If you’re in a tropical country and looking to avoid malaria, the scientists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine have an easy pro-tip for you: wash your damn socks.

Researchers placed several pairs of smelly socks –which they stank up by having someone wear them for 20 hours straight – in an enclosure filled with mosquitoes and several pairs of clean, non-smelly socks. The mosquitoes infected with the P. falciparum strain of malaria were more likely to land on and probe the dirty socks than the non-infected mosquitoes, though those also favored the dirty socks.

None of the mosquitoes – infected or not –showed significant interest in the clean socks.

[LA Times]

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