"Unfortunately, this means Regine Gries is still feeding the bedbug colony every week." -- Shudders
Approximately 400 bugs in the colony if you do the math. 180k bites, 8 years, fed weekly.
Bedbug bait and trap invented by Simon Fraser University scientists
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Re: Bedbug bait and trap invented by Simon Fraser University scientists
#12No we cannot just simply erase bedbugs from existence. They are essential evolutionary factor of humans. How shall developers scratch their own itch with no bedbugs?
Similarly to mosquitoes, bedbugs serve no nessesary propose in the food chain that couldn't be immediately fulfilled and replaced over-night. Bedbugs could indeed be "erased".
Interestingly, all life and "life" (virii, prions) serve the purpose of increasing entropy of the universe faster. But from an anthropocentric perspective, they're as useful as cancer.
Re: Bedbug bait and trap invented by Simon Fraser University scientists
#13I'm surprised blood alone (perhaps heated to body temperature) doesn't attract them. I expect in the next decade or so, sensors and microrobotics will become good and cheap enough that mechanical pest control will outcompete chemical: finding and squashing the bugs with inhuman reach, patience and thoroughness. Of course the tiny exterma-drones may be pretty creepy-looking, themselves. I could picture one implementat…
Most living animals aren't usually bleeding because many predators are highly attuned to that smell, so kissing bugs, bed bugs, mosquitos and other parasites had to evolve other correlative signal receptors including IR, CO2, etc.
Re: Bedbug bait and trap invented by Simon Fraser University scientists
#14How long will it take for the bedbugs to mutate so they are no longer attracted to the trap?
Shouldn't it rather be (if I understand Darwin correclty): How long will it take for the ones that are attracted to the trap to have their population reduced enough so that the ones who are not attracted can spread their genes more efficiently
Probably a distinction that is not conversationally useful.
Re: Bedbug bait and trap invented by Simon Fraser University scientists
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shouldn't it rather be (if I understand Darwin correclty): How long will it take for the ones that are attracted to the trap to have their population reduced enough so that the ones who are not attracted can spread their genes more efficiently
Probably a distinction that is not conversationally useful.
I feel like this statement could get used a lot on HN.
Re: Bedbug bait and trap invented by Simon Fraser University scientists
#16I'm surprised blood alone (perhaps heated to body temperature) doesn't attract them. I expect in the next decade or so, sensors and microrobotics will become good and cheap enough that mechanical pest control will outcompete chemical: finding and squashing the bugs with inhuman reach, patience and thoroughness. Of course the tiny exterma-drones may be pretty creepy-looking, themselves. I could picture one implementat…
I'm surprised there haven't been kickstarters for little robotic bug killers yet. The processors and sensors are getting powerful enough, and within the right power band, that the premise of having a stabby little anti-bug device (a small roomba that kills) is within reach.
Of course, then we'll make them larger. And larger. And eventually it will spell our doom.
Re: Bedbug bait and trap invented by Simon Fraser University scientists
#17We all but wiped out bedbugs in the 40's and 50's using DDT.
I find the short history of DDT fascinating - in two decades, we eliminated Typhus in Europe, went from 2.5 million cases of malaria in Ceylon, Sri Lanka in 1948 to 17 in 1963, we essentially eliminated bed bugs in the US and Canada, wiped most of Dengue fever out out the South Pacific...
Then DDT started getting banned after Silent Spring was published and the environmental movement kicked off. Malaria cases went back up to 2.8 million in Sri Lanka in 1969 and a lot of its effects were reversed. It took longer for bed bugs to come back because they don't spread as quickly as their flying counterparts.
I'm not a scientist in this field and I don't feel like I can comment on the validity of differing studies about the safety of DDT or its ecological effects. However, I think it's undoubtedly true that in many countries, malaria and dengue and typhus and all sorts of diseases were more of a concern than cancer (and still are). DDT saved millions of lives in the short span of time it was used.
To me, this makes the public health questions of the DDT ban incredibly interesting - if you have something that might cause cancer and kill some innocent people but at the same time use it to eliminate disease vectors and probably save more people in the long run, do you keep using it?
Re: Bedbug bait and trap invented by Simon Fraser University scientists
#18We all but wiped out bedbugs in the 40's and 50's using DDT. I find the short history of DDT fascinating - in two decades, we eliminated Typhus in Europe, went from 2.5 million cases of malaria in Ceylon, Sri Lanka in 1948 to 17 in 1963, we essentially eliminated bed bugs in the US and Canada, wiped most of Dengue fever out out the South Pacific... Then DDT started getting banned after Silent Spring was published and…
The Problem is that DDT got mich less effective very quickly due to resistance. Thus the cost/benefit ratio was foreseeably ever worsening. If eridication can not be achieved in under 10 years with DDT it will basically never happen.
Re: Bedbug bait and trap invented by Simon Fraser University scientists
#19How long will it take for the bedbugs to mutate so they are no longer attracted to the trap?
Shouldn't it rather be (if I understand Darwin correclty): How long will it take for the ones that are attracted to the trap to have their population reduced enough so that the ones who are not attracted can spread their genes more efficiently
If all bed bugs are attracted to the trap, then a mutation would have to occur.
Re: Bedbug bait and trap invented by Simon Fraser University scientists
#20We all but wiped out bedbugs in the 40's and 50's using DDT. I find the short history of DDT fascinating - in two decades, we eliminated Typhus in Europe, went from 2.5 million cases of malaria in Ceylon, Sri Lanka in 1948 to 17 in 1963, we essentially eliminated bed bugs in the US and Canada, wiped most of Dengue fever out out the South Pacific... Then DDT started getting banned after Silent Spring was published and…
The Problem is that DDT got mich less effective very quickly due to resistance. Thus the cost/benefit ratio was foreseeably ever worsening. If eridication can not be achieved in under 10 years with DDT it will basically never happen.
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