Got bed bugs? Bean leaves may be just the thing you're looking for! New
research reveals how the old folk remedy of leaving hairy bean leaves
around the room actually works:
American entomologists studying the effect in the 1940s noted the bed
bugs “could hardly be induced to move from the leaves,”
and microscopic images suggested that fine, curved hairs called trichomes
on the bottom of the leaves snagged the bugs’ feet.
Now, the California-Kentucky team has zoomed in even closer to reveal
that the leaves’ sharp trichomes actually pierce the bugs’
feet like meat hooks, immobilizing them.
“It was astonishing to me that it worked at all,” says Catherine
Loudon, a physical biologist at UC-Irvine and lead researcher of the
new study, “You see this big muscular bug vigorously struggling,
and it’s astonishing to me that the little tiny microscopic hairs
don’t snap.”
Brooke Borel of PopSci has the post:
Here.
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