Dirty Socks Mosquito Box to Compliment Mosquito Net

Africans are seriously some great people. Of course, we commonly hear about their contributions to the arts and entertainment, but what about their contributions to science and the well-being of mankind? Well, folks, here is one example of a man who has invented the mosquito box, a box that attracts and kills mosquitoes in open air in hopes to reduce the spread of malaria, and endemic in tropical climates like many African countries. His name? Fredros Okumu, a scientific researcher at the Tanzanian Ifakara Health Institute.

Some new readers may be shocked that there's a research facility in an African country. Some of them may not have even heard of Tanzania. Well, guess what? There's a wealth of researchers in Africa and many of them are African, who have schooled either in Africa or abroad (I did talk about a possible reversal of Africa's "brain drain" a while back).

Back to this box, according to CNN International, mosquitoes are attracted to the scent of human sweat. The box uses the smell of human feet (eww, gross) which is blown out of the box by a solar-powered fan that lures the pests. The viral insects enter the box, get comfortable, and are killed by the poison inside. Okumu also says that mosquitoes adapt quickly. I wonder if they will catch on to this and avoid the humans all together because the smell of human sweat. We'll see.