A century of trends in adult human height

Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5-22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3-19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8-144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries

Wolbachia infection does not alter attraction of the mosquito Aedes (Stegomyia) aegypti to human odours

The insect endosymbiont Wolbachia pipientis (Rickettsiales: Rickettsiaceae) is undergoing field trials around the world to determine if it can reduce transmission of dengue virus from the mosquito Stegomyia aegypti to humans. Two different Wolbachia strains have been released to date. The primary effect of the wMel strain is pathogen protection whereby infection with the symbiont limits replication of dengue virus inside the mosquito. A second strain, wMelPop, induces pathogen protection, reduces the adult mosquito lifespan and decreases blood feeding success in mosquitoes after 15 days of age. Here we test whether Wolbachia infection affects mosquito attraction to host odours in adults aged 5 and 15 days. We found no evidence of reduced odour attraction of mosquitoes, even for those infected with the more virulent wMelPop. This bodes well for fitness and competitiveness in the field given that the mosquitoes must find hosts to reproduce for the biocontrol method to succeed