Spring awakening stink bugs: you can build a better trap

How to kill stinkbugs like a wonk

It's spring, which means that brown marmorated stinkbugs are out and about and making a general nuisance of themselves again. Fortunately for you, a team of researchers at Virginia Tech recently concluded a two-year study of stinkbug eradication techniques and has found that a simple home-built method -- one weird trick! -- is both cheaper and more effective than several store-bought traps. John Aignar and Thomas Kuhar enlisted the aid of 16 Virginia households experiencing significant stinkbug infestations in 2012 and 2013. Over a 11-week period in the spring of each year, each household tested four different stinkbug traps -- two commercial traps, a homemade trap involving a 2-liter soda bottle made into a funnel, and a homemade trap consisting of a baking sheet full of soapy water left out on a countertop.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday All four traps operate under the same principle, using light to lure the bugs into the trap. And among the four, the pan of soapy water was the clear winner, killing 14 times as many stinkbugs as one of the store-bought traps. Best of all? Assuming you already own a lamp, a baking sheet and some dish detergent, the cost is essentially zero. The chart above shows the results from the 2012 season. While the Stube commercial trap performed admirably, it was still outshone by the water pan. The 2013 results show the same general distribution, although the Stube model was discontinued that year and was thus excluded from the analysis. "Although this trap may not remove every stink bug from a building," the researchers wrote, "it will provide a homeowner with some relief from their stink bug infestations, as well as a sense of satisfaction from removing large numbers of the bugs from their home." The trap is so simple the researchers were able to fit a complete "how-to" in the 22-second video tutorial below. While this technique works great at home, it won't scale well to the agricultural realm, where stinkbugs are responsible for millions of dollars' worth of crop damage annually. In 2010, for instance, mid-Atlantic apple growers lost upward of $37 million to the bug. Overall in the United States, roughly $40 _billion_ **** of crops are susceptible to stinkbug losses. "We are only just beginning to realize the impact of this species because it has only recently spread to areas like the Pacific Northwest, with the tremendous acres of tree fruit production, and the high value specialty crops in California," co-author Kuhar wrote in an e-mail.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday The jury's still out on whether this year's harsh winter killed off more of the bugs than usual.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday

Scientists wage war on pervasive stink bugs

It was an absolutely false claim, but totally believable. Early this year, a few news organizations reported that the brown marmorated stink bug was at the top of an Agriculture Department most-unwanted list, the nation’s No. 1 invasive species of interest, the most wanted fugitive among bugs. As it turned out, the Agriculture Deparment had no such list. An apologetic spokesman said he misunderstood a scientist in the department and passed faulty information to reporters. But that doesn’t mean the agency isn’t out to kill this crop-munching pest from Asia that recently expanded to 40 states since it was first spotted in Pennsylvania 15 years ago. To the contrary, entomologists are zeroing in on stink bugs, unlocking the mysteries of their behaviors, DNA and even scent, and preparing for an all-out war. True to their nature, stink bugs — heavily concentrated in Maryland and West Virginia, as well as Pennsylvania — aren’t expected to go down easily, certainly not this summer. “The expectation is high infestation this year,” said Ames Herbert, an extension entomologist at Virginia Tech. How do researchers know? “What we can use as a rough guide is the size of the population from year to year that overwintered,” said Tracy Leskey, a research entomologist for the Agriculture Department. “In 2012, the population was 60 percent higher than 2011. If they survived the winter, we will have many bugs starting in 2013.” Unlike previous years, when scientists and farmers “kind of got caught with our pants down,” said Robert Shenot — who watched stink bugs damage more than half of his apple crop at Shenot Farm Market, a few miles north of Pittsburgh, in 2010 and 2011 — they will face an array of new weapons developed especially for them. Last year, USDA scientists and researchers pinpointed a pheromone that male brown marmorated stink bugs emit while feeding; it attracts other males, females and even babies called nymphs to the meal. They re-created the scent in a laboratory, built a trap and tested it along tree lines, on the edge of farms and in the middle of crop fields. Sure enough, the bugs crept to it and were exterminated. The triangle-shaped device is a temple of doom, luring the creatures into grooves leading to the synthetic smell that calls them to dinner. Instead of food there is a pest strip, and a pesticide vapor puts them to sleep for good, said Christopher Bergh, a professor of entomology at Virginia Tech. The traps aren’t killing enough stink bugs to make a sizable dent in the population, Bergh said, but they do give researchers and farmers an indication of how many are lurking and whether they should initiate search-and-destroy missions. Farmers have to resist “the first knee-jerk reaction . . . to get out there and spray them with chemicals,” Shenot said. “Certain chemicals they tend to take a bath in and laugh at you. They feed a quarter-inch below the surface of the fruit, and you can’t get an insecticide in there. You can spray the stink bug there on your crop, and if another set of stink bugs fly in, they’re not going to be affected at all.” After observing closely for two years starting in 2011, entomologists developed an improved kill strategy for soybeans, Herbert said. They noticed that stink bugs chewed at “the edge of soybean fields but not deep into the field,” he said. “We’ve been able to exploit that,” Herbert said. They monitored 25 fields as farmers treated the edge with insecticides. On average, they sprayed 30 percent of the acreage and got 100 percent control of the pest. “If you spray the edge of the field and it works, they’re saving a lot of money and time,” Herbert said. It is an epic tug of war with no certain outcome. The brown marmorated stink bug was first spotted in 1998 near Allentown, Pa., after some crept out of a cargo ship, and the population exploded 12 years later, taking a $37 million bite out of the Mid-Atlantic apple crop and a $15 million chunk of Pennsylvania’s peach crop. By last year, they were either detected or established in 33 states and the District, and then in another seven states as of May. “It’s possible that this bug gets established in every state,” Herbert said. “I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t.” Worried scientists at the USDA research lab in Delaware, and others in Oregon and Florida, have been eyeing yet another weapon for years: an Asian parasite wasp about the size of a pinpoint that preys on stink bugs’ eggs. The federal scientists have carefully tested and retested the creature, hesitating for fear that it might become invasive itself, competing with native wasps for food and territory. As they waited last year, nature produced a breakthrough. Native wasps that had showed no interest in brown marmorated stink bugs started to develop a taste for their eggs, just as they preyed on the eggs of native stink bugs. In addition, native birds started snatching and eating the Asian bugs, a breakthrough in the fight against a foreign pest with no natural predator. “There’s more evidence now that natural enemies are starting to adapt to stink bugs,” Herbert said. “This is one of hundreds of invasive pests that have invaded the U.S. in the last 100 years, and most of them we’ve learned how to deal with them.” Trouble is, Herbert said, you should never be overconfident with bugs. “Insects will make a liar out of you every time,” he said. Related stories: Stink bugs migrating to the Deep South Invasive bugs making a bigggr stink

It’s stink bug season again, and the bugs are wanted!

The weather has warmed and stink bugs are currently emerging from their overwintering locations in our attics and walls. As always, stink bugs are unwelcomed visitors in our homes — but his year the stinky pests are _wanted_ by the University of Maryland.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “We really need stink bugs and the best place to collect them this time of year is in homes,” said Galen Dively, professor emeritus at Maryland’s Department of Entomology. The scientists need thousands of live stink bugs to re-stock a laboratory colony that died last fall.  Roughly 13,000 stink bugs in the lab died from a suspected virus that caused the entire colony to collapse. Stink bugs can be collected in plastic food containers.  Dively suggests throwing a piece of apple in the container to give the bugs food and poking holes in the container’s lid to give the bugs fresh air. If you collect more than several dozen bugs, contact the research lab on the College Park campus by email (galen@umd.edu).  So far, one household has collected more than a thousand stink bugs for the research effort.  And you thought your house had the bugs bad! This past week, I had the opportunity to interview Galen Dively about his stink bug research and a some tips for home stink bug prevention.  Below is my interview: **Kevin Ambrose (KA)** : **Can the suspected virus be used to combat the stink bug in the future?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Galen Dively (GD):  We’re not sure yet if the cause of death is a virus or a fungus.  Virus sprays are often not effective against bugs but once we identify the cause of the colony collapse then research will be done to see if there are other methods to combat the stink bug. **KA: Do you think the past two cold winters thinned the population of stink bugs in the Washington area?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico GD: Yes, although this invasive species of stink bug is from a region in China that has similar climates in the Washington area, the unusual cold temperatures have undoubtedly reduced the overwintering success of adults in sheltered areas outside of dwellings. Besides overwintering inside dwellings, we know they also overwinter under the bark of the standing or fallen dead trees in wooded areas. In fact, the sheltered situations outside is probably the main site of overwintering in many areas. **KA: We’ve received information from our CWG readers that the stink bugs are worse in the counties to the west of Washington. Where is the stink bug epicenter in our region?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico GD: The highest populations of stink bugs are located in Central and Western Maryland, Northern Virginia, the northeastern counties of West Virginia. Infestations are highest in houses and other dwellings surrounded by trees and close to soybean fields where they tend to feed late in the fall to build up their energy stores for overwintering. **KA: Why do you think the stink bugs are not a major problem on the Eastern Shore where there is plenty of agriculture?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico GD: This insect prefers landscapes that are fragmented with woodlots, agricultural fields (particularly corn and soybean), and dwellings. At a larger scale, high temperature is a limiting factor. The landscape on the Eastern Shore is less fragmented, larger cleared areas with contiguous crop fields, fewer woodlots and dwellings per land area; and summer temperatures are higher on the coastal plain area than in the Piedmont area. **KA: What are the major focus areas for your stink bug research**?    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico GD: There are several research focuses as follows: 1)      The female stink bug during egg laying smears fecal material on the eggs which contain a specific bacteria that the immature nymphs need for normal development and survival; we consider this as a weak link in its life history.  Studies are ongoing to investigate ways to disrupt the development of the immature nymphs. 2)      Rearing the stink bug is an essential requirement for ongoing research, so studies are focused on preventing colony crashes due to disease and the development of an artificial diet for the stink bug. 3)      In its native land (China), the stink bug is maintained under control by natural enemies, mainly tiny wasps that parasitize the eggs. We have similar parasitic wasps that attack our native stink bugs and our studies are focused on whether these natural enemies will shift over to the invasive species of stink bug. In order to rear these natural enemies and conduct research on their potential as natural control agents, our studies need stink bug egg masses from the colony. 4)      In addition, several studies are conducted during the growing season to evaluate chemical, biological, and cultural control measures for the stink bug. **KA: I know that stink bugs are attracted to home gardens in the summer. What vegetables and plants do the stink bugs prefer?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico GD: They prefer tomatoes, peppers (all types except the really hot Thai varieties), okra, sweet corn, green beans, and eggplant. Less preferred are the vegetables in the cabbage family and cucurbits (cucumber, melons, pumpkin, and squash). They also feed on large and small fruit crops. **KA: Do you have any tips for making a home stink bug-proof, or at least reducing the number of bugs that enter a house?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico GD: Caulk all cracks and spaces that can serve as entry portals, make sure there are no holes in windows screens and screen covers of vents in the attic, weather stripping around doors to prevent entry, and seal openings around window AC units. **KA: Do you foresee any new plans or methods to combat the stink bug with insecticides, stink bug eating wasps, or traps?**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico GD: The parasitic wasps probably have the greatest potential for long-term control of this invasive stink bug. USDA has brought back several species from China and are currently studying their potential non-target effects in quarantine populations, before they are released if allowed at all. One exotic species from China has been carefully tested for about three years, and USDA was about ready to petition for its release; but to our surprise, this species was found occurring naturally at Beltsville, Maryland late last summer, apparently introduced accidentally in containers, probably the same way the stink bug came into our country. Now, extensive surveys will be conducted this summer to determine if this parasitic wasp survived the winter and is spreading its distribution range, and will it impact the stink bug population. For gardeners and organic farmers, the insecticides that are available to these users are not effective on the stink bug. We are investigating the use of attractive trap crops such as sunflower, grain sorghum and even okra. The idea is plant these crops close to or around a cash crop to divert stink bugs away from the cash crop. Traps are being used to monitor flight activity but so far have not proved to be effective trap and kill strategies. In fruit production, there is promise of using pheromone traps in a ‘baited’ tree at the edge of the orchard to concentrate invading stink bugs in one spot and then kill them with an effective insecticide. We do have a number of good conventional insecticide products that are available to commercial farmers, but not homeowners for gardeners unless they have a pesticide application license. **Related:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico WANTED: STINK BUGS    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Stink bug meets spider (video)    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Polar vortex exterminated 95 percent of stink bugs in Va. Tech experiment    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico It’s stink bug season again: how bad are they where you live?    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Stink bug season 2011-12    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Stink bugs emerge from hibernation    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Will the Winter’s volatile weather kill off the stink bugs?    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Traps for fighting the inevitable stink bug invasion    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Stink bug weather and tips for keeping them out    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Stink bugs are plentiful in Mid-Atlantic states, and they’re ready to come indoors for winter

Guess who’s coming for a visit. Or, more precisely, what. Here’s a hint: It has six skinny legs, never knocks and kind of stinks. As the fall air turns cold, swarms of brown marmorated stink bugs are ready to crawl from woods and fields — especially in the Mid-Atlantic region, including Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Delaware — in search of a warm spot to spend the winter, and any house will do. So get ready. After last year’s steep decline, favorable conditions this year have apparently resulted in a population boom. “The numbers have just been way up all summer long heading into August,” said Mike Raupp, a professor of entomology at the University of Maryland. “The data coming in says numbers are pretty high.” The federal government reiterated that message. “There are certainly plenty out there,” said Tracy Leskey, a research entomologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “In some locations, we’ve seen high trap counts.” By “some locations,” Leskey means the Mid-Atlantic, where the aforementioned states make up the heart of the region. It also includes Pennsylvania, where invasive stink bugs native to China and the Koreas first emerged about 15 years ago, probably after crawling out of a cargo ship. Leskey, Raupp and other scientists said it’s too early to tell how bad the home invasions will be. But Leskey is hoping some homeowners will help. “We have a project called the Great Stink Bug Count, where   homeowners as far north as Ohio and south in Georgia are counting stink bugs,” she said. By the end of October, scientists expect to have the raw numbers they will need to start compiling data. They plan to analyze the colors of homes, their sizes, location, elevation and surrounding vegetation to see what attracts the bugs. They’re trying to figure out why some people end up with thousands of bugs and neighbors less than a mile away hardly get any. Raupp knows that homeowners don’t care about any of that, so he has provided a how-to video on getting rid of stink bugs. If the recent past is any guide, more than a few will need it. Step one, Raupp said, is to seal any cracks around the windows and doors with caulk. Get weather stripping, and patch even the tiniest sliver in the wall. Grab a can of foam spray to block holes around outdoor electrical outlets. But don’t flush stink bugs down the toilet, Raupp said. That will only waste water and drive up your water bill. “That’s just not very green,” he said. Step two: Make a bug trap out of a small plastic water bottle. Cut off the top, invert the nozzle into the bottle by sticking it upside down to create a funnel. Brush the bugs in and they will easily slide down, he said. And step three: Fill a bucket with soapy water and toss the stink bugs in after nudging them into the bottle, sucking them up in a hand-vac or snatching them up in a napkin. “They’re just _not_ great swimmers,” Raupp said. Take good notes, because Asian stink bugs are apparently here to stay. They’ve been observed in 41 states — most recently in Hawaii — up from 33 last year, making big gains and staking a sustained presence in the United States. But in their drive to stop them, scientists have made significant gains of their own, such as copying a pheromone emitted by feeding stink-bug males that attract females and nymphs meals. They are using their lab-created scent to lure and trap bugs, which is one of the reasons why they are confident of their population estimates. ****The triangle-shaped traps, or little temples of doom, have been scattered across the country, luring the creatures into grooves. Instead of food, a pest strip and vapor puts them to sleep, said Christopher Bergh, a professor of entomology at Virginia Tech. Like they do with other flying insects, scientists rigged a few captive stink bugs to a mill that records their stamina as they fly in a loop. Most of the bugs logged a couple of miles per day, but one mighty outlier went for 75 miles in 24 hours, which could explain why the bugs have spread so quickly. In parts of Maryland, West Virginia and Delaware, scientists have been astonished at the high numbers of bugs found, piled six inches deep in some traps. But in southern Virginia, relatively few stink bugs were trapped, said Ames Herbert, an extension entomologist for Virginia Tech. “We’re down here also surveying a large area. We haven’t seen as many as they have in the more mid-Atlantic area,” he said. Scientists near Virginia’s southern border recently found a way to thwart the bug, Herbert said. They treated the edge of soybean fields with insecticide, rather than spraying the crops, and stink bugs stayed away. “Last year and in 2011 we saw plenty of activity in the north central area, Orange, Culpeper, Madison and Spotsylvania counties,” Herbert said. “We kind of expected it might be a little worse . . . but we didn’t see them in new areas this year.” Even in the bug-infested Mid-Atlantic, this year’s explosion won’t come close to rivaling the epic year of 2010. That’s when a stink-bug swarm seemed to appear out of nowhere, eating through farmers’ fields and causing $37 million in damage to the apple crop alone. Their annoying modus operandi has been closely watched every year since.

Some bedbugs are really good climbers. And that may be bad news for you.

Some bedbugs are better climbers than others, and the bloodsuckers’ climbing prowess has practical implications. To detect and monitor bedbugs, people use an array of strategies including do- it-yourself setups and dogs. Pitfall traps, which rely on smooth inner walls to keep the critters from escaping, are highly effective for detecting and monitoring an infestation. The traps are sold around the world, but they have been tested only with common bedbugs ( _Cimex lectularius_ ) — the most common species in the United States. As it turns out, tropical bedbugs ( _C. hemipterus_ ) can easily scale the walls of pitfall traps, Chow-Yang Lee, an entomologist at Malaysia’s University of Science, and colleagues found in lab tests. While 24 to 76 percent of tropical bedbug strains escaped traps, only 2 or fewer percent of common strains made it out. In measurements of vertical frictional force, tropical bedbugs also came out on top. Further investigation revealed extra hairs on the tibial pads of tropical bugs’ feet. These may give their legs a better grip on trap walls, the researchers propose in the March 15 edition of the Journal of Economic Entomology. Tropical bedbugs live in some regions of Africa, Australia, Japan, China and Taiwan — and have recently surfaced in Florida. ** — Science News  **

Outwitting the pesky flea beetle

The flea beetles were so small that it was hard to see them with the naked eye. Under a magnifying glass, they were easy to watch: shiny, elongated, black insects, marching around on the surface of the broccoli foliage, munching as they went. But no such proof was needed. The damage was unmistakable — leaves stippled with holes so numerous that some were more hole than leaf. Touch a flea beetle with your finger and it will disappear like magic, launching itself into the air with its strong hind legs — the leap that gives it its name — only to return and continue the business at hand. This pest is mostly a spring visitor that emerges from its winter home in the soil to gorge, then returns to the soil to lay eggs. These hatch into soil-dwelling larvae, but it’s the adult beetle stage that gives gardeners fits. (The larvae might nibble on the plants’ roots, but only with a root crop, chiefly the potato, is this a problem.) An attack on young seedlings, however, can do them in, because they have little foliage to spare. Some recover, some don’t, and for our broccoli the future did not look bright. There are many species of flea beetles, and most favor a particular vegetable or vegetable family. Among plants in the nightshade family (potatoes and their relatives), we’ve consistently had trouble with flea beetles on eggplants. Among the brassicas, arugula is the most susceptible. Broccoli had never been a major target before. So we’re focusing on prevention. Apart from basic common-sense maneuvers such as good soil fertility, irrigation and crop rotation, there are strategies a gardener can try. A mulch that reduces access to the soil might help break the egg-laying cycle. Plant populations with umbel-shaped flowers, such as fennel and Queen Anne’s lace, will attract braconid wasps and syrphid flies, both of which parasitize flea beetles. Growing a trap crop of something the beetles prefer, such as the Chinese mustard Southern Giant, works for some people. But we find that timing a planting can be the biggest help. The first generation of beetles, in spring, tends to be the most damaging. Fall plantings of arugula are beetle-free. It also helps to sow arugula in a greenhouse, where the beetles seldom go. With the other brassicas, and with eggplants, we grow them from transplants, whose larger size gives them a better chance of outgrowing an attack. We’re hoping that a second, slightly later planting will do the trick for our broccoli. As a precaution, we’ve set out the transplants under floating row covers, to screen out the pest altogether. This must be done immediately after planting, with the sides well weighted down to prevent beetle entry, and in a spot where that plant family has not previously grown. As for the first planting, things are still hopping in that row, but a number of plants are showing healthy new green growth, and we’re rooting for that, as summer sets in. Roses that have flowered should be pruned to promote reblooming and general health. Use hand pruners to remove flower clusters back to just above a lower leaf, and take out suckers and wayward stems. Any leaves showing signs of blackspot also should be removed. Wear thorn-proof gloves and a long-sleeved shirt. **— Adrian Higgins**

Something to take your parents to ...

