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      The Nose Knows: How Malaria Mosquitoes Sniff Out Human Targets [Slide Show]

      Researchers are learning much more about how Anopheles gambiae, the primary malaria mosquito, uses its smell organs to find human targets; the work involved stunning images from scanning electron microscopes

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      The Nose Knows: How Malaria Mosquitoes Sniff Out Human Targets [Slide Show]
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      Credits: Image courtesy of R. Jason Pitts and Laurence J. Zwiebel, Vanderbilt University

      The Nose Knows: How Malaria Mosquitoes Sniff Out Human Targets [Slide Show]

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      • SUBSCRIBE TODAY: Subscribe today and receive a free copy of Selections on Evolution. » SUBSCRIBE
      • GOTCHA: Other pores (slits facing downward) wait for human odor molecules. Malaria mosquitoes can sense humans from as far as 50 meters away. Image courtesy of R. Jason Pitts and Laurence J. Zwiebel, Vanderbilt University
      • SUCKING IN SMELLS: A pitted peg has a pore that allows individual molecules to enter. Receptor cells inside the pore latch onto the molecules if they have a telltale shape. Work by molecular biologist John Carlson at Yale University indicates that receptor cells are highly tuned to single odor molecules emitted by humans... Image courtesy of R. Jason Pitts and Laurence J. Zwiebel, Vanderbilt University
      • READY TO REACT: A peg on one sensilla probes the air. Image courtesy of R. Jason Pitts and Laurence J. Zwiebel, Vanderbilt University
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      • FEELING THE AIR: The bristles, or flagellomeres, have different kinds of sensilla—hairlike structures that react as airborne molecules pass by. Image courtesy of R. Jason Pitts and Laurence J. Zwiebel, Vanderbilt University
      • PROBOSCIS AND PALPS: Malaria mosquitoes detect odors with a pair of antennae (shorter, outside structures) that surround a thicker, central proboscis, which controls the insect's piercing, blood-sucking stylets (the two ribbonlike strands)... Image courtesy of R. Jason Pitts and Laurence J. Zwiebel, Vanderbilt University
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