Maybe i missed some words in the article, but I don't see it say when they figured this out. Because it's been at least a decade since I learned about it in school or from a science magazine at school.

Have people been going around not knowing about this until now?

Or is it that only now can they say with certainty this is true?

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 10 months ago

Have people been going around not knowing about this until now?

I did not

[–] Gerudo@lemm.ee 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It was always my understanding that they detected carbon dioxide we exhaled. This is the first I've heard about infrared.

[–] SandLight@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

When I worked for the county doing mosquito control about 15 years ago, I was told they did both.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 8 points 10 months ago

The paper was published last month https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07848-5

But I suspect this was not a new discovery as much as a new expansion of the information.

[–] xkbx@startrek.website 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Maybe they watched Predator, I saw something similar happen there

[–] PlasticExistence@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

"If it bleeds, I can use its proteins to reproduce!"

Just doesn't have the same ring to it.

[–] XeroxCool@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

I don't remember when I learned about it or how verifiable the source was, but I knew it too for at least a decade. I am a radiant, heavy-breathing, sweaty target. I have outclassed everyone I've ever met on the mosquito attraction scale. I've used loose longer clothes but thought it was just stopping their bites from reaching my skin. I didn't think about how it could also be diffusing my thermal appearance since I'd still get bitten on exposed areas like face and hands.

[–] HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

yeah I thought we (humanity) already knew this and for some time now.

[–] KingOfSleep@lemmy.ca 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I think humanity has always assumed this. Hurray for scientific conformation.