**BUGS:** They’re creepy. They’re crawly. They’re on exhibit at the Maryland Science Center. See live bugs such as a praying mantis, a giant tiger centipede, an emperor scorpion, a Chilean rosehair tarantula, an American millipede, beetles and lots of Madagascar hissing cockroaches. In fact, if you go on a weekend, you can see cockroach races. If that’s not enough, taste some Cinnamon Bug Crunch, which is fried caterpillars, or try some Red Beans and Yikes, which includes wax worms boiled in hot spices. The bug chef is mixing up such treats on weekends. If you prefer spitting out your bugs rather than ingesting them, head over to the cricket spit (also only on weekends) and see how far you can spit a cricket out of your month. Maybe eating bugs isn’t your style. Instead pretend you’re a terminator and it’s your job to find all the bugs and rodents in a house that is part of the exhibition. (Ew!) Put on a lab coat, grab a clipboard and don’t forget to check behind the heating vent! Before you leave, stand in front of the big screen where digital butterflies flit about. Watch as they land on your shadow on the screen. Then have your photo taken and have it e-mailed to you. It’s a good souvenir to remember your day with the bugs. ** — Moira McLaughlin  ** **What:** “Harry’s Big Adventure: My Bug World,” at the Maryland Science Center, 601 Light St., Baltimore. **When:** The exhibit runs through April 29. Go on the weekends to see the most hands-on parts of the exhibit. Museum hours through April 1 are Tuesday- Thursday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Hours beginning April 2 are Monday-Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. **Cost:** Adults, $14.95; ages 3-12, $11.95; seniors, $13.95; Maryland Science Center members, free. **For more information:** Your parents can go to www.mdsci.org/exhibits/   HarrysAdventure.html or call 410-685-2370. ** **

Carpenter bees and woodpeckers

QI’m having a terrible time with carpenter bees and woodpeckers damaging a cedar trellis. I understand the bees release pheromones and that’s what attracts the woodpeckers. The bees aren’t that big a problem, but the woodpeckers did so much damage last year that I had to replace some of the cedar boards. The repair was not inexpensive. I can’t do that every spring. I treat and patch the holes after the fact. Is there anything I can do to treat the wood to prevent the bees from drilling their holes in the first place? **Boyds** **** AThe woodpeckers are probably going after the bee larvae because of the noise they make as they grow within the wood, according to theCornell Lab of Ornithology. To thwart them, it helps to know a little about the life cycle of the bees, which resemble bumblebees but have shiny, rather than fuzzy, abdomens. Beginning in April or May, the females flit about, then chew into wood to create half-inch-wide tunnels where they lay their eggs. The tunnels usually go lengthwise within a single board — a piece of siding, a railing or, as you’ve seen, a part of a trellis. The bees typically don’t reach the framing of a house and thus don’t cause structural damage. At the far end of the tunnel, the female bee deposits an egg and a little food packet, mostly pollen. Then she seals off that chamber with a thin wall, puts down another egg and food packet, and builds another wall. Over the summer, the eggs hatch and the larvae grow fat on the food left for them. They make enough noise to tip off woodpeckers, which then use their beaks to unearth the tasty treats. This, of course, expands the damage. Instead of having a single half-inch entry hole, you get a series of holes where the woodpeckers got into each little chamber. If the woodpeckers don’t get to them first, the larvae chew their way out and emerge as adult bees after about three months, in reverse order of when the eggs were laid. The adults overwinter, often in the then-empty tunnel. In April or May in the Washington area, the adults emerge and the cycle repeats. Knowing all this, you can target your actions to the most effective times of the year. One solution is to spray into the bee entry holes with an aerosol labeled for use against wasps, hornets and bees. Or puff a little insecticide dust labeled for use against carpenter bees into each hole. Do this in early spring when you first spot the bees flying about, or in late summer, when the adult bees emerge. Wait a week after you apply the insecticide so there’s time for the bees to come in contact with it, then plug the holes with wood putty or stainless steel wool. Another solution is to remove and replace all boards that the bees have infested. Do this during the summer, when the larvae are within the boards. In the spring, there’s too much risk that the adults will already be out and about. Carpenter bees are considered “solitary bees” because they don’t create the elaborate social structure of a hive. But generations do go back to where they were born. It’s common for offspring to extend branch tunnels from ones that their mother created. So the trick is to wipe out an entire generation fixated on your trellis. Once you’ve gotten rid of the bees and restored the trellis, consider painting the wood. Carpenter bees are much less likely to tunnel into wood that’s painted or varnished. Soft, weathered wood is a lot easier to chew. **We intend a move to Santa Fe, N.M., and want to take pieces of furniture, including some antiques, that have spent their life on the humid East Coast. We’ve had friends tell us that wood furniture that’s not used to New Mexico’s arid conditions will split and warp. Are we doomed? Should we sell everything and start over, or is there anything we can do (besides running humidifiers all the time)?** **Vienna** **** You’re wise to be concerned. Wood continues to expand and contract as it absorbs or dries in response to humidity, no matter how long ago it was crafted into furniture. In the Washington area, the air is naturally quite humid, with average humidity of 83 percent in the morning and 55 percent in the afternoon. In Santa Fe, the air is dry, dry, dry. The morning average is 45 percent, and the afternoon average is just 18 percent. This means that wood joints that have been intact in your current house are likely to spring open as the wood shrinks once you move. “Tell them that if they have a grand piano or any really valuable veneer pieces, to not bring them,” Ray Herrera, owner of Ray Herrera Antique Repairing in Santa Fe (505-983-2379), said when told of your questions. “Or bring them and then I’ll have work!” He said he has heard horror stories of grand pianos popping in the middle of the night as joinery came loose. “Everything’s going to dry out,” he said. “Every chair, every joint.” There are only two alternatives for people who want to bring wooden furniture with them to Santa Fe, he said. Run humidifiers, or take pieces with loose joints to someone like him. Often, it’s just a matter of regluing the joints. But that involves disassembling the pieces, cleaning off the old glue and then applying fresh glue and clamps. To reglue a typical wooden chair, Herrera charges $150. If other repairs need to be done, that’s extra. Given that it costs a lot to haul furniture across the country and that existing furniture doesn’t always work out in a new house, you’re probably best off selling it now and buying replacements after you move, except perhaps for a few pieces that mean a lot to you. **Have a problem in your home?** Send questions to  localliving@washpost.com . Put “How To” in the subject line, tell us where you live and try to include a photo. ■ ** The Checklist  **Read Jeann e Huber’s roundup of home-improvement tasks you should tackle in July, such as clipping back branches and taking inventory of valuables, at washingtonpost.com/home.

Polar vortex chill exterminated 95 percent of stink bugs in Va. Tech experiment

This spring, you may see and smell fewer of those foul stink bug pests, and you can thank the polar vortex. The punishing, prolonged blasts of arctic air this January proved too much for most stinkbugs to overcome according to Virginia Tech field researchers. Each fall, Virginia Tech entomology professor Thomas Kuhar and his team gather stink bugs that congregate on the outside of buildings.  The stink bugs are put into ventilated 5-gallon buckets filled with foam insulation tubes and then the buckets are stored outside for the winter, under a shelter.  Each bucket contains about 100 stink bugs. The insulated buckets simulated the overwintering locations of stink bugs.  The bucket arrangements also help to keep the bugs in a dormant state of diapause while they await experiments in Kuhar’s Virginia Tech lab. Stink bugs prefer to spend the winter under shingles, in attics, or in the walls of houses and office buildings.   As the temperature falls, the stink bugs change their physiology by increasing their cryoprotectants (antifreeze proteins) to prevent their body fluids from crystallizing.  This helps the bugs survive the winter’s sub-freezing temperatures. The presence of stink bugs in the Washington, D.C. area was confirmed in 2007. From 2007 to 2009, the bugs reproduced rapidly. The stink bugs became a problem in this area in 2010. The bug problem has continued to increase throughout the greater D.C. area in recent years.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Since the stink bug explosion, we’ve not had a severely cold winter to test their overwintering tenacity.  It was not even known if a Mid-Atlantic winter could be cold enough to freeze the bugs.  Stink bugs had survived lab tests where the temperature was reduced to near -20 C (-4 F). Last month, Arctic air intrusions touted by the press as the “Polar Vortex” chilled much of the country. In the Washington area, the temperature dropped to near the same level as the stink bug lab tests, to around zero, but the cold across the area persisted for many days. Some of us stink bug haters wondered if the prolonged arctic freeze would impact the overwintering bugs?    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Two weeks ago, Professor Kuhar pulled out his first set of insulated buckets for stink bug experiments.  Kuhar and his staff found that within the buckets of bugs there was a 95% kill rate from the sustained cold weather that occurred in January in Blacksburg (which is slightly colder than Washington).  The little stinkers had frozen to death!  So, it does appear that the stink bugs have a freezing point. As a result of the high kill rate, Kuhar concluded, “There should be significant mortality of BMSB (brown marmorated stink bugs) and many other overwinter insects this year.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Will there be a noticeable drop in the stink bug numbers this spring? Will there be less crop-related problems from stink bugs during the 2014 growing season? Will we see less stink bugs trying to hibernate in our homes next fall? If we have another strong Polar Vortex chill, will it further reduce the stink bug numbers this year? Only time will tell – but these initial test results are promising.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Have you noticed less stink bug activity in your home or office after the cold blasts that occurred in January?  Let us know your observations. Related: The unintentional beauty of the polar vortex    *[WSU]: Wayne State University It’s stink bug season again: how bad are they where you live?    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Stink bug season 2011-12    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Stink bugs emerge from hibernation    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Stink bug meets spider    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Will the Winter’s volatile weather kill off the stink bugs?    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Traps for fighting the inevitable stink bug invasion    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Stink bug weather and tips for keeping them out    *[WSU]: Wayne State University

A bugged life: Warm winter could mean more insects

This eerily warm winter might soon get creepy. Awakened from hibernation underground, in rotting wood and the cracks of your house, bugs are on the rise. Ants, termites, mosquitoes, ladybugs and ticks are up early and looking for breakfast. Orkin, the pest control company, recently said its agents nationwide are reporting a 30 percent increase in calls to treat ant infestations compared with this time last year. Termite swarms do not normally show up until the end of March, but Orkin received 85 termite-control calls in February. An Orkin branch in Montgomery County, which serves the District, has already responded to mosquito sightings this year. And the National Pest Management Association, based in Fairfax, issued an early warning of ticks, possibly carrying Lyme disease, lurking in back yards. County agricultural extension agents across the country are sending out bug alerts to farmers. “These things are coldblooded,” said Mike Raupp, a professor of entomology at the University of Maryland. “Whenever we have a warm winter, they’re going to be out earlier. How do you stop them? You pray for cold weather.” A mild winter is not great for all bugs, including some highly beneficial insects. Some were up and about when they should have been idle and hibernating, burning less energy, experts say. When this happens, they gobble the food they stored for the winter and emerge into a world where food is scarce. Many starve. Honeybees are a perfect example. Beekeepers say the insect was probably more active this winter, one of the warmest on record . Several beekeepers said they put sugar water or water mixed with syrup near their hives, worried that queens became active in warm weather and started pumping out thousands of eggs a day. The situation is more dire because, in much of the country, there was little snow and rain this winter. That means spring flowers may not produce the quantities of nectar needed to feed the workers and the young, and colonies will be more dependent on depleted stores of honey, pollen and water. “I’m personally concerned that if we don’t get moisture, and have a dry year like we did last year, or even worse, it could be real interesting,” said Brian Royal, owner of Royal Bee Supply in Norman, Okla. “We need some rain. If everything’s dried up, they can’t run down to the local McDonald’s and get something. They’re just out of luck.” Bee populations, especially colonies of wild bees, are already in trouble, having been devastated by a mysterious parasite. Weather-related stresses make a bad situation worse. Hives of 40,000 to 60,000 domesticated bees often respond to food shortages by slowing egg production, Royal said, which means there will be fewer bees to build honey stores for the next winter. “It’s a domino effect,” Royal said of the damage that can done by a winter during which it “seems like everything is running a month ahead of schedule.” “My peach trees are in full bloom right now,” he said. “They bloom . . . it pulls moisture up . . . it goes to the flower . . . the flowers produce more nectar. But if it’s dry, they can’t make something out of nothing.” The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported last month that “warmer-than-average temperatures were widespread across the 48 contiguous states during January. Nine states — including Kansas, Minnesota and the Dakotas — had January temperatures ranked among their 10 warmest. “I don’t want to make any big pronouncements about climate, but there’s a pretty good indication this world is warming,” said Raupp, the Maryland professor. “Pests that were found only in the southern region are moving into the northern region. You’re seeing this penetration.” ****For farmers, pesticide costs can become terribly expensive, Raupp said, “if you have aphids or spider mites cranking through extra generations. For pests with faster generation times, the hotter it is the more they develop.” Aphids and psyllids, also called place lice, are among the pests that plague farmers. Aphids are a big problem because, when feeding, they can transmit a pathogen that destroys vegetables, said Eric Natwick, an entomology farm adviser for the University of California’s Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Tomato psyllids — lightning fast and tremendous jumpers, for their size — are also showing up this year in California’s Imperial Valley, where Natwick works. The psyllids tend to infest produce in California’s Coachella Valley, across a desert from the Imperial, but “when I see them here, it’s unusual,” he said. In urban areas, termites are waking up inside houses, and a homeowner who spots them has a problem. “If you notice termites in your house, you’re only going to notice [them] if there’s a swarm,” said Greg Baumann, vice president of training and technical services at Orkin. Insects have the upper hand when it comes to survival of the species. “Always bet on the bug. They’ve been around for millions of years,” said Baumann, who lives near Atlanta. Reports of early tick activity have been received from the East Coast to the Midwest, said Missy Henriksen, vice president of public affairs for the National Pest Management Association. Vermont is no exception, according to State Entomologist Jon Turmel. “I would say, based upon the temperature and the weather, there’s a really good survival rates for ticks, and they’re out a lot earlier,” Turmel remarked. And ticks, which are arachnids, not insects, carry Lyme disease. Turmel said: “Lyme disease is just starting to get a good hold here. I want to precaution turkey hunters out in the spring to really watch out for these populations because they survive just fine. But that’s just my speculation.” ****Turmel sounded one positive note about the war against pests such as aphids and destructive caterpillars. If they’re developing quickly in warm weather, so are bugs that eat them, such as the green lacewing. “They’re an excellent predator,” he said.

It’s stink bug season again: how bad are they where you live? (POLL)

The cicadas are long gone but the 2013-14 stink bug season is now upon us.  Summer has transitioned to autumn which has sent stink bugs scurrying to hibernate inside of the walls and attics of our homes, apartments, and office buildings. When we get warm spells of weather, like during the past week, the stink bugs become active and emerge into the living spaces of homes.  During cooler weather, the bugs settle down and don’t move around as much.  It’s an ugly cycle that continues through the winter months as we experience thaws and freezes. If you’re one of the unfortunate stink bug sufferers like me, you may have noticed the correlation of warm-ups and stink bug activity.  Basically, warm fall and winter weather equates to more stink bugs buzzing around our dwellings. The stink bug continues to spread across the eastern United States from its first sighting in Allentown, Pennsylvania 15 years ago. Ohio is suffering as much as the Washington area and stink bugs have moved into North Carolina. The bugs have even spread across Long Island. Entomologists are stating that stink bugs will be with us for many years to come.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Recent stink bug reports from exterminating companies like HomeTeam Pest Defense indicate the stink bug issue is particularly bad in the counties west of D.C. I have a friend who lives near Front Royal and he confirmed the report and said the bugs have swarmed into his garage by the dozens during the past two weeks.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University I thought it would be interesting to poll our readers to see which area in the Washington region has the worst stink bug problems.  I divided a map into west, central, and east zones.  Check the map for your zone and take the poll below.  Let’s see which area has the biggest bug issue. Stink bug zone poll – refer to zone map above to determine which poll to take:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Stink bugs harm crops but they are harmless to people.  The bugs are easy to catch and they don’t bite.  For most people, the bugs are a nuisance because they buzz around the house and crash into walls.  If you sit still, they will even land on you.  Throw in the fact that the bug is ugly and smelly, it ranks near the top on the home pest list. Stink bugs seem to prefer light colored homes, but there are plenty of examples of dark-colored homes with stink bugs.  Landscape lighting and gardens also attract the bugs. When the weather cools and the days shorten, the bugs will seek out houses and find windows, doors, eaves, and soffits to use as portals of entry.  It’s amazing how the stink bug can squeeze through closed windows and extremely narrow gaps. I have found the best prevention for stink bugs is to seal and weatherstrip windows and doors, and caulk around wall fixtures that have gaps which provide an opening into the living area of a house.  It’s a lot of work, but the effort can dramatically reduce the number of bugs that find their way into your living room, kitchen, or bedroom this fall and winter. Related: Stink bug season 2011-12    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Stink bug meets spider    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Will the Winter’s volatile weather kill of the stink bugs?    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Traps for fighting the inevitable stink bug invasion    *[WSU]: Wayne State University

