A better way of keeping mosquitoes at bay is under development

Mosquito repellentsDEET have come a long way. For decades, the market leader was , which fends the pests off successfully, but only for an hour or two. Recently, Icaridin has become available. This lasts up to eight hours and is just as effective. Yet both are mildly poisonous to cells grown in culture and their toxicity (if any) to human users is constantly debated. The search is thus on for something that is unquestionably .Francesca Dani of the University of Florence, in Italy, thinks she might have the answer. As she and her colleagues describe in the , they looked at a range of chemicals called aldehydes and ketones, and, with a bit of tweaking, produced something that seems a good, long-lasting, safe .