Your last out-of-town business trip may have landed you more than a big contract. In addition to a digital file sealing the deal for a six-figure project from a key customer, you may have also carried home a little present from your hotel. You may not know it for a few weeks, but you could have carried home bedbugs, hidden in your pajamas or suitcase.
No problem. Just throw some bean leaves around the house for a while and they’re all gone. At least that’s what Eastern European housewives would do. Throw the bean leaves all over the floor and in the morning, you can sweep out the bedbugs with the leaves. Amazing results from a natural remedy.
The problem is, most Americans, or people in other parts of the world, don’t have a supply of bean leaves to take care of the bedbugs. This natural remedy has prompted a group of American scientists to study the leaves to come up with a synthetic version to do the job.
The magic lies in the leaves themselves. Covered with thousands of tiny hooks, the bedbugs get caught by the curved hooks at just the right places. The more they try to escape, the harder they are hooked. A study published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface showed how the bedbugs get hooked, and the rather distressing discovery that attempts at a synthetic version were less effective.
A New York Times article, “How a Leafy Folk Remedy Stopped Bedbugs In Their Tracks,” described the amazing way the leaves hook the bedbugs so efficiently. Catherine Louden is a scientist at the University of California-Irvine who studies bedbug locomotion (which is quite amazing in itself). Bedbugs are little armor covered insects with a small vulnerable area at which the leaf hooks can penetrate and do their job. Bedbugs walking on the real leaves were hooked after only six steps, and while thrashing around, were impaled over and over again. It took at least 36 steps on the synthetic leaves, and the thrashing motion was less effective as well.
Why all this energy and research money going into getting rid of bedbugs? As the article explains, bedbugs, as well as a lot of natural pests, have multiplied since pesticides like DDT were banned from use. The subsequent generations were pesticide resistant, and multiplied pretty much unchecked. Plus, a pesticide-free solution to such a widespread problem leaves less chance of polluting the planet and becoming a potential health and environmental hazard. Hooking bedbugs on sheets of little hooks that can be thrown out or incinerated is less of a threat to humans than creating stronger, more toxic chemical solutions.
One might wonder why the University of California would put so much time, talent and research dollars into finding a solution to bedbugs. Aside from solving a global health and sanitation problem, it may have some commercial value. The research scientists have applied for a patent for their synthetic hooking mechanisms, and a commercial company is interested in the technology. Bedbugs may prove to be an interesting research project turned big business.
Photo Source: Freedigitalphotos.com
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