Stink bugs could mount a comeback this spring in the Washington area

After a relative reprieve from the scourge of the brown marmorated stink bug — the infamous pest known for devastating crops and emitting a pungent odor when crushed or irritated — experts caution that it will likely make a reappearance in the Washington area this year. The comeback would come two years after many farmers throughout the Mid-Atlantic states saw their crops extensively damaged by swarms of the brown, shield-shaped insects. The stink bugs, known to feed on more than 300 varieties of host plants, resulted in about $37 million in losses from damage to apple crops alone in 2010; crops of raspberries and blackberries were also ravaged, and many organic farmers saw significant damage to crops of tomatoes, peppers and beans, experts reported. Lawmakers, entomologists and the agricultural community scrambled for a solution to a problem that was only expected to worsen. The Environmental Protection Agency in 2011 approved an exemption for a highly toxic insecticide to help growers fight the insects. Homeowners braced themselves for the unwelcome presence of the bugs, which seek sheltered places — such as houses, garages and barns — to hibernate for the winter. Farmers prepared for another year of battle in their fields, orchards and vineyards. But then scientists and farmers alike noticed a sudden and dramatic decrease in the number of stink bugs during the fall of 2011. ****Entomologists are still unsure how to explain the change. It’s possible, they said, that a succession of strong storms late that summer culled the population. **** “Just when it was getting really bad, it started getting better,” said Doug Fabbioli, a fruit grower and winemaker who owns Fabbioli Cellars in Leesburg. ****************But now, scientists caution, the insects appear to be resurgent. Christopher Bergh, a Virginia Tech associate professor of entomology, said the overwintering population of bugs this past fall was “substantially larger” than that observed in 2011. “I don’t want to raise any red flags unnecessarily,” he said. “But growers are going to definitely need to remain vigilant starting in the 2013 season.” Bergh said the early arrival of spring last year also helped farmers and growers avoid the worst of the bugs; many early-season crops got a head start on the insects, which then emerged in smaller numbers. “There was less opportunity for them to do damage,” he said. But Tracy Leskey, a research entomologist with the Agriculture Department, said the reduced population of bugs “essentially rebounded over the course of the growing season” last year, and homeowners saw far more bugs come inside to spend the winter than they did the year before. “We have been trapping in the late season, and we know the populations are probably at least 60 percent greater this year compared to [2011],” she said. “If they survive over the winter, there will be many more bugs in the spring.” At Butler’s Orchard in Germantown, co-owner Wade Butler said he and other employees discovered swarms of the insects recently while working in one of the farm’s open barns. “Between two boards or two pieces of wood, you’d see a couple of hundred stink bugs there,” he said. “It was kind of surprising.” Still, he said, he was “cautiously optimistic” that the coming year might not be so terrible. “The numbers came back up some [in the fall], but we were better prepared to meet that challenge,” he said. Fabbioli, the Leesburg vintner, said he noticed a large number of second-generation, young bugs in the autumn, a shift from the previous year. “We may be having some trouble [this year],” he said. “I hope they’re wrong, but it definitely was more this fall — not as far as the damage to the fruit, but just visually, how many bugs you saw.” As residents, farmers and growers have welcomed the respite from the stink bugs, entomologists have been busy continuing their researching, Leskey said. Much about the bugs is still unknown, and scientists are eager to better understand the environmental conditions and natural predators that might affect the insect’s population. “We are finding that there are a number of different predators and parasites that are attacking them, and it varies according to the different crops and landscapes,” Leskey said. Despite the progress of ongoing research, Bergh said, the region is “not out of the woods.” “We don’t see any pronounced indications of natural enemies suppressing brown marmorated stink bug populations as effectively as we would need to breathe a sigh of relief,” he said. Leskey noted one hopeful development: Within the past year, scientists have identified and synthesized a pheromone emitted by the bug. Traps baited with the synthetic compound serve as an effective lure, allowing scientists and farmers to better detect their presence, she said. “That tells growers that the bugs are in the area. It’s an early warning tool, so they know that they need to make management decisions” such as whether to apply insecticides, she said. Beyond serving as a warning system for farmers, Leskey said identifying the pheromone will also let entomologists more effectively track the population, movement and activity of stink bugs throughout the season — opening the door to a deeper understanding of the insects and how to control them. “We’ll start to be able to look at their seasonal patterns and better understand what they’re doing,” she said. “It’s a really exciting development.”

Trees know when deer are eating them — and how to fight back

Picture the woods in early spring — the misty, pale green appearance of trees just starting to sprout, the young deer munching their way across the sun-dappled forest floor. But behind that placid exterior, a battle of wits is raging. And despite not having a brain or any central nervous system to speak of, the trees are pretty wily.  The stakes are high for young trees. If they can head off the threat from deer early, the saplings have a chance of catching up with their unbitten peers and making it to adulthood. But too much nibbling will make the trees stunted, or condemn them to death.  But the trees studied in Leipzig seemed able to recognize specific threats, and tailor their response accordingly. When a roe deer was eating their branches, the trees released a second set of chemicals: first the hormone salicylic acid, then bitter chemicals called tannins. The salicylic acid boosts protein production, allowing the trees to regrow what was lost, and the tannins make the trees distasteful to deer, which prevents further snacking. "On the other hand, if a leaf or a bud snaps off without a roe deer being involved, the tree stimulates neither its production of the salicylic acid signal hormone nor the tannic substances. Instead, it predominantly produces wound hormones," Bettina Ohse, lead author of the study, explained in a statement. To test whether this was truly a tailored response to a roe deer threat, the scientists in Leipzig attempted do some outsmarting of their own. They simulated roe deer snacking by clipping the trees, then trickling deer saliva onto the broken branches with a tiny pipette. The fake deer attack sparked the same defensive response as an actual bite from a deer, suggesting to the scientists that deer are able to recognize deer saliva and respond to it. Now, Ohse and her team are performing the experiment on other tree species, to see whether some have better defensive mechanisms than others. Keep that in mind the next time you consider matching wits with a tree.

Picture the woods in early spring — the misty, pale green appearance of trees just starting to sprout, the young deer munching their way across the sun-dappled forest floor. But behind that placid exterior, a battle of wits is raging. And despite not having a brain or any central nervous system to speak of, the trees are pretty wily.  The stakes are high for young trees. If they can head off the threat from deer early, the saplings have a chance of catching up with their unbitten peers and making it to adulthood. But too much nibbling will make the trees stunted, or condemn them to death.  But the trees studied in Leipzig seemed able to recognize specific threats, and tailor their response accordingly. When a roe deer was eating their branches, the trees released a second set of chemicals: first the hormone salicylic acid, then bitter chemicals called tannins. The salicylic acid boosts protein production, allowing the trees to regrow what was lost, and the tannins make the trees distasteful to deer, which prevents further snacking. "On the other hand, if a leaf or a bud snaps off without a roe deer being involved, the tree stimulates neither its production of the salicylic acid signal hormone nor the tannic substances. Instead, it predominantly produces wound hormones," Bettina Ohse, lead author of the study, explained in a statement. To test whether this was truly a tailored response to a roe deer threat, the scientists in Leipzig attempted do some outsmarting of their own. They simulated roe deer snacking by clipping the trees, then trickling deer saliva onto the broken branches with a tiny pipette. The fake deer attack sparked the same defensive response as an actual bite from a deer, suggesting to the scientists that trees are able to recognize deer saliva and respond to it. Now, Ohse and her team are performing the experiment on other tree species, to see whether some have better defensive mechanisms than others. Keep that in mind the next time you consider matching wits with a tree.

Seal out pests, but don’t kill them

I must take exception to The Post’s misguided advice on how to “ward off pests” during winter preparations [“Don’t get left out in the cold when it comes to winter planning,” Local Living, Oct. 27]. Spraying insecticide and putting out mousetraps are ultimately pointless and cause unnecessary suffering and death for small creatures who mean us no harm. Insects will get in no matter what you do, and spiders are actually beneficial because they eat other bugs. Mice can be destructive, but the better approach is to keep them out by sealing potential access points around a home’s ground level. Random application of poisons and traps is also dangerous for other animals who normally stay outside. Is it really necessary for us to simply kill everything that might be bothersome? ****Eric Wenocur** , Olney**

Stink bugs migrating to the Deep South

On the front line of the brown marmorated stink bug invasion, Doug Inkley was overrun. Over nine months last year, he counted, bug by bug, 56,205 in his house and garden. They were everywhere. “I literally have made homemade chili and had to throw it out because there were stink bugs in it,” said Inkley, who lives in Knoxville, Md., near the West Virginia border. “I have had people refuse to come over for dinner because they knew about my stink bug problem.” Maybe now, they’ll come over. Entomologists say the population of this invasive species from Asia appears to have cratered in the Mid-Atlantic. Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee caused flooding, drowning stink bugs and snuffing out nymphs before they could develop. But there is also bad news. The bugs have marched to the Deep South. Recently they were detected in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, where farmers grow juicy vegetable and citrus crops the bugs are known to destroy. It gets worse. Another type of Asian stink bug has established itself in Georgia. It eats invasive Asian kudzu, a good thing. But the kudzu bug also eats soybeans and other lucrative Georgia legumes. On a working trip to Atlanta last week, Inkley, a senior scientist for the National Wildlife Federation, saw them flying about, attaching to walls by the hundreds. “Here we go again,” he said. Stink bugs come in a wide variety. Many are native to the United States, where prey insects keep them in check. Brown marmorated stink bugs native to China were first discovered in Allentown, Pa., in 1998, likely after crawling out of a cargo ship. Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland, especially where Inkley lives, were particularly hard hit, for reasons entomologists have not figured out. So far, the pest has been detected or established in the District and 36 states, a dozen more than last year. Detected means that they’ve been observed and confirmed through lab testing, as opposed to established, which means that they have slipped into homes by the hundreds and ravaged food crops by the thousands. In the Mid-Atlantic region, where brown marmorated stink bugs are well established, they caused an estimated $37 million in damage in apple crops alone in 2010, the most recent year for which data are available. Some farmers in Maryland said they ruined a third of their peach crop and half of their raspberries last year. That’s nothing compared with what the warmth-loving bug might do in the Sunshine State, said Douglas G. Luster, research leader for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service. “It could be like the atomic bomb going off,” he said in an interview last year, implying that the population might explode. “There is great fear that if the brown marmorated stink bug gets established in Florida, it will do a lot of damage,” Denise Feiber, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, said Thursday. Florida is testing a non-stinging parasitic wasp from Asia, a natural stink bug predator that entomologists might unleash in October, if necessary, Feiber said. The USDA Agricultural Research Center has tested for more than a year a similar wasp that preys on stink bug eggs but has delayed its release for fear that it, too, could become an invasive pest. The so-called kudzu bug was first spotted in Georgia in 2009. Back then, state entomologists had to search kudzu patches repeatedly for a sign of the insect. But as female bugs lay eggs, with no natural predator, the population exploded in two years, making them easy to sweep into butterfly nets by the thousands. Kudzu bugs are now established in 143 Georgia counties, 42 counties in North Carolina and five in Alabama, according to the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. For a while, they appeared to be a kind of welcome pest. Kudzu bugs, from Japan, chomped on Asian kudzu, reducing growth of the vine by up to 50 percent, said Dan Suiter, an associate professor of entomology at the University of Georgia. But as it turned out, the bug had a taste for other legumes, such as soybeans. It migrates from kudzu in spring to soybean in July, reducing yields by about 20 percent for two years and costing farmers millions of dollars. On top of that, the bugs are really annoying. “They’re a general nuisance,” Suiter said. “I was just driving home yesterday and had one in my vehicle. They fly very well. We’ve found it on the 40th floor of high rises. When we first found it in 2009, they covered 2,500 square miles in the area. Their known distribution as of last fall is 108,000 square miles.” With kudzu bugs limited for now to a smaller area, brown marmorated stink bugs, which, like kudzu bugs, give off a foul bittersweet odor like rotten cilantro when threatened, get the lion’s share of attention from entomologists. Tracy Leskey, a research entomologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said entomologists can’t stop stink bugs, but they can slow them down. The USDA research program and its academic partners received a $5.7 million grant, allowing them to watch the bugs’ every move. So far they’ve learned that males emit a scent that attracts both sexes, a possible signal that they’ve found food or they want to mate. Entomologist want to use that to trap them, or “attract and kill,” as she put it. Entomologists have found stink bugs in woods, in dead trees, under vegetation, “dispersed across the landscape,” Leskey said. “We have to think about a landscape-level solution.” Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee weren’t what she had in mind, but they turned out to be a landscape solution. “There appears to be a reduction in the late-season population,” Leskey said. Inkley, who vacuums the bugs up and collects them for science, counted only 3,000 in his attic this year, enough to make most people’s skin crawl. “I feel like I’m living in heaven, relatively speaking,” he said. But with a mild winter blending into spring, stink bugs are returning. On a recent warm night, Inkley said he felt tiny legs crawling on his back. He knew right away what was up. “Any warm day, they come crawling out,” he said.

Can insects go from pests to popular snack foods?

They hop. They crawl. They squirm. And they could be coming to a dinner plate near you. An increasing number of “entopreneurs” are launching businesses to feed a growing appetite for crickets, mealworms and other edible insects. (“Ento” comes from the Greek word for insect.) These upstarts are trying to persuade more Americans to eat bugs, which can be produced with less land, food and water than other sources of animal protein. The United Nations has been promoting edible insects as a way to improve nutrition, reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and create jobs in insect production. At least 2 billion people worldwide already eat insects as part of their diet, according to the 2013 report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. But it could be a tough sell for Westerners, who are more likely to squash bugs than savor them. “Insects are viewed as what ruins food — a roach in your soup, a fly in your salad. That’s the biggest obstacle — the ick factor,” said Daniella Martin, the “Girl Meets Bug” blogger and author of “Edible: An Adventure Into the World of Eating Insects and the Last Great Hope to Save the Planet.” Inside San Francisco’s La Cocina, a commercial kitchen for food entrepreneurs, Monica Martinez empties hundreds of live mealworms, each about two inches long, into a plastic container. She uses chopsticks to pull out dead ones before pouring the squirming critters on a tray and sliding them into an oven. Martinez started Don Bugito PreHispanic Snackeria to entice American consumers with treats inspired by popular snacks in her native Mexico. Among her specialties are spicy superworms and chocolate-covered, salted crickets. “The idea is to offer another type of protein into the food market,” said Martinez, an artist and industrial designer who launched Don Bugito as a street food project in 2011. “The biggest job that we have to do is to try to get more people to try our foods.” Don Bugito snacks are sold online or at a La Cocina kiosk in San Francisco’s Ferry Building, where retail workers recently offered free samples of chocolate-covered crickets and spicy superworms. “No!” said a young boy when asked to try one. But more adventurous eaters gave them a try. “It doesn’t really taste like a bug. It tastes like crunchy spices,” said Leslie Foreman, who sampled a chili-lime cricket. “I’m not sure this is going to be my everyday snack, but I think it’s fun and I think it’s cool.” Across San Francisco Bay inside at a kitchen in Berkeley, Megan Miller and her assistants shape clumps of orange-ginger cookie dough, carefully arrange them up on a tray and slip them in an oven. The key ingredient: flour made from ground-up crickets. Miller’s start-up, Bitty Foods, sells its cricket-based cookies and baked goods online and at upscale grocery stores. Many of its customers are moms looking for a healthful snack for their kids. “We like to say our cookies have twice the protein and half the sugar of a regular cookie,” said Miller, a former journalist and tech entrepreneur. Miller said insects have a “branding problem,” so she’s trying to change people’s minds and palates by mixing them into familiar foods in attractive packaging. “We’re going to see people start trying insects in a powdered form — incorporated into foods so they’re invisible — before people are going to make the leap to eating whole insects,” Miller said. Big Cricket Farms, one of only a handful of North American companies producing crickets for people to eat, is struggling to meet fast-growing demand for the chirping insects, said Kevin Bachhuber, who launched the warehouse farm in Youngstown, Ohio, last year after getting his first taste of bugs in Thailand. Bachhuber’s start-up currently produces about 8,000 pounds of crickets a month. He hopes to increase capacity to 25,000 pounds per month, but still doesn’t think that will be enough to meet demand from restaurants and health food makers. “We’re constantly slammed by orders. We simply can’t keep up,” said Bachhuber, a Wisconsin native who’s had a long interest in urban farming. “The speed at which people have been willing to eat bugs is crazy. It’s cool.” Oakland-based Tiny Farms is trying to address supply crunch by developing more efficient ways to mass-produce crickets and other bugs. It eventually wants to create a large network of insect farms to supply food makers such as Don Bugito and Bitty Foods. “The goal is basically to make it easier and cheaper to produce industrial-scale volumes of insects that can be used in food products,” said Daniel Imrie-Situnayake, a software engineer turned entopreneur. “We’re really just scraping the surface in terms of figuring out what the potential is for insects to be part of our food system.” ** — Associated Press  **

It’s mouse season in the D.C. area. Here’s what to do if one invades your apartment.

As the weather turns cold, residents around the region may discover uninvited houseguests bunking down for the winter. And droppings are often the first sign. Mice are prolific defecators and can take bathroom breaks up to 80 times a day, according to Chris Sexton, a service manager for Orkin Pest Control in Northern Virginia. “Every time they stop, they drop,” he says. However, even if you haven’t seen any droppings around your home, it is still worthwhile to assess your readiness to repel these tiny invaders. “This is our time of year for rodents when things start ramping up,” Sexton says. “Their food sources start getting scarce, insects start dying off, their grasses that they usually burrow into for cover are dying off, and they start looking for indoor shelter that’s more suitable for them to get through the winter.”   Mice can feed off a variety of different food sources, so keeping a clean home free of spills and unattended food will help. “Sanitation is pest control. If a mouse or any other rodent doesn’t have food, they will move on,” says Brown. He recommends keeping pantry staples in hard containers, rather than in bags that mice can chew through. Uneaten pet food is another rodent favorite, so clean up your pet’s leftover kibble and feces.    If the landlord is not providing extermination, you have the option to contact the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. “The DCRA will send out a housing inspector who can take a look and see if there is in fact evidence of rodents,” says Matt Orlins of the DCRA. “And then we can go ahead and issue a citation.” If the problem isn’t resolved, the DCRA could issue a fine. A tenant could also seek civil damages or a rent abatement.  When it comes to setting the trap, the type of bait you use matters. “If you have peanut butter or cheese, a rodent can lick it off without the trap triggering,” Brown says. “But if you have cooked chicken or a piece of Slim Jim, then they have to pull on it, and then trigger the trap.” Sexton recommends using traps instead of poison. “With a trap, you can find a dead body and get rid of it, so you don’t have to deal with a smell in a wall or in a ceiling or attic,” he says. Unfortunately, the cuddliest solution for mice isn’t always foolproof. “I’ve seen pictures that residents have provided that have rats and cats eating out of the same bowl at the same time,” Brown says. “I don’t think that you can have a rodent control program with cats.”

Cyborg cockroaches can hear you call and scurry to the rescue

Researchers at North Carolina State University have figured out how to make cyborg cockroaches -- or biobots, as they call them -- pick up sound and seek out its source. So one day, the first responders to a rubble-filled disaster scene might be rescue roaches.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Cyborg cockroaches aren't new: They came on the scene a few years ago, with DIY enthusiasts jumping to create their own remote-controlled bugs. It's not all that difficult to perform the necessary surgery and hook a roach up to a computerized backpack.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico But while some people find it fun to steer a cockroach around, the obvious application is in search-and-rescue: Cockroaches are tiny and resilient, perfect for getting through the nooks and crannies of a disaster zone. If rescue workers can control them and have them carry mics and cameras, they can be used to track down survivors. This work, published in IEEE Sensors, is a great step in that direction. The researchers equipped their latest biobots with an array of microphones, which together can detect the direction of a sound and steer the biobot toward it. Right now, the microphones pick up any sound at all -- whether or not it's important. The next step is teaching the system to pick out important noises, like human voices. There's a long way to go, but rescue roaches are certainly on the horizon. Maybe one day we'll associate the bugs with hope instead of dirty bathrooms.

