6 ms·

Bedbug bait and trap invented by Simon Fraser University scientists

62 points by Wyndsage 12y ago

wglb 12y ago
Such an act of dedication to science how they accomplished "feeding the horde".
001sky 12y ago
"Unfortunately, this means Regine Gries is still feeding the bedbug colony every week." --Shudders
- krampian 12y ago
  Approximately 400 bugs in the colony if you do the math. 180k bites, 8 years, fed weekly.
allendoerfer 12y ago
These suckers bullied us for thousands of years, but now humankind has this crazy lady on its team so they finally get what they asked for.
ommunist 12y ago
No 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?
- headShrinker 12y ago
  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".
  - rab_oof 12y ago
    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.
    - ommunist 12y ago
      You are starting to get it. Examining "life" from antropocentric perspective could be very misleading. Especially when humans are getting practical means of decreasing biodiversity by erasing species. Even if these are bedbugs. Imagine anti-cancer treatment from some bedbug spit. Could be useful. But once you erased bugs, there will be no one.
      - rab_oof 12y ago
        Homo sapiens sapiens inadvertently or deliberately kill every creature to extinction that isn't cute... Hence dodo and river dolphins (baiji / 白鱀豚). Not to mention the multibillion dollar hocus pocus trades in ivory and other rare animal parts. Stupidity is the default condition, wisdom takes thinking ahead.
        ommunist 12y ago
        Problem is, humans are not the first intelligent species on this planet. Others are only tolerating us, and I do not know to what threshold.
  - ommunist 12y ago
    You are not a biologist and your mistake is obvious. Mosqitoes larvae are extremely important part of the food chain, especially in lake and river ecosystems. When it comes to bedbugs, the answer is not that obvious. I do not understand people downvoting me. Had they read something about evolution? Bedbugs and humans successfully co-existed for thousands of years. There may be some important perk we shall all miss if we'll just erase them. We just do not know it yet.
jschulenklopper 12y ago
Relevant HN discussion on the 'itch that nobody can scratch' refered to in a story on Medium: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8769925 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8769925. That story is about Morgellons, for which some explanations refer to the presence of beg bugs or mites.
Houshalter 12y ago
How long will it take for the bedbugs to mutate so they are no longer attracted to the trap?
- baby 12y ago
  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
  - ryandvm 12y ago
    Probably a distinction that is not conversationally useful.
    - jmreid 12y ago
      I feel like this statement could get used a lot on HN.
    - baby 12y ago
      I don't know, I feel like understanding Darwin and Evolution is pretty important whatever the discussion you are in. It seems like 11 people agree with me as well.
  - adam12 12y ago
    If all bed bugs are attracted to the trap, then a mutation would have to occur.
    - 001sky 12y ago
      attraction and entrapment are not perfectly corelated.
    - baby 12y ago
      More like: if all bed bugs are attracted to the trap, then no more bed bugs.
gojomo 12y ago
I'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 implementation being a skirt/kill-zone around a bed, such that any bug that feeds is definitively killed before it can return to nesting/breeding spots. So the customer is still the bait... but they quickly win a war of attrition against any local bug population, unless it's being replenished from elsewhere.
- rab_oof 12y ago
  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.
- personZ 12y ago
  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.
  - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
    >Of course, then we'll make them larger. And larger. And eventually it will spell our doom. // I thought that we'd make them smaller and smaller ... and that will spell our doom. Perhaps the bug killing squads of nanobots mutate - either by a human introduced [computer] virus or for a more ironic twist from a source that would normally be a DNA mutator (cosmic ray radiation say). The bugs will then hunt out not pathogens but something useful like human nerve cells or white blood cells. Caught in an international crisis - war or famine, you choose - humanity will have it's eyes off the ball until too late. There must be Sci-Fi of this. Aside: is there a rule akin to Rule 34, perhaps Rule 0100011, that says no matter how outlandish a distopian future scenario is that it is nonetheless already a feature in the plot of a Sci-Fi work?
temuze 12y ago
We 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?
- nasmorn 12y ago
  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.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- rm999 12y ago
  You make some good points, but you're missing some keys facts about why it was banned and why most people today don't really care that it's banned. This is a good read on the topic: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/517 http://www.worldwatch.org/node/517 tldr: DDT is extremely dangerous because it is fat soluble, which means it accumulates up the food chain. It has been linked to all sorts of potential problems, both ecological and to human-health. The question of malaria is moot, mosquitos quickly developed a resistance to it. You can mitigate malaria with other means, such as bednets. edit: specifically to your point, this is the relevant part (i.e. why it wasn't that controversial): > The campaign managers knew that in mosquitoes, regular exposure to DDT tended to produce widespread resistance in four to seven years. Since it took three years to clear malaria from a human population, that didn't leave a lot of leeway for the eradication effort. As it turned out, the logistics simply couldn't be made to work in large, heavily infested areas with high human populations, poor housing and roads, and generally minimal infrastructure. In 1969, the campaign was abandoned
legulere 12y ago
I wonder if they use the nanostructure of bean leafs [1] to entrap the bedbugs [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/science/earth/how-a-leafy-folk-remedy-stopped-bedbugs-in-their-tracks.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/science/earth/how-a-leafy-...

