the disease that a mosquito carries.
But Lefevre put forward a particularly striking theory.
He explains that mosquitos may have just naturally evolved to prefer the odour of a beer drinker, but insisted that further investigations are necessary.