No one knows squirrels better than the people who trap and remove them

Squirrels, **John Adcock Jr**. says, are very adept at breaking and entering. “They carry around the keys to your house in the front of their mouth,” said Adcock, of Adcock’s Trapping Service, headquartered in College Park. “Their teeth are more than capable of eating your roof, knocking a hole in it in about 45 minutes to an hour.” This is the thorn in the rose that is Squirrel Week. This is the ugly underbelly of squirrels. They may look cute when they’re flitting from tree to tree like circus acrobats. They are not so cute when they have chewed a hole in your soffit, birthed a litter of babies in your attic, then burned your house down after gnawing on a live wire. Of course, if they didn’t do those things, John Adcock wouldn’t have a job. “We’ve probably trapped close to 100,000 squirrels in the D.C. metro area — or probably more than that — over the past 40 years,” said John, 51. “I’ve been doing it since I was a little kid.” John is the son of **John Adcock Sr.** , who founded the wildlife removal company in the 1960s. Early on, Senior’s customers were farmers eager to rid their fields and orchards of crop-eating animals. As our area became more suburban, his client base evolved into homeowners. Like any trapper, Adcock’s company deals with all sorts of animals — snakes, bats, rats — but squirrels are the reason for most of the calls they get, both eastern gray and flying. John Jr. is well versed in their behavior, the noise they make (“like a bowling tournament in your attic”) and the caution with which they must be approached. “You’ve got to know when to hold them and know when to fold them,” he said. “When you’ve got a bad handle on a squirrel, it’s safer to release them.” In the old days, his employees wore leather welder’s gloves, which weren’t enough to prevent broken skin from an angry squirrel’s incisor. Today they use Kevlar gloves. Adcock said most of the squirrels he traps are driven to a location 10 to 20 miles away to be released. That isn’t the case everywhere in the United States, said **Stephen Vantassel** of the Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Some jurisdictions insist that home-invading squirrels either be let loose near the house from which they were taken — it’s too cruel to take them miles away — or euthanized. Squirrels — and what to do with them — can cause heated disputes. “You have some people who say kill them all and let God sort them out,” Vantassel said. “Then other groups say every animal is sacred. I’m in the middle. There are places where you need to manage populations and control their damage, but we need to protect the species from being exterminated. To me it’s a species level, not an individual animal level.” Before entering academia, Vantassel ran a trapping service in Springfield, Mass. “I love squirrels,” he said. “That was half my business. I slow down for them.” Vantassel said it’s relatively simple to prevent squirrel damage. “But Americans don’t believe in prevention,” he groused. “We don’t do anything until there’s a crisis.” The first order of business is to make sure that if you have a birdfeeder it’s modified to prevent squirrel access. Feeding squirrels causes populations to rise, Vantassel said, producing larger litters. “Those squirrels have to go somewhere,” he said. “A warm house beats a tree any day of the week.” And homeowners should make sure their dwellings are squirrel-tight, with no holes or cavities. Screen vents and install high-quality chimney caps. He also recommends cutting trees back from the house. Vantassel has often pondered the uncomfortable place the wildlife trapper occupies in the American psyche. He thinks that as animals have been “Disneyfied,” the people who catch — and, yes, sometimes kill — them have been vilified. “This is the Pied Piper problem,” Vantassel said. “The Pied Piper was popular until the rats were gone. Once the rats were gone the Pied Piper was history. And this is one reason why the wildlife control industry does not get respect, because once the problem is over we’re a memory. People don’t want to think about us anymore. When we deal with wildlife damage we remind people of their own mortality. “Everyone knows that we’re needed, but no one loves us. They’re not gonna invite us to the party, not going to make us heroes. We do what they don’t want to deal with.” Sobering stuff. It reminded me of **Jack Nicholson’s** speech in “A Few Good Men,” or a version of it: “Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have holes. And through those holes come small mammals. Those walls need to be guarded by men with traps. Who’s gonna do it? _You?_ . . . You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. “Squirrels? _You can’t handle the squirrels!_ ” Twitter: @johnkelly For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/johnkelly.

Stink bug 2014: Did last winter’s hard freeze reduce the number of stink bugs? (POLL)

Did the extreme cold weather from last winter kill off a large number of stink bugs in the Washington area?  Are there fewer stink bugs inside your home this fall as a result of a last winter’s hard freeze?  Or, conversely, are the stink bugs that are currently crawling on your walls greater in number than last year?  We have a poll below for your input. Last winter, arctic air intrusions, touted as the “Polar Vortex,” chilled much of the country. In the Washington area, the temperature dropped to near zero and the sub-freezing temperatures persisted for days. Some of us stink bug haters wondered if the prolonged, cold weather killed the overwintering stink bugs in our area.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico By the end of last winter, there was hope that the stink bugs had suffered a hard freeze. In February of 2014, Virginia Tech researchers found that within their test buckets of overwintering stink bugs, there was a 95 percent kill rate from the sustained, cold weather. Most of the Virginia Tech stink bugs had frozen to death.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Fast forward to this December and the stink bugs that survived last winter have now found their overwintering locations.  Stink bugs prefer to spend the season under shingles, in attics, or in the walls of buildings. Often, however, the stink bugs stray inside of our homes, especially during warm spells of weather. This season, did the dreaded stink bugs find their way inside of your home?  If you have a stink bug problem, are they fewer in number than last year, or are they greater in number?  Let us know. [polldaddy poll=8463284]  **Related:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Polar vortex chill exterminated 95 percent of stink bugs in Va. Tech experiment    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The unintentional beauty of the polar vortex    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico It’s stink bug season again: how bad are they where you live?    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Stink bug season 2011-12    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Stink bugs emerge from hibernation    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Stink bug meets Boris the Spider    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Will the Winter’s volatile weather kill off the stink bugs?    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Traps for fighting the inevitable stink bug invasion    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Stink bug weather and tips for keeping them out    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

The next generation of roach traps could harness bacteria from their poop

For cockroaches, the scent of poop is a welcoming one. Roaches actually gather in response to pheromones — scent chemicals that unconsciously drive behavior in many animals — released by their feces. So for those in the roach trap business, harnessing the power of those pheromones is kind of the holy grail. In a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers report that certain gut microbes are necessary to create these inviting bouquets.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The North Carolina State researchers found 40 unique, smelly chemical compounds in roach feces in healthy insects. When they removed gut bacteria from the intestinal tract, 12 of the compounds disappeared and another 24 became scarce. The also found that young cockroaches (called nymphs) were much more attracted to the scent of poop from a healthy gut. [ _Stop naming stars after your loved ones. Name a cockroach after your boo instead._ ]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico "The chemical compounds seem especially essential for nymphs," lead researcher Ayako Wada-Katsumata said in a statement. "It's important for nymphs to determine a safe place, and these pheromones help do just that." Six compounds were found to have a particularly strong effect, encouraging cockroaches to aggregate. It's not the bacteria themselves that make an irresistible siren call, but they do produce fatty acids that help create pheromones in cockroach poo. If scientists can get a good handle on how that process works — and which scents are the most difficult to resist — they could make a roach motel that any insect would die to check in to. **Read More:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico This beetle’s butt is basically a machine gun    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Bees naturally vaccinate their babies, scientists find    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico This brilliant plant pretends to be poop    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Say hello to the dementor wasp. It turns cockroaches into zombies.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Scientists use Obsession for Men to lure reclusive jaguars; what might it do for you?

Researchers studying elusive, nocturnal animals often use camera traps, which are triggered when the creature comes close to them. So what’s the best way to get these animals to come close enough to get a photo or video? According to Scientific American’s The Thoughtful Animal blog, researchers swear by Calvin Klein’s Obsession for Men. Miguel Ordeñana, a biologist with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, who studies the solitary, night-hunting jaguars of Nicaragua, tells the blog that a Bronx Zoo researcher experimented with other scents before happening on the attraction of the Calvin Klein cologne. (A four-ounce bottle sells at Macy’s for $71.) “It has civetone and it has vanilla extract,” Ordeñana told the blog, which pointed out that “civetone is a chemical compound derived from the scent glands of civets, smallish nocturnal cat-like critters native to the Asian and African tropics, and it’s one of the world’s oldest perfume ingredients.” (Modern scentmakers often use synthetic versions of civetone.) According to Ordeñana, “What we think is that the civetone resembles some sort of territorial marking to the jaguar, and so it responds by rubbing its own scent on it,” which gets the jaguars to trigger the camera. And the vanilla? It might prompt the cat’s curiosity. This is important, the blog points out, because camera traps “help researchers collect evidence of rare species or rare behaviors, as was demonstrated last week when a camera trap captured shocking images of a golden eagle attacking a sika deer. Or they could help researchers come face to face with an animal that might otherwise be dangerous or harmful. An array of camera traps is also more cost efficient than paying an army of field assistants to observe animal behavior or to conduct a census.” It’s unclear what relevance this might have for the guy who wears Obsession on a date. But if you’re planning to go on a safari, you might want to leave the scent at home. You know how when you try to cut a straight line with a pair of scissors, the result is wobbly? Even following a line drawn with a ruler usually produces something not good enough for, say, that special Valentine card. And not everybody has a bulky (not to mention scary) paper cutter on hand. Tamas Fekete, a first-year industrial design student in Budapest, came up with a solution: a pair of scissors designed to work with any rectangular tabletop to create a clean, straight cut. After six months of prototyping, blogger Tuan C. Nguyen writes, Fekete’s Vector scissors are ready. They have a thick left handle that rests on the tabletop and a right handle shaped to follow the table’s edge as the user cuts forward. The blades are curved so they don’t scratch the table. They look cool, but you can’t get them . . . yet. “Fekete hasn’t publicly stated how he plans to bring Vector scissors to the mass market, and, as a foreigner, he isn’t allowed to launch a Kickstarter campaign just by himself,” Nguyen writes. “For now, there’s only an official Web site (www.vectorscissors.com) that lets people anxiously awaiting to wrap their fingers around one to sign up for future updates.”

Spider crickets: The bugs you don’t want in your house this fall

The pest goes by many names. I have a friend who calls them mutant spiders. The exterminator at my neighbor’s house calls them criders. The bug is also called spider cricket, spricket, cave cricket and camel cricket. From here forward, I’ll just refer to them as spider crickets. During the summer and fall, spider crickets seek dark and damp places in your basement, family room, shed or crawl space. They often congregate in large numbers. When frightened they jump, often directly at what frightens them.  Don’t bend down for a closer look or you might get a spider cricket in your face.  Spider crickets are voracious eaters. They feast on fungus, fabric, carpets, wood, cardboard, dust, plants and even each other. Their mandibles are very strong, and they can chew through many different household items. Does the spider cricket bite humans? The answer depends on whom you ask. Most sources will answer “no” because the bug’s mandibles are meant for chewing and not inflicting a bite in self-defense. They jump in self-defense. But if a spider cricket lands on your skin, they can start gnawing, which will cause pain. I have a friend who described their gnawing bite as painful. A pet store owner, however, described the bite as an annoyance.    How common are spider crickets? Last week, I polled my friends on Facebook to find out how many of them have experienced this creepy bug. I quickly learned that spider crickets are widespread in our area.  Here are a few of their responses:          A special thanks to my neighbor who has a shed overrun by hundreds of spider crickets. Their shed was my inspiration for this article and also served as my photo studio for the spider cricket close-up shots and video. And, I will note, I was very careful not to bring any of the little buggers home with me.

Watch trap-jaw ants use their mandibles like springboards to jump from danger

If you're an ant, running into an antlion is as a bad as it sounds. But a team of researchers have figured out that one kind of ant, the trap-jaw ant, has a unique way of escaping the burrowing predator's clutches: The ants use their mandibles to jump to safety. Researchers already knew that one species, the _Odontomachus brunneus,_ had particularly powerful jaws that close at an incredible speed. The jaws catch prey, dig in the ground, help to care for larvae, and protect the ant. Researchers knew that, sometimes, the trap-jaws had been known to jump with those jaws, too, presumably in order to escape danger, study co-author Fredrick Larabee said in a statement. "But it was unknown whether this behavior was meant to help them get away from a predator, and it wasn't clear that it actually improved their odds of surviving an encounter with a predator," Larabee said.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico So, does the dramatic jump help? Yes. It doubled the ants' survival rate. Researchers placed trap-jaw ants in a sandy test-field, where an antlion was waiting. Antlions -- larvae of a dragonfly-like flying insect -- dig pits under the sand to form a conical pit of doom that's quite hard for ants to escape. Sometimes an antlion will fling sand at an ant in order to trigger a little avalanche, pushing the ant closer to its death. Here's one failed escape: The ants who were free to jump as they pleased away from the antlion jumped to safety 15 percent of the time, "but when we glued their mandibles shut before dropping them in the pits, they couldn't jump at all. It cut in half their survival rate," Larabee said. Some ants were able to escape by running out of the pit without a jump. Co-author Andrew Suarez described how that jumping works to National Geographic:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Researchers believe that trap-jaw ants evolved their powerful mandibles in order to catch fast prey. And they think the jumping escape might be an example of a feature that evolved for one purpose becoming useful in an entirely different way. "In this case," Larabee said, "a tool that is very good for capturing fast or dangerous prey also is good for another function, which is escape."

Tulip-planting primer

Tulip bulbs can be planted until the ground freezes, but don’t push your luck: Put them in as soon as you have them. If you can’t plant them for a while, keep them in the fridge, not the freezer, but away from fruit and vegetables. Left in damp, warm environments, tulip bulbs will rot. Tulips should be planted deeply, at least seven inches, to thwart squirrels from digging them up. If you are planting many bulbs in open ground, dig a trench with a shovel. If you are setting them among existing plants, you have options. In rich, loamy soil, a sturdy trowel will be sufficient. In poorer, denser soil, one of the best tools is a long-handled bulb planter — a steel tube on a stick — that puts the strong leg muscles to work. Even in established beds, designer Angela Jupe likes to use a narrow spade to dig segments of trenches between the perennials. If you want scores of tulips, this is quicker than digging individual holes, she said. Tulips should be planted three to five inches apart, with the base down and the nose up. Tulips planted in organically rich soil don’t need feeding. In poorer soil, mix in a little bulb food with the soil above the tulips. Avoid letting fertilizer touch the bulbs, and don’t use high-nitrogen feeds. Tulips look great in containers: The larger the pot the better the show and the happier the tulips will be, because temperature fluctuations will be tempered. In smaller containers, use shorter varieties. Give the tulips a good soaking after planting, but make sure the pot drains freely. To thwart squirrels, keep the pot in an unheated shed or garage until the foliage begins to emerge in mid-winter. Water it monthly. When the leaf tips show, move the container into sunlight. Deer love to eat tulips. Repellents might work, but they typically wash off after heavy rain. If you cannot exclude deer, consider planting daffodils and alliums instead. **— Adrian Higgins**

Bring spring indoors with floral furniture and accessories

When everything is coming up roses outside, it shouldn’t still feel like the dead of winter inside. With spring on our doorstep, we went searching for expert advice on decorating with poppies, magnolia branches, wisteria, roses and more in prints and patterns. “We love our gardens in Britain, our English classic country gardens, and the weather doesn’t always allow us to sit in them,” says Suzanne Imre, editor of the design magazine Livingetc. But what’s ephemeral in nature becomes enduring indoors. “Bringing them into the house means we can enjoy that country feel no matter what the weather is.” Imre reports that floral prints are being given a grittiness with bugs and weeds, and modernized through digital printing, oversize blooms, creative cropping, bold colors and, conversely, tone-on-tone colors. Plus, there’s a renewed interest in Britain’s storied archives of Liberty of London fabrics and botanical drawings. For Americans with modern tastes and aversions to feminine furnishings, Washington area designers David Mitchell and Celia Welch suggest adding a touch of softness. “I don’t know anyone who doesn’t enjoy, during the first week of April, getting a big vase of flowers to bring home,” Mitchell says. “There’s a beauty about bringing warmth and nature into your house in the cold winter. A floral fabric would do the same thing.” ● To warm up a modern interior with floral prints without going granny, Welch recommends concentrating your efforts on one statement. Try an accent wall of floral wallpaper, for example, or a bold floral print on a pillow or chair, as on the Lotus Blossom Wingback Chair ($1,398, www.anthropologie.com). ● “I think people shy away from florals because they’re kind of precious — but there’s a new age of florals,” Welch says. Try adding one floral item for some softness, such as this hand-beaded peacock-and-floral Cream Peacock Bench, a traditional piece updated with crisp teal, lime and fuchsia. It would add a flourish to an otherwise streamlined interior ($1,499, www.horchow.com). ● To avoid seeming dated and stuffy, Imre suggests finding patterns that are gritty or unexpected (for instance, flowers that are realistic, bugs and all). She likes this “edgy” print by Renee Garner, the “Unlikely Garden Print” ($30, www.littlepaperplanes.com). “The coolest thing is, the flowers are actually weeds,” she says. ●“ Modern homes can look quite minimal and sleek and very restful on the eye, but sometimes they do need a little bit of personality and pattern, and that’s where florals can come in,” Imre says. For a fresh spring update that requires little commitment, there’s Rifle Paper Co.’s Botanical Coaster Set ($16, www.riflepaperco.com). In peach, rose, vintage blue and peacock blue backgrounds, the set of eight pulp-board coasters features designs reminiscent of the folk art found on the narrow boats that travel the English canals. ●Both Welch and Mitchell like using tone-on-tone floral patterns. “A lot of times you see two-tone florals and they’re black-and-white; they have this graphicness,” Mitchell says. But there’s a lot of beautiful florals that have a tone-on-tone effect” that aren’t black-and-white. For a dramatic statement, Welch picked out the Charlottenberg Porcelain duvet cover from Designers Guild, a company that Imre also loves ($300-$325, www.designersguild.com). ● Mixing floral prints can be tricky. “There’s a fine line between good and what starts to get a little crazy,” Welch says. “Sometimes we say, ‘Here’s the trend, and here’s what you can do, and here’s how to do it,’ but it’s really about what you can live with.” But Farrow & Ball, she says, always gets floral wallpaper right. She suggests the classic English pattern in the company’s Wisteria paper, drawn from 19th-century jacquards ($260 for a 10-meter roll, www.farrowandball.com). Imre is considering a similar monochrome wallpaper from Designers Guild for herbedroom. ● Another way of modernizing a floral print, Imre says, is by finding one that zooms in on the flower, showing only parts. Also, “there’s a big trend at the moment in oversized florals,” she says. Vivienne Westwood, a British design icon, created this cropped, oversize Magnolia Ice Wool & Silk hand-knotted Tibetan rug for the Rug Company ($218 per square foot, www.therugcompany.com). It’s a show-stopping splurge. “I love the super scale of the flowers and the flash of green against the elegant cream,” Imre says. The rug design is also available with a black background (wool only) and available for custom orders. ● After years of black-and-white photography dominating artwork in homes, Imre says we’re ready for something with more life. British designers, especially, are tapping into their rich history of botanical drawings for inspiration. C. Wonder’s gicleé Botanical Wall Art ($118, www. cwonder.com) would lend a natural touch to a salon-style arrangement. ● Thomas Paul’s Botanical Pillow gives a vintage drawing a modern twist. “I like the reference to Victorian botanical drawings reinterpreted in a digitally printed fabric,” Imre says. ($104, www.yliving.com). If a painterly, watercolor floral is more your thing, Imre says to find it in a digitally printed pattern for an update on tradition. “It’s still the techniques and fabrics that [the pattern] is presented on that will make it feel quite new.” ● “Fresh flowers are my favorite way to go,” Welch says. She suggests buying lots of one flower, such as roses or tulips, instead of a mixed arrangement. Four-packs of tulips will make “a large impact,” she says. To make the look even more contemporary, cut the flowers down to fit in a low vase, using stones to anchor the stems in place. For something that lasts a bit longer than a bouquet, Welch likes the Tulip Magnolia Branches from Terrain ($58, www.shopterrain.com). ● Janus et Cie is a source that Welch turns to time and again for accent pieces that are beautiful but “unusual” — especially the company’s pots and vases. She picked out the Ambition vase for its double dose of spring: It displays flowers in sculptural form on the outside, even if it’s not holding live flowers on the inside ($84-$568, www.janusetcie.com). “If there’s a pretty masculine space and you want to soften it a little bit, this is a great way to do it,” she says. ● For a delicate touch on a dresser, nightstand or end table, New Yorker John Derian’s decoupage is a must. Artisans take antique and vintage prints and affix them to handblown glass. The Papaver Pair tray ($145, www.johnderian.com) “showcases florals at their prettiest,” Imre says. “The glass emphasizes the delicate details of the blooms, and the colors are soft and feminine.” ●The exotic bone-inlaid Jaipur Mirror in black “is modern, but it’s also traditional,” Mitchell says. “You could put it in an all-beige room and it would add edge to it.” As with fashion, it’s hard to go wrong with decorating in black and white — but if you already have a vibrant home, there’s no need to gild the lily. “You could put [the mirror] in a colorful room and make all your lampshades black, and that would look great, too,” Mitchell says ($499, also available in gray, www.wisteria.com). **Chat Thursday at 11 a.m. :** Annie Sloan, whose Chalk Paint helped start a furniture -painting revolution, joins staff writer Jura Koncius for our weekly online Q&A; on decorating and household advice. Submit questions at _washingtonpost.com/home_ . **At Home newsletter:** Go to the Home & Garden page to subscribe to our e-mail newsletter, delivered every Thursday. **** Roberts is a freelance writer. She can be reached atlindsey@lindseymroberts.com.