62 points by Wyndsage 12y ago

wglb 12y ago

Such an act of dedication to science how they accomplished "feeding the horde".

001sky 12y ago

"Unfortunately, this means Regine Gries is still feeding the bedbug colony every week." --Shudders

krampian 12y ago
Approximately 400 bugs in the colony if you do the math. 180k bites, 8 years, fed weekly.

allendoerfer 12y ago

These suckers bullied us for thousands of years, but now humankind has this crazy lady on its team so they finally get what they asked for.

ommunist 12y ago

No 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?

headShrinker 12y ago
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".
- rab_oof 12y ago
  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.
  - ommunist 12y ago
    You are starting to get it. Examining "life" from antropocentric perspective could be very misleading. Especially when humans are getting practical means of decreasing biodiversity by erasing species. Even if these are bedbugs. Imagine anti-cancer treatment from some bedbug spit. Could be useful. But once you erased bugs, there will be no one.
    - rab_oof 12y ago
      Homo sapiens sapiens inadvertently or deliberately kill every creature to extinction that isn't cute... Hence dodo and river dolphins (baiji / 白鱀豚). Not to mention the multibillion dollar hocus pocus trades in ivory and other rare animal parts. Stupidity is the default condition, wisdom takes thinking ahead.
      - ommunist 12y ago
        Problem is, humans are not the first intelligent species on this planet. Others are only tolerating us, and I do not know to what threshold.
- ommunist 12y ago
  You are not a biologist and your mistake is obvious. Mosqitoes larvae are extremely important part of the food chain, especially in lake and river ecosystems. When it comes to bedbugs, the answer is not that obvious. I do not understand people downvoting me. Had they read something about evolution? Bedbugs and humans successfully co-existed for thousands of years. There may be some important perk we shall all miss if we'll just erase them. We just do not know it yet.

jschulenklopper 12y ago

Relevant HN discussion on the 'itch that nobody can scratch' refered to in a story on Medium: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8769925 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8769925. That story is about Morgellons, for which some explanations refer to the presence of beg bugs or mites.

Houshalter 12y ago

How long will it take for the bedbugs to mutate so they are no longer attracted to the trap?

baby 12y ago
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
- ryandvm 12y ago
  Probably a distinction that is not conversationally useful.
  - jmreid 12y ago
    I feel like this statement could get used a lot on HN.
  - baby 12y ago
    I don't know, I feel like understanding Darwin and Evolution is pretty important whatever the discussion you are in. It seems like 11 people agree with me as well.
- adam12 12y ago
  If all bed bugs are attracted to the trap, then a mutation would have to occur.
  - 001sky 12y ago
    attraction and entrapment are not perfectly corelated.
  - baby 12y ago
    More like: if all bed bugs are attracted to the trap, then no more bed bugs.

gojomo 12y ago

I'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 implementation being a skirt/kill-zone around a bed, such that any bug that feeds is definitively killed before it can return to nesting/breeding spots. So the customer is still the bait... but they quickly win a war of attrition against any local bug population, unless it's being replenished from elsewhere.

rab_oof 12y ago
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.
personZ 12y ago
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.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  >Of course, then we'll make them larger. And larger. And eventually it will spell our doom. // I thought that we'd make them smaller and smaller ... and that will spell our doom. Perhaps the bug killing squads of nanobots mutate - either by a human introduced [computer] virus or for a more ironic twist from a source that would normally be a DNA mutator (cosmic ray radiation say). The bugs will then hunt out not pathogens but something useful like human nerve cells or white blood cells. Caught in an international crisis - war or famine, you choose - humanity will have it's eyes off the ball until too late. There must be Sci-Fi of this. Aside: is there a rule akin to Rule 34, perhaps Rule 0100011, that says no matter how outlandish a distopian future scenario is that it is nonetheless already a feature in the plot of a Sci-Fi work?

temuze 12y ago

We 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?

nasmorn 12y ago
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.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
rm999 12y ago
You make some good points, but you're missing some keys facts about why it was banned and why most people today don't really care that it's banned. This is a good read on the topic: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/517 http://www.worldwatch.org/node/517 tldr: DDT is extremely dangerous because it is fat soluble, which means it accumulates up the food chain. It has been linked to all sorts of potential problems, both ecological and to human-health. The question of malaria is moot, mosquitos quickly developed a resistance to it. You can mitigate malaria with other means, such as bednets. edit: specifically to your point, this is the relevant part (i.e. why it wasn't that controversial): > The campaign managers knew that in mosquitoes, regular exposure to DDT tended to produce widespread resistance in four to seven years. Since it took three years to clear malaria from a human population, that didn't leave a lot of leeway for the eradication effort. As it turned out, the logistics simply couldn't be made to work in large, heavily infested areas with high human populations, poor housing and roads, and generally minimal infrastructure. In 1969, the campaign was abandoned

legulere 12y ago

I wonder if they use the nanostructure of bean leafs [1] to entrap the bedbugs [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/science/earth/how-a-leafy-folk-remedy-stopped-bedbugs-in-their-tracks.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/science/earth/how-a-leafy-...