Dealing with furry, unwelcome visitors in your garden

Our Belgian endive row looked lush and healthy, promising a good fall crop for winter eating — except for one plant, whose broad, strap-like leaves had withered. I pulled, and it came up easily, with no resistance. No wonder. Where once a deep taproot had been there was now a deep, narrow cone-shaped hole in the earth. Every trace of root had been consumed. The culprit? Surely a meadow vole, and this seemed a good time of year to assess not only their current plunder in the garden, but also the possibility of future raids. Also known as field mice, these furry creatures are larger than house mice, and brownish rather than gray. Unlike moles, which mess up your lawn with their burrows but ignore vegetable crops, voles will feast on most any edible you grow if they’re hungry enough. They have a sweet tooth, nibbling any strawberries the birds have left for them. Root crops are special favorites, too: sweet parsnips, sweet beets, succulent baby turnips — and endive roots most of all. When fall frosts arrive, making the carrots extra sweet, these too may become orange-tinted hollows in the soil, where a crop once thrived. And don’t forget the salad course. Cold frames, greenhouses and any protective covering for tender winter greens such as lettuce and arugula will become vole playpens if we don’t make plans now. Vole mamas can have a litter every three weeks, all summer long, and all winter, too, if they find a good place to feast and hide. Hiding is essential. A host of larger creatures find them tasty snacks, both the hawks and owls that hunt from the air, and ground-stalkers such as foxes and snakes. Keeping grassy areas around garden beds closely mowed helps expose voles to predators and keep their population in check. But if you spot numerous shallow runways in the garden, notice vole damage to crops, or glimpse the scurrying rodents themselves, it’s best to take precautionary measures. We’ve found trapping to be the best solution. Ordinary mousetraps placed perpendicular to the runways are effective, but unfortunately they catch ground-feeding songbirds as well. Our most successful strategy has been to place unbaited traps where they will not only interrupt a vole’s mad dash to safety but also provide what looks to them like a safe haven. We’ve used plastic boxes designed as bait stations for rats but have also had great success with a homemade version. It’s a simple wooden box, screwed together, with a bottom and a removable lid. Using a jigsaw, we cut little mouse-sized openings in two opposite sides of the box (They look just like the ones in the Tom and Jerry cartoons), then set our mousetraps just inside these entrances, where a vole in a hurry to escape a hawk’s eye can’t help but land. (Birds do not enter.) The lid is easily lifted off to look for, and remove, both voles and the occasional mouse. An upright stick attached to one corner helps us to find the box amid tall garden greenery. You can even tie a flag to the stick if it’s still hard to see. The trap we use is an easy-to-set one called the Better Mousetrap from www.intruderinc.com. We’re looking forward to crisp little heads of Belgian endive this winter, grown outdoors, then forced in a dark cellar for a winter treat. Unless someone else gets to them first. **Tip of the week:** Tired hedges and ragged, overgrown shrubs are best replaced in early fall, so plan now for clearing beds and choosing fresh plant material. Take the time to do your homework, matching future plantings to soil and light conditions and, not least, available space. Sometimes the right decision is not to replace one woody plant with another, but to use perennials instead. — Adrian Higgins

These bugs have a startling strategy for keeping predators away

Pretend you’re a bird. You’ve got the wind beneath your wings, the rustling of trees in your ears and a craving for insect flesh. How do these bugs look to you? If you answered, “Like dinner,” then you are 100 percent correct. Grab yourself a spotted lanternfly entree and proceed to the next level. But wait! When you approach the bug and attempt to attack it with your beak, it suddenly opens its wings to reveal this: If you’re a smart and savvy bird, you’ll know that flash of red is a warning sign. It says, in no uncertain terms, “You don't want to eat me.” But let’s say you’re a dumb bird. You’re young and inexperienced. You go ahead and nibble the little lanternfly. And it tastes awful. Still, life is all about learning from your mistakes. You swallow the bug and your pride and set off in search of your next meal.   A control group of bitter bugs that kept their ostentatious warnings on constant display fared just as well. Meanwhile, a second control group of bugs that also tasted bad but had a duller appearance were significantly more likely to be eaten.  In fact, if you’re a really smart bird, you’ll learn to associate what Kang calls the lanternflies’ “cryptic outfit” — their dull, camouflaged outward appearance — with their bitter taste, and not bother attacking in the first place. “This is a dual benefit to the prey,” Kang wrote in a message. “They benefited not only by making the predators abandon the prey once the predator made an attack, but also reduc[ing] the initial attacking of the predators which sometimes can be fatal to prey’s survival.” Kang, now a postdotoral researcher at Carleton University in Canada, is hoping to determine why some creatures evolve startle displays rather than outright shows of color. His best guess is that these animals — which include some octopi, katydids, and fire-bellied toads — get the best of both worlds by hiding their warning colors until the last minute. They can be camouflaged as they go about their business, but still send a “back off” signal when they need to. Birds, take note.

Stinky feet might help fight malaria

Stinky feet may be a new weapon in the fight against a deadly disease, according to scientists. Malaria, which is transmitted by mosquitoes, is usually fought with insect-killing chemicals, bed nets and drugs. Now, researchers found that mosquitoes infected with the disease were more attracted to human odors from a dirty sock than bugs that didn’t carry malaria. The new finding may help create traps that target only malaria-carrying mosquitoes, researchers say. “Smelly feet have a use after all,” said James Logan, who led the research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “Every time we identify a new part of how the malaria mosquito interacts with us, we’re one step closer to controlling it better.” Very few cases of malaria have been reported in the United States since the 1950s, but the disease kills more than 600,000 people every year — mostly children in Africa. ** — Associated Press  **

The pest goes by many names. I have a friend who calls them mutant spiders.  The exterminator at my neighbor’s house calls them criders.  The bug is also called spider cricket, spricket, cave cricket, and camel cricket. From here forward, I’ll just refer to them as spider crickets. During the summer and fall, spider crickets seek dark and damp places in your basement, family room, shed, or crawl space.  They often congregate in large numbers. When frightened they jump, often directly at what frightens them.  Don’t bend down for a closer look or you might get a spider cricket in your face.  The spider cricket is a voracious eater.  It feasts on fungus, fabric, carpets, wood, cardboard, dust, plants, and even each other.  Their mandibles are very strong and they can chew through many different household items. Does the spider cricket bite humans?  The answer depends on who you ask.  Most sources will answer ‘no’ because the bug’s mandibles are meant for chewing and not inflicting a bite in self-defense.  They jump in self-defense. But if  a spider cricket lands on your skin, they can start gnawing which will cause pain.  I have a friend who described their gnawing bite as painful.  A pet store owner, however, described the bite as an annoyance.     How common are spider crickets?  Last week, I polled my friends on Facebook to find out how many of them have experienced this creepy bug.   I quickly learned that spider crickets are widespread in our area.  Here are a few of their responses:          A special thanks to my neighbor who has a shed overrun by hundreds of spider crickets.  Their shed was my inspiration for this article and also served my photo studio for the spider cricket close-up shots and video.  And, I will note, I was very careful not to bring any of the little buggers home with me.

A dog in Idaho was killed by a cyanide trap laid by the U.S. government

Canyon Mansfield, a 14-year-old boy in Idaho, was walking his dog Casey near his house when he came across a small device embedded in the ground at the boundary of his family’s property. It looked like a sprinkler, he later told a local news reporter, and when he touched it, it popped, emitting an orange powder. The powder blew into Casey’s face, causing the dog to convulse and, a few minutes later, die.    Overall, more than 300 animals were unintentionally killed by M-44 traps in 2016, including 180 foxes, 30 opossums, 57 raccoons, 21 skunks, two ravens and a black bear. The traps specifically target predatory animals. While most of the trap is buried, the part that remains above ground is wrapped in bait, which triggers a “bite and pull” reflex from an animal. When the predator tugs at it, the powder is deployed.   Canyon’s father told East Idaho News that his son didn’t have any warning. “We didn’t know anything about it,” he said. “There were no neighborhood notifications. Our local authorities didn’t know about this.” Only 50 yards from the device that killed Casey, the family discovered a second M-44.   “The idea that I could be enjoying the backcountry — or, apparently, country much closer to my home — and stumble across a land mine, courtesy of, that shoots cyanide up the face of my dog, me, my wife, or my companions is shocking to me,” Phil Bregitzer wrote. “I don’t think these should be used, and I’ve written my state and federal representatives to express my opinion. I encourage others to do the same.”

A bedbug trap may be near, researchers claim

Five years. Countless false starts. And 180,000 bites. That’s what researchers say it took to identify the Achilles heel of the bedbug — a tiny, resurgent demon feared by every landlord, tenant, hotelier and guest. A husband-and-wife team working at a Canadian university say they’ve identified a chemical mix that attracts the Lilliputian beasts, and know how to catch and trap them.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “This trap will help landlords, tenants, and pest-control professionals determine whether premises have a bedbug problem, so that they can treat it quickly,” said Gerhard Gries of Simon Frasier University. “It will also be useful for monitoring the treatment’s effectiveness.” The Grieses reported their results in “Bedbug aggregation pheromone finally identified,” published in Angewandte Chemie, a chemistry journal. After all, just 50 years ago, bedbugs were presumed dead — eradicated by the toxic, but incredibly effective pesticide DDT.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico But DDT, a carcinogen that can damage the reproductive system, was banned in 1972, setting the stage for a bedbug renaissance. By the end of the 20th century, the insects were returning to urban areas, popping up in places both well-appointed and squalid. They came to New York’s Ritz-Carlton. They came to the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue. And they came to the Senate.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Some even wanted to bring DDT back. “Annoyance over lack of sleep due to biting bedbugs should trump tree-hugging political correctness over continuing the DDT ban,” wrote one Newsbusters blogger.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico There had to be a way out. So, over eight years, Gerhard Gries’s wife, Regine Gries, kept a population of bedbugs alive to study them. Their food: her blood. The colony was hungry and, unlike her husband and many people, Regine Gries did not experience excessive swelling when bitten. After much trial and error, the couple determined the chemical constituents of bedbug pheromone — a scented secretion with which creatures communicate with, and sometimes lure, the opposite sex. They determined that by luring bedbugs with the pheromone, they made them feel safe — before a histamine slipped into the mixture essentially paralyzed them, or, as the researchers put it, caused their “arrestment upon contact.” Whether or not they’ve recently fed, they stay in one place when exposed to the histamine. In other words, there was no way out for the bedbugs. A number of pest control formulations utilize pheromones in a similar fashion with varying degrees of success.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Now, the next challenge is to incorporate the mixture into a trap. “The trapping of juvenile and adult bed bugs, with or without recent blood meals, provides strong evidence that this unique pheromone bait could become an effective and inexpensive tool for bed bug detection and potentially their control,” according to the paper.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The main obstacle to further research: keeping the colony alive. That task, again, falls to Regine Gries, who said she does not look back on the bites with anger. “I’m not too thrilled about this,” she said in a statement, “but knowing how much this technology will benefit so many people, it’s all worth it.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

How to get rid of squirrels

Q: We live on a cul-de-sac on a wooded lot with a creek, and love the country living. There are families of deer, coyote, fox, beaver and all sorts of birds. The problem? Squirrels. One year, they ate through the top of a new sofa on our front veranda. They devour fresh pumpkins (so much for fall decorating) and routinely dig up and redistribute my bulbs. Recently, my husband installed new screens and a new ceiling to the screened porch on the back of our house, giving it a finished, beachy, outdoor-family-room feel (an idea we picked up from one of your columns). We discovered this week that a squirrel ripped through one of the screens (again) and clawed or chewed its way into the ceiling. Our son caught it bringing in nesting materials and chased it out, but it keeps returning. What can we do to keep squirrels from tearing our screens and destroying our porch ceiling? **Columbia** A: The easiest solution is to call a pest-control company to assess the situation and figure out remedies — physical changes to block the squirrels’ entry, not just trapping, which is a temporary fix at best. Companies that work in Howard County and surrounding areas include Adcock’s Trapping Service (800-486-0341) and Animal Control Solutions (410-567-5440). Adcock’s charges $375 to trap the squirrels and recommend changes. That fee covers however many return visits (usually five to seven) a job requires. The company usually captures squirrels live and releases them in parks at least 10 to 15 miles from the house, said Michele Adcock, part of the family that owns the business. Animal Control Solutions charges $199 and usually uses one-way doors that allow squirrels to leave a house but block them from returning. You might want to wait for nesting season to conclude, though, to make sure babies aren’t left behind to die and rot, creating a terrible stink that permeates into your house. Sometimes it’s possible to trap a mother and then go into the attic to remove the babies, but if there is no good access, you’re better off waiting. Mike Hurley, owner of Animal Control Solutions, says homeowners can usually tell when the babies are old enough to make foraging trips out during the day because the noise in the attic will pick up. Instead of hearing one squirrel, you’ll hear several. Weather plays a role, but one nesting season usually runs from early February through the middle of March, and a second season goes from mid-August to the end of September. Both companies recommend steps that should keep squirrels from returning. Frequently, this includes installing aluminum covers over fascia boards (at the base of the roof, behind gutters) and adding hardware cloth, a stiffer type of screening, to vents and ventilation openings where squirrels have chewed through flimsier insect screens. You can do the work yourself or hire someone else. But if you hire the pest-control company for this work, which isn’t included in either company’s base price, you get a guarantee that covers return visits if squirrels return. For Adcock’s, this is good for five years; with Animal Control, it’s one to three years, depending on the work. Both companies said the cost of these repairs usually runs from under $100 to several hundred dollars, depending on the situation. For your specific situation, Hurley suggests installing plexiglass over the surface where the squirrels are getting to your screens. Plexiglass is tough and slick, and because it is clear, it won’t be very noticeable. “A squirrel has to have framing to run down,” he said. “If you coat the beam they’re running down with plexiglass, it will prevent their claws from digging in.” **Have a problem in your home?** Send questions to localliving@washpost.com. Put “How To” in the subject line, tell us where you live and try to include a photo. ** The Checklist ** Read Jeanne Huber’s roundup of home-improvement tasks you should tackle in February, such as exploring renovation tax credits.

Nightmare fuel: Millions of giant cicada bugs cover everything in this Ohio city

Every 17 years, an army of giant bugs rises from the earth in the Northeast. Cicadas spend most of their lives underground, but eventually they shake off the dirt, come up for a little air and do some mating.  The cicadas that currently cover parts of the Midwest and Northeast actually hatched 17 years ago. They fell into the ground and burrowed deep to spend nearly two decades in darkness. When they emerge from the ground, they are still considered nymphs until they climb onto a tree or post (or maybe the side of your house) and cling there as they shed their exoskeletons. These bugs crawl out of their own crispy skin and leave it behind, still attached to the tree. Of course, not all cicadas get to an ideal exoskeleton-shedding location. A lot of them end up covering the ground, leaving people like this poor family in Mansfield, Ohio, with no other option than to clean up the mess. Once the cicadas have reached adulthood they can mate and lay eggs, and a new 17-year life cycle begins.

Fear memories can be overcome during sleep, researchers say

It can take only an instant for fear to take hold in the brain: a fear of snakes after being bitten by one, or anxiety around bodies of water after witnessing a drowning. Overcoming that fear can take a long time, but now researchers are saying it can be done in your sleep. Scientists at Northwestern University say they have lowered levels of fear in people by using certain odors to trigger and rechannel frightening memories into harmless ones during a deep slumber. “Sleep sort of stamps memories in more strongly,” said neurologist Jay Gottfried, senior author of the study, which was scheduled to be published online Sunday by the journal Nature Neuroscience. “That’s when a lot of memory formation can take place.” The researchers first created a fear of a certain face in their subjects by using conditioning — making them link a face and an odor in their minds with a painful electric shock. After some trials, the participants became afraid of the face, and the smell acted as a cue associated with that face. The researchers then used the smell to trigger fear memories during sleep as a way to enable patients to adjust without the stress of conscious terror. Gottfried and his colleagues have not attempted this on preexisting fears, but theoretically it could be done — by creating a connection between a phobia and a distinct odor. He said the first type of patients who could be helped by this process would be those who already have an odor associated with their fear — for example, the smell of gunpowder. “From a clinical perspective, this can be a new approach to try and treat stressful or traumatic memories,” Gottfried said. He said that fear, a type of emotional memory, is often learned at a young age from experience or observation. A child who was bitten by a dog grows up afraid of dogs, but so does a child who sees his father attacked by one. “Across all species, one thing is true: The learning of a fear occurs much more quickly than the fear extinction process,” said lead researcher and neurologist Katherina K. Hauner. In exposure therapy, repeated exposure to the stimulus forms a new, safe memory. For example, Hauner said, a fear of spiders can be quelled by the person initially looking at photos of spiders, then a real spider housed in a faraway cage, next by petting one with a thick glove, and finally by holding one. “Extinction learning is typically known to be a new memory that essentially overwrites the fear memory,” said New York University’s Elizabeth Phelps, a psychologist and fear-conditioning researcher who was not involved in the study. Hauner previously studied how slow and steady contact with spiders can change the brains of arachnophobes. As a postdoctoral researcher under olfactory expert Gottfried, she thought about using odors to trigger fear memories during sleep as a way to alter the emotional memory. The researchers showed 15 healthy subjects a photo of a different face every few seconds, but for two faces they received foot electric shocks. They eventually learned to fear both faces, as measured by increased levels of sweat. Each face was also associated with its own odor in the subjects’ minds by a scent being pumped out whenever that specific face popped up — for instance, roses for one and lemons for the other. Then the subjects napped for a couple of hours. Whenever they fell into a deep phase known as slow-wave sleep, they were given the rose scent to call up one face, but without the accompanying jolts. This was a subconscious version of having someone pet a spider without it harming them to help create a safe memory of spiders. After the subjects awoke, they went through the same prenap process of being shown the series of different faces. This time, they weren’t as afraid of the face with the rose scent — but were still just as fearful of the other, whose associated odor they hadn’t been exposed to during sleep. Also, those who smelled roses for the longest total time while sleeping were less fearful of the face than those who had smelled roses only for a short time. The subjects did not know what happened during their sleep. Sleep plays a key role in memory consolidation, which involves parts of the brain replaying the events of the day and choosing which parts to store for safekeeping and which to forgo. This experiment “asks a very interesting question, whether there is a unique period during memory consolidation as we sleep in which such memories could be, let’s say, updated,” said Rutgers University psychologist Mauricio Delgado, who was not involved in the study. “It’s novel. I think it’s a really clever idea,” said Phelps, who believes that the research could one day be used for clinical applications to help those with phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder. While exposure therapy is the most effective treatment available for post-traumatic stress disorder, in general PTSD is much more complex than traditional phobias. “People are very quick to jump on the PTSD train, and it would be wonderful if it could be used in that way,” said Hauner, but she stressed that more research would be required before it could be used as a treatment.

The gardener’s little helper

An old farmer I know used to turn his pigs into the cow pasture so that they could eat the cows’ poop. “It’s one of the best vitamin pills for piglets,” he explained. “You don’t need to give them iron shots if they eat cow pies.” “That’s fine for the pigs,” he went on, “but for the pasture, nothing beats dung beetles. They will clean up a pasture even better than pigs will.” Up to a point, animal manure will enrich a pasture and make the grass grow green. But it can be too much of a good thing, not only suppressing the grass but also harboring parasites and flies. If there are not enough organisms on hand that can break down the manure (and thereby make its nutrients available to the plants that grow there), the manure will just pile up. That happened in Australia after cattle were introduced. Native dung-eating beetles were present, but they were suited to cleaning up after marsupials such as kangaroos, not ungulates such as cows. So African cow-pie-loving beetles were brought in to do the job. A home gardener need not take such measures, even though many of us put manure from cows, horses and other beasts on our gardens. If the manure is too fresh, especially when applied in warm weather, flies can be a problem. So it’s best to compost it first or till it in promptly. In cold climates, fresh manure can be applied in fall, as freezing and thawing of the soil will open up fissures where it can gradually sink in. It also helps to have dung beetles around, even if you don’t spread any manure. You’ll find dung beetles on most lists of the top helpful creatures in the garden, along with bees, earthworms, predatory wasps and mosquito-eating bats. It’s worth finding out more about what they do, especially if, for you, beetles are guilty until proven innocent. Some beetle species, such as Japanese beetles, are garden pests, especially when displaced from their native lands, where they would be kept more in balance by natural enemies. Many are beautiful, either in appearance, such as the iridescent scarabs, or in performance, such as fireflies at night. Lady beetles are happy to gobble up the aphids on your plants. And dung beetles are happy to process dung. They bury it, consume it and transform it into a soil amendment. Dung beetles are found in a number of insect families and have diverse habits. Some eat only dung, and some eat and break down other materials as well. Some eat the dung of herbivores, others that of omnivores. Nesting habits vary, too. Some burrow into a pile of manure and lay their eggs there, so that their larvae will have food when they hatch. Others bury eggs in the soil just under the pile. More ambitious ones tunnel deep down and lay their eggs in dung-filled brood chambers. The most heroic are the male ball-rolling beetles that carve perfect spheres out of dung, at least twice their size and weight, roll them some distance away and bury them in pre-excavated nests. If a female is impressed with a male’s sculpting talent and physique, she will follow him as he rolls the dung ball, sometimes riding on top as if it were a chariot. Along the way, he may encounter obstacles. There is a scene in the extraordinary 1996 film “MicroCosmos” in which a dung beetle’s great orb gets hung up on a little stick, and he must struggle to free it, digging underneath it and shoving with all his might. At times he pauses, to get his bearings from the sun and stay on the path to his burrow. At night he’d use the moon and stars. Danger also lurks in the form of competing males he may have to fight and defeat with his protruding horns. But if the pair makes it to the bridal chamber, the female will hatch their young. Any gardener should be proud to host helpers such as these, along with other tillers of the soil such as earthworms and ants. Dung beetles are at work in your garden now, as they are in any natural environment, sometimes a combination of native and introduced species. You may not see them, but you can help ensure their presence by keeping insecticides out of your yard, as they are very sensitive to toxic chemicals. They will repay you well with their labors. Indoor seed starting begins in mid- to late February, so now is the time to check equipment and obtain seeds. Fluorescent bulbs grow dimmer with age and should be replaced if old. Make sure you can adjust the distance between plant and lamp as the seedlings grow. **— Adrian Higgins** **More fromLifestyle:** Resolve to grow a better rosemary plant. Your dinner guests will thank you. A hotter, more volatile 2016 leaves this gardener rethinking tomato timing The many ways to bring fruits and vegetables into your daily meals You’re going on vacation, but what about your plants? A 9-year-old cabbage master’s 30-pound cannonball wins big in Virginia

Winter’s deep freeze kills garden pests

For all the forecasters’ frothing about last week’s deep freeze — it got down to 7 degrees where I live — the chill simply recalls the winters of yore for longtime Washingtonians. Its effects will be felt in the garden come spring, though not that much, I suspect, and not all negatively. This might be the year that you wished you had dug and brought inside the dahlia tubers and the canna rhizomes. Many plants that now look awful will flush green and vital in a few weeks. Some plants that might have made it through a mild winter are kaput. Losses bring disappointment, but also a better understanding of your garden’s singular microclimate. What I’m hoping to get out of this event is a break from some of the awful arthropods that stand in the way of total gardening nirvana. Deep freezes have an ability to knock back populations of insect pests we could do without. The worst of them are quite new, transported to our shores as part of the hidden costs of globalization. One wishes they were more hidden. I’m thinking of highly destructive or nuisance pests such as the brown marmorated stink bug, the emerald ash borer and the Asian tiger mosquito. The stink bug splits into two basic types: the hipster, urban stink bug that squats in our (heated) houses, specifically the spaces between the walls. The other is the granola bar, Birkenstock kind of stink bug, which stays in the woods and spends the winter beneath the bark of dead trees. This lifestyle choice might prove costly. “The ones in the woods are probably suffering some mortality,” said Tom Kuhar, a professor of entomology at Virginia Tech. That would be good, because this pest does a lot of damage to fruits and vegetables. More invidious, arguably, is the emerald ash borer, which has now spread to 22 states and threatens to do to the American ash tree what the chestnut blight did to the American chestnut — that is, virtually wipe it out. The EAB, as it’s known, “is the worst forest problem in our lifetime,” said Whitney Cranshaw, an entomologist at Colorado State University. The pest kills the tree by tunneling into the sapwood as a grub; it is in this state that it spends the winter, protected by predators and against the cold. “Even if it might be 5 degrees outside, a wood borer in a tree may not get to that temperature unless it persists for three, four, five days,” he said. Other factors come into play: Insects are chemically at their most naturally cold-hardy now; they would be less so in November or March. And as with plants, a blanket of snow forms a protective blanket against colder air temperatures, whether the insect spends the winter as an egg, a larva, pupa or adult. If the polar vortex genie gave me three insect (death) wishes, well, I have a little list. The first horror doesn’t afflict plants, but gardeners: It’s the noisome Asian tiger mosquito, which since its spread in recent years has become a constant irritant from June to October. It’s small, black and white, sneaky and persistent. It is not a mosquito of the swamp or forest, but another urban beast and one that can reproduce in something as small as a discarded bottle cap. It doesn’t like extreme cold, so will this month’s freeze reduce our repellent use in 2014? Dina Fonseca, a scientist with Rutgers’s Center for Vector Biology, told me that in the laboratory, at least, the eggs of the tiger mosquito perish below 10 degrees Fahrenheit — they simply dry out at that temperature. “In principle, if all the eggs were exposed to the air temperatures we had, they would die,” she said. But eggs protected by snow, soil or leaf litter might not die, she said. If we get a particularly wet spring, and if people are not diligent about removing sources of standing water — too few are — a decimated population of the tiger mosquito could quickly rebound. “It would be great if this kind of weather could kill off this mosquito,” she said, “but my fear is that once they become established, it would take an extreme event for them to disappear.” Like what, I wonder — an asteroid destroying the Earth? A new Ice Age? The Redskins winning the Super Bowl? I’ve stocked up on DEET and less effective botanical concoctions. The second member of my despised threesome is the Mexican bean beetle, which in spite of its name seems perfectly okay with a Washington winter, hibernating and dreaming of a steamy August. Once you have a nice display of beans — green beans, lima beans, asparagus beans, it doesn’t seem to matter — the pest can just show up and quickly explode in population. The soft-bodied larvae do the most damage, reducing leaves to skeletons. Even diligent handpicking of beetles and egg-mass squashing don’t seem to hold back the tide. I doubt the recent frigid spell will bother them too much. The pest is found all the way to the Canadian border and beyond. The adult beetles have a measure of antifreeze in their veins, and they are good at finding winter shelter. We might have more luck with a Southern dandy, the harlequin bug. It is defiantly beautiful in its calico markings of black, yellow and orange, because it wants predators to know that it is distasteful. How does it become distasteful? By feeding on cole crops and absorbing the plants’ chemicals. This is another creature whose numbers can build up quickly to defy the most dutiful efforts of the organic gardener. The bugs are drawn to kale and broccoli plants more than cabbages, in my experience, but they will bother whatever brassica they can find, including collards, arugula and rutabaga. This cold winter, one hopes, will set them back. But as with the bean beetle, it is a good idea to do a thorough cleanup of the garden before spring arrives to deny the pests their shelter. The remnants of bean vines, the last of the winter kale, the lingering mustard greens, all these should be pulled and bagged. Whatever else this winter has in store, it only has nine weeks left to run. Kuhar, of Virginia Tech, says the freeze may well have knocked back another pest, the thrip, which is skilled at sheltering in the tightest folds of leaf and stem, or within flower petals. Thrips, like aphids, have a way of spreading viruses to plants. Some thrip species infect tomatoes with the tomato spotted wilt virus,  which can be a major, if localized, problem in some years. Kuhar pointed out that the same polar vortex that kills off bad insects can also affect good insects such as ladybugs, which feed on aphids. Nature might be beautiful, but like the winter weather, it’s also complex and unpredictable. **@adrian_higgins on Twitter** **Also at washingtonpost.com**   Read past columns by Higgins at   washingtonpost.com/home.

Your summertime guide to mosquitos: Why they bite and what to do about it.

They weigh a fractional percent of an ounce and live only a few weeks. But they are astoundingly disruptive. They want your blood, and they ascend by the millions all summer, coming after it. When mankind appeared about 7 million years ago, mosquitoes were already there, waiting to bite. They have been tormenting us ever since. It’s only the females who go after us. They feed on nectar and sugar, but they need protein from our blood to lay their eggs. And one female can produce several million offspring in a single season, in several separate sets, according to the American Mosquito Control Association. Those fertile females are built to find and consume that meal. They have sensory structures (antennae with receptors) on their heads, used to cue in on our scent, which includes a combination of odorants. They bite with their proboscis, a mouthpart that males have, too, minus the mechanics to penetrate skin. So the “boys” simply use it to lap nectar. Their several-stage life cycle spans days to a month, depending on mosquito type and weather. They start as eggs, laid one at a time or attached to form “rafts” that float on water. They hatch into larvae, spending their time hanging upside down on the water’s surface, shedding their skin several times. And finally they transform to adults, ready to take flight, traveling yards to miles from where they hatched, depending on species. They play favorites. “Mosquitoes are attracted to a blend of human odorants that they detect with the receptors on their heads,” said Doug Norris, a microbiology professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. They especially like the smell of carbon dioxide. “As you exhale, you breathe out a CO2 plume that travels pretty far,” Norris said. “Mosquitoes go where they sense higher concentrations of it, looking for a blood meal.” The bigger or more active you are, he said, the more CO2 you put out, making you a prime target. But mosquitoes detect other body scents, some known to be affected by bacteria on skin. “Research shows, for instance, that byproducts of bacteria that make socks and cheese stinky attract malaria mosquitoes,” Norris said. Sweaty people are more attractive to most mosquitoes, too; they like sweat’s lactic acid content. L.J. Zwiebel, professor of biological science and pharmacology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, said mosquitoes “see” the world through their nose, using complex sensors to pick up a combination of odor-emitting chemicals. “When you smell roses, you detect a collection of chemicals,” he said. “Only when you put them together can you perceive scent as a rose. Mosquitoes have a similar sophisticated sense. They can tell two people apart based on human body odor produced by these chemical blends.” Blood-feasting females are smart, and they’re fast, warns Zwiebel. “She can be flying in one direction, turn on a dime and find you when she smells you. Some of them can find us from hundreds of yards away,” he said. Our individual body chemistry is believed to be key in determining a mosquito’s attraction to us, which studies indicate is tied to genetics. Some scientists also theorize that our diet may affect mosquitoes’ preference, though other research suggests not. Claims that garlic consumption repels mosquitoes do not hold up, but one study tied beer consumption to more bites. You can make it harder for them to single you out as a menu selection. One way is to avoid the outdoors around dawn or dusk when mosquitoes feed. While they use smell to find you, they also notice movement and when the moon is full they are more likely to track you down by taking advantage of the night-time light, according to Joe Conlon, technical adviser at the American Mosquito Control Association. If you would rather not plan your schedule around theirs, be sure to put up a good defense when you step outside. For instance, don’t give them as much exposed skin to come after. “Wear long pants and sleeves. And wear tight-weaved, loose-fitting clothes, as tight weaves and clothes not pressed against skin are hard to bite through,” said Conlon. Manufacturers make garments impregnated with a pesticide called permethrin for people living in heavily infested areas. Factory application of permethrin is approved by the Environmental Protection Agency for certain clothes and does not leach onto skin. A simpler way to deter the bugs is to lather up with antibacterial soap and wash often. If you go camping, to lakes or other mosquito-infested areas, bring a bar of antibacterial soap, suggests Zwiebel. This will remove odor-producing bacteria. In the D.C. area, the most common mosquitoes are Asian tiger and house mosquitoes. These species fly only about 300 to 500 feet from where they live. So if you are getting bitten on your property, they are probably breeding in your yard, or your neighbor’s, said Peter Armbruster, a biology professor at Georgetown University. Many of the folks he speaks to know that mosquitoes need water to multiply, aware that they lay their eggs on water and that larvae grow there. “Residents tell us, ‘You won’t find any in my backyard. I got rid of conditions where they can breed.’ But my research team and I almost always find a bunch of them, whether in an old washing machine discarded in the back yard that filled with water, or in clogged rain gutters that collect water, or even in little bottle caps,” Armbruster said. Eggs can lay dormant through freezing winters and hatch during the next spring and summer rains, though you would never know it, as they are microscopic. Pest controllers advise using a larvicide where and when mosquitoes breed to kill larvae before they transform to adults. They also suggest removing the insects’ habitats. Some people place mosquito-eating fish in ponds, but state fish and wildlife services should be consulted to determine native species, which are allowed without a permit. Despite precautions, you may find yourself with a bruiser of a welt that itches insanely. “A big welt just means your body really did not like that bite,” Norris said. “You are reacting to the saliva they inject, but this is rarely dangerous.” Slather on bite creams to reduce the itch, but call a doctor if you develop a fever within a few days of getting bit to rule out mosquito-transmitted infection, he said. The most common such disease in this country is West Nile virus. In 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 2,122 cases, including 85 deaths. A less common mosquito-borne virus is chikungunya. There were 200 cases reported in the United States as of June 30, carried in by travelers from tropical regions such as the Caribbean. “The fatality rate is very low, but the joint pain can be debilitating,” Norris said, adding that chikungunya symptoms appear in three to seven days and that the infection almost always resolves on its own within 10 days. The CDC advises people to see their doctor if they suspect they or a family member may have this virus. As annoying and potentially dangerous as mosquitoes are, the illnesses they transmit did not originate with them, Armbruster said. Mosquitoes actually pick up disease by biting an infected person or animal. Then they bite an uninfected person. Only a small minority of mosquitoes spread disease, he assures. For the most part, our biggest concern is finding ways to enjoy our summer, uninvaded by the pests.

Gainesville family gets new neighbors — the Le Pews

When Stacey Credle noticed holes in the dirt near the front porch of her house in Gainesville, she thought a rabbit had made them. Then she thought it might have been a mole. For about a month in the spring, Credle and her husband, Cliff, bought dirt to fill the holes. The elusive animal made new ones. Although the family includes two small children and two small dogs, the critter was undeterred. Early one morning, her husband saw something dart into the ground. At first he thought it was a black cat. Then he realized it was a skunk. “After that, I smelled it every day,” Credle said. When she realized the animal she affectionately refers to as “Le Pew” (after the cartoon character Pepe Le Pew) had moved in, Credle called Prince William County Animal Control and several wildlife trappers. But the county doesn’t handle nuisance wildlife unless it’s inside a home, and hiring a private company is expensive. So she began to research do-it-yourself pest removal. They bought commercial critter repellant and fox urine, which costs about $20 a bottle and smells “atrocious,” Credle said. They also consulted Burt of Ark Trapping, who recommended putting a plastic bag just inside the hole to confirm that the animal was still in residence. “If the bag disappears, the animal is there. If it moves the bag more than three times, then it is established and unlikely to move on its own,” said Burt, who goes by his first name. They waited for the skunk to leave the hole, poured fox urine into it and placed a plastic bag inside. “Well, she didn’t go back to that hole. She made a new one,” Credle said. “So, we got more fox urine and tried to do it again. We did it three or four times. We spent way too much money on fox urine.” To no avail. They gave Burt another call. Ark Trapping covers all of Northern Virginia. Burt said he receives calls every day, mostly for skunks and copperheads but also for raccoons, opossum and coyotes. “Everything’s a little out of whack,” he said. Because of the recent mild winters, the copperhead and coyote populations have exploded. Some animals are mating more than once a year. When he arrived, Burt discovered that the Credles’ new neighbor was not alone. She had had babies — eight of them. He set up several traps outside the family’s front door and then waited. “It was like the night before Christmas, when you can’t sleep,” Credle said. It took Burt about two weeks to trap mother and babies and move them. The Credles bear the skunks no ill will. They hired Ark Trapping because they liked Burt’s philosophy of doing what’s right for the animal. A trapper for 38 years, he thinks that animals deserve to be trapped humanely, and he makes an effort to determine whether an animal is lactating, so babies aren’t left behind. Aside from the lingering smell, Credle said the Le Pews “provided me with quite a bit of entertainment. We respected them. They respected us. They never sprayed, but if I ever see another baby skunk, it will be too soon.” The Credles plan to seal the hole with concrete.

Occidental restaurant serves bugs to raise money for DC Central Kitchen, combat hunger

Caitlin Phillips was savoring a burger in the sunshine of the patio at Occidental Grill & Seafood, a stately old restaurant across from the White House, when she paused and reached for a napkin. “I have cricket stuck in my teeth,” she said, delicately easing the insect leg out before continuing with lunch. While many lunching at the Occidental on Wednesday chose from the traditional menu — a steak salad, or duck confit flatbread, or a crab cake — those on the patio had walked into a pop-up eatery featuring bugs. At the Pestaurant, as some called it, guests were snapping up grasshopper burgers, chocolate ant rounds, salt-and-vinegar crickets, roasted locusts. “This is really good,” Phillips said of her burger, a mix of turkey, ground grasshopper, spices and — for crunch — whole grasshoppers, bulgy eyes, knobby knees and all. “I put an extra one on as a garnish,” she said, lifting the sweet-potato bun to show. “See? He’s up there.” What better way to combat hunger? Eat bugs. The lunch raised about $6,000 for D.C. Central Kitchen, with a company donating $5 for anyone who tried an insect. The whole thing was brought to the people of Washington — and other cities in Australia and Europe — by an international business, Rentokil. “I like that it was sponsored by a pest-control company,” said Nicole Gurley, laughing and tossing back a grasshopper leg. “That just makes it even weirder.” (The bugs, a Rentokil spokesman assured when asked, were raised for human consumption. As in, they didn’t just clean out their traps Tuesday and fry up the victims.) Some diners came for the cause. “There are a lot of food shortages in the world,” said Robert Osberger, who came from Cleveland Park but couldn’t persuade friends to join him. “This could be a good, high-protein alternative food source.” Some came to the Pestaurant because they were curious. And some were drawn by the price, a shining beacon in the midst of an expense-account town. “I’m an artist,” Phillips said. “I’ll always come out for free food.” In the busy kitchen of the Occidental on Wednesday morning, chef Rodney Scruggs crushed half a lime onto shredded lettuce and glossy cricket, then sprinkled it with kosher salt. A bowl of pulverized grasshopper — dusty brown, like the inside of a vacuum-cleaner bag — sat alongside dishes of Aleppo pepper and za’atar. Crickets and grasshoppers take on the flavors around them, he said, but the grasshopper added an earthy quality to the meat, a sort of dried-mushroom flavor. Insects could be the next hot trend in food, Scruggs said. In many places around the world, they’re common sources of food. About 2,000 species are edible. Or edible to someone. On the patio, Jessica Wilkinson, a 25-year-old working in international development, had set her grasshopper burger aside after taking a bite. “I didn’t know it had turkey in it,” she said. She ate worms instead, and consoled her friend Victoria Reichers, who was told when she arrived that her shellfish allergy probably meant she shouldn’t try the insects. “I’m so hungry,” Reichers said, looking at the bugs on her friends’ plates. “It smells so good!” It was almost 12:30: Time for the cricket-eating contest. Phillips’s friend David Dugard, 39, who walked over from his job at the Federal Communications Commission, pulled on a T-shirt that read, “I [heart] toxic waste,” and headed to a long table. He wasn’t daunted. He grew up in Arlington County trying unusual foods at ethnic restaurants. His favorite candy flavor is durian, a pungent tropical fruit. “It’s like eating a crème brûlée out of a dirty sock dripping diesel fuel,” he said. “It smells terrible, it tastes wonderful.” A woman high-fived everyone around her and whooped when they brought out the cups of crickets; others toasted one another, “Cheers!” One man grimaced. Katherine Eklund sat down only because it would raise $25 for D.C. Central Kitchen, where she works. The taste was bland but the texture was a little hard to swallow — literally, she said; sometimes she would shudder while a not-quite-chewed chunk of exoskeleton went down. Part of the way through, a severed leg went into her eye. Some contestants tossed cups of cricket back like shots, then chewed frantically. Dugard had a grim, set look, teeth grinding methodically, jaws working, glasses slipping down his nose. Onlookers cheered; a man sweating with the effort lifted his arms, but too soon — his mouth was still full of insects. Dugard raised a hand in quiet triumph and accepted a bottle of champagne as his prize. “The burgers were wonderful,” he said afterward. “I’m sick of crickets for a little while, though.” “Really?” Phillips said. “They didn’t bug me.” He shot her a look. It was too soon for puns. She picked a piece of leg off his neck and offered him water. “Thank you,” he said, gratefully; choking down crickets is tough and thirsty work. He took a sip but then put it down. “This tastes really weird.” Related: Following a paleo diet? You ought to be eating bugs

72,000 ladybugs were turned loose inside a Maryland high school

It was described as a senior prank, but not everybody was amused last week when intruders entered a Southern Maryland high school and released 72,000 ladybugs. It happened Wednesday at Chopticon High School in the Morganza area of St. Mary’s County. Five people in masks forced open a door about 3:40 a.m. and released the insects,the county sheriff’s office said. “It was a mess,” a school staff member said. “When you walked in the building, they covered the walls and hallways, flying around, and they were all in a pile in different areas of the building.” He said vacuuming began at 6:30 a.m. and continued for hours. Bags of vacuumed-up bugs went into a large trash receptacle, he said, but some insects lingered at the school through Thursday. The disruption appeared limited. “I didn’t see a ladybug all day,” said a teacher whose class met on the second floor. The teacher said that students “thought it was funny” but that a couple of people were heard to say they “felt bad for the bugs.” The staff member who described the cleanup effort said it “wasn’t quite that funny.” According to the sheriff’s office, the insects were ordered by way of the Internet. The office said that four juveniles were charged with burglary and that three adults were also to face charges. Ladybugs are small beetles that have spots on their red or orange wings. They have been made popular, in part, by a nursery rhyme that urges a ladybug to “fly away home.”

Lacking resources, it’s hard to stop a stink bug

Regarding the March 17 front-page article “For pesky stink bugs, a Southern migration”: Part of the problem with insect pests is that even when invasive species are detected, the systems we have in place to protect our nation’s natural resources and food production are failing, mostly due to lack of resources. There is an urgent need to revise legislation to ensure that we have the means to respond effectively. The brown marmorated stink bug, which reportedly arrived in the United States on cargo ships in the late 1990s, was identified early in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. According to some reports, it could have been contained, but it doesn’t appear that an effort was made to do so, even though the bug was a known agricultural pest in its native range in Asia. Another example of the problem is the crazy ant species that has come to be known as the Rasberry crazy ant around the Port of Houston. This ant was twice ruled “unactionable” by the Agriculture Department, apparently because it could not be identified and was deemed not a threat to agriculture. It is now expanding its range and will eventually account for billions in damage. It nests in electronic systems, and kills livestock and wildlife. The mandates, rules and systems for addressing invasive species were designed for a simpler time. Today, we are ignoring harmful impacts that are the unintended consequences of the movement of products into this country. ****John Peter Thompson,** Upper Marlboro** ****John Waugh,** Upperville, Va.** John Peter Thompson is a member of the Invasive Species Advisory Group to the National Invasive Species Council. John Waugh is an independent adviser on environmental strategies and planning.

9 ways to freshen up your home for less than $100

Now that spring is here, you might be antsy to freshen up your home. But don’t fret if you don’t have the budget for an overhaul. If you want a new look, there is plenty you can do with a small amount of cash. We asked designers for some creative ways to welcome spring into the home for less than $100. Here are their tips: A simple way to stretch $100 is to spend it on a paint project. “A gallon of paint and a good paintbrush or roller brush can work wonders to instantly freshen a room,” interior designer Dana Tydings said. Consider a warm white, Tydings said, because it goes with everything. “If you walk into a museum, they have constantly rotating exhibits, yet the backdrop is always a beautiful, warm white.” If you want a fresh shade other than white, interior designer Zoe Feldman suggested painting the ceiling. “A light blue or a light gray makes it feel like there isn’t a ceiling,” Feldman said. “It’s cheaper, too, because you need less paint.” Window washing isn’t the most exciting task, but you’ll be glad you did it. “It really makes the house look different,” Arlington-based interior designer Suzanne Manlove says. Tydings agrees: “It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever done. They just they sparkle. Everything looks better.” If you take on the job yourself, the supplies will be fairly inexpensive. Hiring a professional will obviously cost more but might be worth it for hard- to-access windows. It also couldn’t hurt to extend the spring cleaning to other parts of your house, Manlove said, and pack up any lingering holiday decorations and winter-scented candles. “Get rid of clutter and things that don’t spark joy,” Manlove said. Let light in by taking down any heavy drapes and swapping them with simple curtain panels. Try a plain white cotton drapery panel, Manlove said. She likes Target, West Elm and Ikea for affordable options. Slipcovers can be as expensive as fully reupholstering, so try this inexpensive trick from Tydings instead: Buy one or two cotton throws or foutas (thin Turkish towels) in solid colors. Tydings likes to use foutas as table runners or throw them on the back of a sofa. “You can take a tired brown sofa and add a creamy white or pale yellow or aqua fouta,” she said. “Lay it across an arm or third of the couch. You won’t see that big ugly brown couch.” Try positioning a mirror or collection of mirrors across from a window, Manlove said, to brighten a space. “It reflects light and is something happy for a room,” she said. Already have a mirror? If it’s framed in a heavy antique metal or dark color, Feldman suggested spray-painting it white or a lighter color. And you can change it up whenever you want. **** Give existing pillows a fresh start by replacing the covers with affordable, colorful options, Tydings said. Her firm’s go-to isEtsy.com. “We always find some great stuff on Etsy,” Tydings said. Think about the color palette of what’s permanently in place, interior designer Jessica Bonness said, and limit the new colors to one or two. “People can get carried away,” Bonness said. “They buy a pillow that has 40,000 colors in it. You can never go wrong with a solid.” Pick one or two new spring shades — navy blue, aqua, apple green or white — then build around that. Pillar candles, even the battery-operated kind, offer great ambiance and warmth for the price. Clean out the fireplace and replace leftover coals and wood logs with four to five candles in various heights. “You can also cluster them on a tray and plop that on the kitchen table or coffee table,” Tydings said. “It instantly creates a focal point.” Plants are finally blooming outside. There’s no reason you shouldn’t enjoy a little color inside as well. “Put things at your entry so that you are reminded of spring when you first walk in the door,” Manlove suggested. Succulents and colorful spring flowers can be put in inexpensive planters, Manlove said. Or try a few birch logs or plants in your cleaned-out fireplace. Feldman said spring is the time to fill vases with blooming branches, which are only around for the season outdoors but have longevity inside. “Also, switch out your flowers whenever you head to a farmers market, which adds new color into your home.” You don’t need a major or expensive landscaping overhaul to freshen up an outdoor space. A dreary deck or patio can be brought to life with colorful herbs, annuals and perennials grown in pots, said Bruce Allentuck of Allentuck Landscaping in Clarksburg. Sweep up any leaves or debris left over from winter, then “find a nice piece of pottery and plant something that will last all season until the next frost,” Allentuck said. “That’s the easiest thing to do and will give the best impact.” For sunny spaces, consider petunias, bacopa or sweet potato vines. For shadier spots, begonias, impatiens or heuchera will grow if well potted. Try growing basil inside the same pots, Allentuck said. You can pick it for fresh herbs to use when you’re cooking dinner.

Bedbug sprays fail to kill even vulnerable insects in researchers’ test

A new study brings bad news for people fighting bedbug infestations and companies that sell over-the-counter insecticides. Ohio State University entomologists Susan Jones and Joshua Bryant found that “bug bombs” and “foggers” — cheap, insecticide-spraying aerosols that have been marketed for decades as do-it-yourself alternatives to exterminators — were ineffective against even the most vulnerable of bedbugs. In the study, published last month in the Journal of Economic Entomology, the researchers tested three popular commercial foggers against five wild strains of bedbugs found in Ohio homes and one laboratory strain that had not been exposed to insecticides. They found that after spraying the bugs with a typical two-hour fog, only the laboratory bugs had died; nearly all of the wild bedbugs, though placed in completely exposed containers, had survived. When the scientists covered the containers with paper to simulate the bedding that the insects often nest in, nearly all the bedbugs from every strain survived — even the laboratory strain. The scientists concluded not only that most wild bedbugs are resistant to pyrethroids, the active ingredients in fogger aerosols, but also that the fogging process itself is fundamentally flawed. “The spray can’t penetrate through a thin paper sheet, much less into cracks and crevices where bedbugs hide in real life. On top of that, we’re dealing with bugs resistant to pyrethroids in the first place” said Jones. “It’s a death knell for this type of product.” Jones, who had initially designed the study to test whether foggers caused surviving bedbugs to scatter and inhabit previously uninfested areas, said the results were so unexpectedly poor that she had to backtrack and ask whether these products worked at all. “After we ran the first spraying experiments, we saw that the bugs were crawling around as if nothing had happened,’” she said. The study tested two general-use products, Spectracide Bug Stop Indoor Fogger and Eliminator Indoor Fogger, and one marketed specifically for bedbugs, called the Hot Shot Bedbug and Flea Fogger. All three were developed by Spectrum Brands. Missy Henriksen, a spokeswoman at the National Pest Management Association, said that Jones and Bryant’s results “could be new for consumers but weren’t a surprise to the professional pest-management industry.” University of Kentucky entomologist Kenneth Haynes, who wasn’t involved in the study, said that academics have not held stock in foggers for years. “I don’t view bedbugs as a do-it-yourself project, and I’d call an exterminator if I had them — even though I know quite a lot about the bugs,” Haynes said. Asked for comment, Spectrum provided an e-mail statement saying that the Hot Shot fogger “has been thoroughly tested and is proven to be effective against the bedbugs they contact.” Bedbug infestations have been on the rise since the ban of DDT in 1972, due in part to increased international travel and the evolution of bedbug resistance to weaker insecticides. The bugs can be dragged into homes and offices on clothing, luggage, used furniture and pets — especially after trips to summer camps or foreign countries. Once they arrive, adult bedbugs can survive for more than half a year without feeding on blood from a human or other warm-blooded animal. “That’s bedbug biology. They have evolved to be very good at hiding and waiting to home in on the next blood meal,” Henriksen said. Haynes said that foggers, in addition to fueling increased bedbug resistance to insecticides, can pose dangers to people. In 2008, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 466 cases of acute, pesticide-related illness or injury associated with exposure to foggers between 2001 and 2006 in eight states. The study noted that harm often occurs when users leave fogged rooms too late, re-enter too early, don’t wipe down sprayed surfaces or use flame nearby. (Pyrethroids are extremely flammable.) Jones said she hoped the Environmental Protection Agency would review manufacturers’ efficacy data about these products and investigate which bedbug strains were used to test their products. For consumers, she said that a sharp eye around the house and a habit of running linens in the high heat dryer cycle are far more effective at keeping the unwelcome critters at bay than foggers are.

Winter’s freeze stopped ash borers and stink bugs cold, but they’re primed for a comeback

This winter is a real killer. The deep freeze, with arctic blasts from the polar vortex, has put invasive insects on ice in dozens of states. That includes the emerald ash borer, a pretty bug that does ugly things to ecosystems it invades. Up to 80 percent of the ash borers died when January temperatures dipped below minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit in St. Paul, Minn., according to an estimate by U.S. Forest Service biologists, who have been conductingstudies on the impact of cold weather on the bugs for the past three years. Their estimates were affirmed when state researchers found that nearly 70 percent of ash borers collected from infected trees in the Twin Cities area last month were frozen stiff — a good thing for ash trees that adorn communities and provide smooth, durable wood used for flooring, bowling alleys, church pews, baseball bats and electric guitars. Across the country, other destructive pests are dropping dead, including the hemlock woolly adelgid, which preys on Christmas trees in the Appalachian Mountains; the kernel-munching corn earworm, found in nearly every state; the citrus-destroying cottony cushion scale that migrated to Maryland from Florida; and the gypsy moth, which chomps on 80 species of trees and is spreading from the Northeast to the Midwest. The bugs found their way to the United States from all over the world and thrived in the relatively warm winters of recent years. At least two of the pests mounted great migrations from the Deep South to Virginia and Maryland. For now, at least, the freeze has stopped them in their tracks. Researchers in the Appalachians of West Virginia and Maryland found hemlock adelgids whose little, straw-like mouths were stuck to the pine needles from which they suck nectar. “If you poke them with a stick, they’ll normally move their little microscopic legs,” said Patrick Tobin, a research entomologist for the Forest Service in Morgantown, W.Va. But not this winter. Based on surveillance, researchers believe more than 95 percent of hemlock adelgids were killed in the northern Appalachians and at least 70 percent died in their southernmost range, Georgia. At first blush, this appears to be great news, Tobin said. Important trees, including ash, birch and oak, and such vital crops as soybeans, corn and oranges will probably get a break from millions of gnawing mouths. But invasive bugs are a breed apart. Built to last, they almost never experience extinction. Female adelgids and cottony cushion scales, for example, are asexual creatures that produce nymphs without copulation. Three generations or more will spring to life between March and October. As for emerald ash borers, __that Minnesota deep freeze affected only a limited number. Chicago also has ash borers, but temperatures there fell only to 17 degrees below zero and likely didn’t faze the insects. Minus 20 is the point at which they start to die. “This problem is not going away,” said Rob Venette, a Forest Service research biologist who studied the ash borer. Winter’s blow to the pests is more like a reprieve, said Mike Raupp, a professor of entomology at the University of Maryland, “a little correction” that thinned their ranks and probably will slow them down when warm weather returns. The cold weather provided a stage for a grand experiment that will help researchers determine if significant numbers of pests can be killed off, making the problems they create more manageable, Raupp said. A decade of study is needed for any definitive conclusions. Raupp studies the crop-eating brown marmorated stink bug. He said he’d like to be “cautiously optimistic” that winter wiped out huge numbers of them in the mid-Atlantic states, where they have feasted on farm crops for years. An experiment conducted by an entomology professor at Virginia Tech gave him hope. Stink bugs placed in foam insulated buckets had a 95 percent death rate when temperatures hovering around zero persisted for days. The bucket simulated overwintering hideouts in Blacksburg used by stink bugs to protect themselves from the cold. The conclusion? “There should be significant mortality of [stink bugs] and many other overwinter insects this year,” the professor, Thomas Kuhar, told The Washington Post Capital Weather Gang last month. But Raupp, who called Kuhar “a top-notch researcher,” is more guarded. Blacksburg had a few days at 4 degrees below zero, but Maryland did not. A research entomologist for the Agriculture Department also has low expectations. When researchers for the USDA visited outdoor sites in Maryland where stink bugs spend the winter, they found the same mortality rate — about 50 percent — as in earlier winters. “Unfortunately, they’re doing just fine,” said the entomologist, Tracey Leskey. Stink bugs are from China, where temperatures often plummet. Even if they did die in bunches, they enter “winter with an enormous population,” so plenty of survivors rush out in spring to multiply. A large group of stink bugs cozied up in the warm homes of residents who couldn’t seal enough cracks to prevent them from slipping through. “Every day I’ve had a stink bug wandering across my desk,” Raupp said. “They’re doing fine in my house.” It might seem that frequent snowfall would help kill the bugs, entomologists said, but instead it insulates and protects them. As if stink bugs weren’t bad enough, another invasive bug from Asia has made its way to Maryland. Detected in Georgia in 2009, the soybean-loving kudzu bug has since decamped toward the north. This winter’s polar shock might be that insect’s Waterloo. University of Georgia entomologist Wayne Gardner said kudzu bugs are slowed by just a layer of frost. Maryland’s temperatures dipped to 5 degrees. The corn earworm that devastates that crop prefers tropical climates, and typically heads south when temperatures cool. The vortex that hit 49 states with extreme cold and snow offered few safe havens. And gypsy moths were found frozen and flat on their backs near trees they infect. But the cruel winter apparently had little effect on ticks. In New Hampshire, they continue to weaken adult moose and kill calves. Tick populations are booming because cold weather now arrives in mid-October, too late to kill them in the brush where they wait to hitch a ride on moose until May. “We’ve had a higher tick load on moose this fall than we’ve ever seen, except for one year previously,” said Kristine Rines, a wildlife biologist and moose project leader for New Hampshire’s Fish and Game Department. To disrupt the tick reproduction cycle, winter would have to arrive “at its regularly scheduled time” in New Hampshire, around late September, Rines said. “We’ve already seen some . . . calves dying.” More from The Washington Post: Snowy-owl bonanza, thanks to a stubby-legged Arctic rodent Ivory trade: Radical attempt to stop elephant poaching Emerald ash borer’s domino effect on human health Releasing doves was like ringing dinner bell Tiny insect could mean end of orange juice

“How Not to be Eaten: The Insects Fight Back” by Gilbert Waldbauer and “A World of Insects ”edited by Ring Carde and Vincent H. Resh

An entomologist is standing on the porch at a party, watching sphinx moths flit around. A guy asks him if the moths have ears. Who knows? He pulls out his car keys and shakes them at the moths. They dart away, alarmed by the ultrasonic noise the metal generates. (The chunks of plastic we carry around now are useless for party tricks like these.) Back at his laboratory, he pokes around until he finds two ear-like structures near the moth’s mouth. Its trick for evading bats at night by dodging their high-pitched cries is finally understood. Stories like this make scientists easy to love. The dashing fellow on the porch nursing a sweaty old-fashioned (I like to think he’s a bourbon drinker), casually making scientific breakthroughs by rattling his car keys? That’s a fine protagonist. Gilbert Waldbauer’s“How Not to Be Eaten” shines at moments like these. A collection of essays on the defensive mechanisms of insects should be dramatic enough without a supporting cast of charming entomologists, but readers crave human contact. This is the problem facing nature and science writers: Without dialogue or some kind of personal drama, there is no story, just an accumulation of curious habits and mating practices. But place too much emphasis on people, and you veer toward biography. It’s a difficult balancing act. Waldbauer — a professor emeritus of entomology at the University of Illinois and author of several other popular books on bugs — won me over when he shared his recipe for bait to attract night-flying moths. He ferments molasses, sugar, canned peaches and stale beer for a couple of days, then brushes it on tree trunks at sunset. Later in the night, he returns to find slightly drunken moths sipping the nectar. Moth collectors call this “sugaring.” Although Waldbauer packs his essays with tidbits like these, the collection still reads more like a surprisingly interesting textbook than a compelling tale of popular science. Readers will certainly come away with a renewed appreciation for the ways in which insects use mimicry, deceit and poison to survive. The oleander aphid that sucks poisons from the shrub to protect itself is fascinating, as is the 11-spotted ladybird beetle that eats the aphids and takes in the poison for its own protection. But these bite-sized, easily digestible facts were at once too much and not enough to keep me turning the pages. I kept wanting to get back to that entomologist standing on the porch, jingling his car keys in the dark. Waldbauer’s work also appears in a new collection, “A World of Insects,” which draws on 50 years’ worth of insect literature published by Harvard University Press. Here the editors have gathered some of the finest and most entertaining entomological writing I’ve ever read. Mark Winston, a professor at British Columbia’s Simon Fraser University, offers a clever essay on killer bees called “The Creation of a Pop Insect.” His own fieldwork helped measure the spread of the bees throughout South America, where they disrupted hives of docile European bees and terrified the public. He delivers a lively critique of the media’s coverage of the phenomenon and even pulls back the curtain on the linguistic debate among scientists over terms such as “killer,” “African” and “Africanized” to refer to the bees. It’s a juicy tale, an intriguing blend of science, politics and tabloid sleaze. Forensic entomologist M. Lee Goff’s “A Fly for the Prosecution,” about a murder in which the time of death was determined through his analysis of the insects living in and around the corpse, is as exciting as any murder mystery, making it one of the high points in this collection. And the late Cornell entomologist Thomas Eisner’s “The Love Potion,” about a blister beetle known as Spanish fly, works for the same reason: Eisner was willing to put himself at the center of the story. He explored the question of whether a poison excreted by the beetles could cause priapism (prolonged and painful erections) in men who had eaten frogs that fed on the insects. The question had been around since 1869, when French soldiers stationed in Algeria experienced a number of alarming symptoms, including priapism, after eating frogs’ legs. Eisner fed blister beetles to frogs and analyzed the uptake of poison. Sure enough, the poison lingered in the frogs’ tissue for a few days without seeming to harm them, making them the likely cause of the French soldiers’ predicament. (Wondering if the poison was immediately distasteful, Eisner considered sampling it but thought better of the idea.) Unfortunately, this collection has its boring bits, too. Statements like “For any particular concentration of stimulating solution the intensity and duration of response is related to the threshold of the central nervous system” made me want to drop the class, until I remembered that I wasn’t in school but reading for pleasure. This is not the fault of that particular author, who might not have been aiming for a popular audience when the piece was written decades ago. I just wish the editors had dug a little deeper given that their goal, stated in the introduction, was to demonstrate that science writing need not be dull. I also wish the editors could have located the work of a single woman to include in this collection. Although females rule the insect world with nonchalant brutality, female scientists haven’t (yet) resorted to biting off heads to get their point across. Their contributions are notably absent from this volume. Entomologist May Berenbaum publishes one vibrant, interesting essay collection after another, biologist Marlene Zuk writes salacious tales of insect sex, and infectious-disease specialist Pamela Nagami has published three dazzlingly frightful books on parasites and insect bites. Apparently voices like theirs have escaped the attention of Harvard University Press, and the book is a bit duller because of it. **bookworld@washpost.com ** ** Amy Stewart  **is the author of “Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon’s Army and Other Diabolical Insects.” ** ** **The Insects Fight Back** By Gilbert Waldbauer Univ. of California. 221 pp. $27.95 **A WORLD OF INSECTS** **The Harvard University Press Reader** Edited by Ring Carde and Vincent H. Resh Harvard Univ. 404 pp. Paperback, $19.95

How to: Get musty odor out of an old dresser

QI have refinished an oak chest that I bought at a secondhand furniture store. It retains a musty smell that sets off my allergies, and I am not usually very sensitive. I have washed down the insides thoroughly with bleach and vinegar and applied an organic spray that uses enzymes to get rid of odors. I have left it in the hot sun for several days and now on the porch for weeks to air out — all to no avail. Any ideas? I had stripped the old varnish from the wood using Formby’s formula and steel wool, and I refinished it with Formby’s tung oil, a method I have used with great success for years on other pieces of used furniture. **Washington** A You need to seal the wood with a finish that will block the smell. Carrison’s Restorations in Manassas (703-369-6318) uses lacquer, but shellac is also effective and more suitable for application by nonprofessionals, says Michael Wells, who has worked at the shop, owned by his brother, for 16 years. They disassemble drawers by tapping at the corners until the old, usually brittle glue gives way. Then they scrape off all the old glue, thoroughly sand the wood and reglue. After that, they spray the lacquer. For a four-drawer chest, the fee is about $550; for a two-drawer chest, about $350. Sanding the surface, which for drawer interiors can be done only with the drawers disassembled, is the surest way to remove the mildew smell. You’ll also wind up with fresh glue. But if you’re not careful or if nails were added over the years, you risk splitting some of the wood. So if you’re not particularly handy and can’t spring for a professional restoration, you might try just spraying or brushing shellac over the drawer interiors without taking them apart. Brush away any puddles at the corners. On the Web, you might find cautions against doing this, for fear that sealing the drawer interiors will cause a moisture imbalance in the wood that will cause joints to fail. Not so, Wells says. “Old glue is what makes joints fall apart.” **For years I have usedBrasso to shine copper bowls and brass candlesticks. They looked great very shiny. Now the Brasso and other brass cleaners make them look dull, so I think the formula may have changed. What can I use?** **Potomac** Yes, the Brasso formula has changed. For people who want to do the polishing themselves, Joe Grenon, owner of Awesome Metals in Kensington (301-897-3266; www.awesomemetals.com) recommends Wenol Metal Polish (www.wenol.com) or Simichrome Polish (simichrome- polish.com). Local hardware stores might carry one or the other. Or you can take your pieces to a professional shop to have them polished and sprayed with a clear lacquer, which will block oxygen in the air from reaching the metal and causing it to tarnish again. On decorative pieces kept indoors, Grenon estimates this treatment will last 15 to 20 years before it would need to be redone. You can buy spray cans of lacquer, but Grenon doesn’t recommend coating your pieces yourself because of the risk of drips, sags and missed areas. “It’s like trying to paint a car in your driveway,” he says. At Awesome Metals, prices start at $35. Polishing and lacquering a pair of brass candlesticks costs about $150. The shop also does big projects, such as a chandelier for $800 or a bed for $1,500. **Have a problem in your home?** Send questions to  localliving@washpost.com . Put “How To” in the subject line, tell us where you live and try to include a photo. ■ ** The Checklist  **Read Jeanne Huber’s roundup of home-improvement tasks you should tackle in October, such as cleaning cobwebs, at washingtonpost.com/home.

What we’re reading: ‘Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt’

Just a month ago, after visiting our dormant, snow-covered garden in the backyard, my 5-year-old asked, “Mama, what happens to the worms in the winter time?” And though I didn’t have the answer, I knew just what book would: **_Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt_,** by Kate Messner, with art by Christopher Silas Neal– a beautiful book about a garden in every season, above the soil and below. It begins in late winter with the ground still saturated with melted snow and frosty soil, “Down in the dirt, things need to dry out and warm up,” a grandmother tells her granddaughter as they kneel in the mud.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico We follow the two on their journey through the next four seasons as they prepare the garden with compost in a bright red wheelbarrow, plant seeds and gently tend them, pull weeds and water the garden (and each other), watch the plants grow and produce food, and harvest the spoils of their hard work. All the while, we see what goes on both above and below ground, bringing to light the dark mysteries of the underground world and the creatures that are just as important as what we see above ground. Part of what we enjoy most about this book is its full-circle nature; we see the process and harmony of all the creatures in each season as integral to one another’s success. Every ant, grub, worm, bird, and bee have an important job to do in the garden. And the bonus is found at the end of the story with a guide to all the creatures mentioned or drawn in the book — the beneficial as well as the pest variety, including their scientific names and roles they play in the backyard garden. Neal’s illustrations convey the beauty of the garden and all its inhabitants, and could not be more lovely. Check out this book before spring is over to inspire the little gardener in your home. _Lauren Knight blogs atCrumb Bums._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **LikeOn Parenting on Facebook for more essays, advice and book suggestions. You can sign up here for our newsletter or check us out online here.**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _You might also be interested in:_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Introducing kids to gardening    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico 10 ways to get kids into nature and why you should    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico What we’re reading: The Iridescence of Birds    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Hundreds of baby spiders just burst out of the ground — and zookeepers are delighted

As if you needed one more reason to want a hard reset on 2016, zookeepers in Great Britain report that some 200 baby tarantulas have just burst forth from the Earth. But it's not quite as horrific as it sounds. Whatever your personal feelings are on the birth of a couple hundred spider hatchlings, this unprecedented event could help save a rare species or two.  Breeding Montserrat tarantulas in the Chester Zoo in England can obviously help expand the living spider population, but it's also providing scientists with their first observations of the spiders' behavior. In the three years that zookeepers have kept a dozen spiders in captivity, for example, they learned that males reach sexual maturity — and die — much quicker than females do. As a result of this difficulty in matching up life cycles, they ended up with just three males that they could try to breed.    With that kind of anticipation, you can't blame Garcia and his colleagues for being elated when hundreds of hatchlings emerged from the dirt. This first burst of hatchlings came from just one of the pregnant females, so there could be more to come. The spiders have been separated into individual containers, where zookeepers are hand-feeding them tiny insects as they grow. In a couple of years, the newly hatched males can be used in the breeding program. Meanwhile, the researchers can finally observe the species' life-cycle in its entirety, which could help them figure out how to protect the arachnids on their native island.

Zoom, zoom, eeek!: Mazda’s spider problem

Mazda is recalling its Mazda6 sedans for a really creepy reason: Gasoline-loving spiders are blocking the engine vent. That’s right — spiders. One variety of the eight-legged creature, the yellow sac, just loves the smell of gasoline. It loves it so much that it wants to live in car engines so it can smell gasoline all day. Unfortunately, this bug can cause the fuel tank to break.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Here’s how it happens: The spider weaves a web that blocks the vent hose, which reduces fuel tank pressure when the emission control system releases vapor. That can put stress on the fuel tank, which can crack and leak, increasing the risk of fire, according to documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Mazda said it is not aware of any fires caused by the spiders. The recall applies to more than 40,000 sedans with 2.5 liter engines from model years 2010 to 2012. Mazda has sparred with these spiders before. The company recalled the fuel system for Mazda6’s in 2011 too, and tried to keep spiders from crawling inside by adding a spring to the canister vent line, Reuters reported.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Since then, there have been nine reports of cracked fuel tanks in cars equipped with the spring. After the 2011 recall, Mazda changed the sedan’s software, and the problem hasn’t appeared in any of the cars with the update. For the current recall, Mazda will reprogram the software in the older cars free of charge and clean out any blockages in the vent hose. Though it may prevent fuel tank cracks, the software upgrade hasn’t been shown to keep the spiders out.

Popular Science: The magazine lists the year’s top products and technologies

Every December, the editors of Popular Science magazine create a list of products and technologies that are “poised to change our world.” Some samples from the 100 items described in this month’s list, the 27th: “Plastic from thin air”: AirCarbon is a plastic made by capturing methane from a dairy farm’s waste lagoon, using enzymes to combine the gas with ambient air and making a product that performs identically to most oil-based plastics but is lighter and costs less. “An American icon, remade”: Ford’s best-selling F-150 pickup replaced steel with military-grade aluminum in several non-load-bearing parts, improving performance and saving fuel. “A bike lock that outsmarts thieves”: Lock8 uses hardware (gyroscope, temperature sensor, etc.) to recognize that a bike is being stolen and software (an app) to blare an alarm and send an alert to your phone. It weighs less than a pound. “A quieter, lighter jet”: The HondaJet’s turbofan engines sit on top of its wings rather than below them — decreasing drag, reducing noise and increasing space in the cabin. Designed for a pilot and five or six passengers, the aircraft is on track to be certified in 2015. “Invisible duct tape”: Gorilla Clear Repair can invisibly mend a broken window, cracked headlamp or shattered phone screen. “Virtual reality on a dime”: If you’ve got a smartphone, you can get Google Cardboard and give yourself a complete virtual reality experience for just $25 worth of parts (corrugated box, rubber bands, glue, etc). You build it, tuck in the phone, download an app: Hold it up to your eyes and you can take virtual reality tours using Google Earth. “The next sustainable cuisine”: In a word, insects. The magazine interviews chef Mario Hernandez of New York’s Black Ant restaurant about eating grasshoppers, ants, mosquito eggs and stink bugs.

These bugs are the most gruesome clues in forensic science

Seven centuries later, investigators still look to blow flies, maggots and other insects for evidence. Bodies are ripe “to be colonized by plants and animals,” Goff wrote, like volcanic islands freshly erupted from the sea. Some bugs can smell a decomposing body from miles away. They come to feed. Or they'll lay eggs in the nose, eyes and throat. Based on who's still eating or whose eggs have hatched when the victim is discovered, experts can sketch a rough history of the corpse.        Otherwise, though, shifts may be difficult to detect, such as from an urban surface to a rural one, or a body that was buried for a few weeks and then moved indoors. “To suggest relocation, it is necessary to sample on the corpse something that should not be there,” Charabidze said. That's easier said than done. Time is one factor. The cadaver must remain in the first spot long enough to attract bugs. But it can't stay too long in the second place, or the initial colonizers might scurry away.  “Experiments should always be performed to check if something that appears 'unusual' really is,” he said, encouraging entomologists to trap insects where the body is found as well as where the corpse might have come from. Looking at scientific records alone, Charabidze found a potential sticking point: Maps of many corpse-eating bug populations are spotty. (Somehow, such bugs are “infrequently sought out and are poorly known among entomologists,” Charabidze and his colleagues wrote.) Generating such data isn't easy. “Once you start doing experiments on whole cadavers that’s a huge amount of work,” Wells said. “That’s really labor intensive, even using an animal carcass.” A midsize dead animal might attract hundreds of thousands of bugs, he said. Charabidze said that the future of forensic entomology will be cases beyond those requiring simply a place or time of death. “A mobile phone can give you an accurate idea of victim's location and date,” he said. Genetics, he said, such as looking for a victim's DNA in a maggot's guts, “will take on more and more importance in the next years.”

Love the smell of spring? Here’s where the season’s odors come from.

Though many springtime smells are familiar, what produces the scents of the season might surprise you. Here are a few of common odors and their unusual origins.

Agriculture officials use stingless wasps to battle Prince George’s beetle problem

In the battle against an invasive tree-killing insect native to eastern Asia, state and federal agriculture officials have decided to use a strategy that lets nature do most of the work. The emerald ash borer is a species of beetle that feeds on — and eventually kills — ash trees, which are prominently used in landscaping as well as stormwater and erosion control. After years of failed attempts to eradicate or at least lessen the effect of the pests by destroying infected trees, officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Maryland Department of Agriculture in Cheltenham are trying to cut off the problem where it starts: with insect eggs. To do so, they have enlisted the help of another east-Asian insect: “stingless wasps,” which are smaller than fruit flies and lay their own eggs as parasites in ash borer eggs, eventually killing the host. Although the tiny wasps are not a native species, officials said they are confident they will not become invasive. Officials deployed the first set of wasp eggs onto infected trees May 30. The emerald ash borer beetles are particularly aggressive compared with native wood-boring insects, laying 70 to 100 eggs each, eating through the interior of a tree as larvae and then feasting on its leaves as adults, they said. Ash borers are widespread despite earlier eradication efforts, which involved the destruction of 27 square miles of trees in Prince George’s County, where the region was first infested in 2003 via a tree nursery shipment from Michigan. Since 2003, there have been reports of infestations in Charles, Howard, Anne Arundel, Washington and Garrett counties. Officials said the program costs about $300,000 each year. Prior eradication efforts had cost as much as $1 million a year. Charles Pickett, an agricultural inspector at MDA, said that not only do officials anticipate the eggs being more effective in stopping ash borers, but they hope they will be more capable of surviving and producing an enduring population to fight the invasive insect down to a manageable level. “Each wasp can produce 62 eggs,” Pickett said. “We just want to get it to an equilibrium to control the borers so they’re not killing everything. We have native redheaded and clear-winged ash borers, which have always been here, but they only affect trees, they don’t kill them.” Jian Duan, a research entomologist at the USDA and lead scientist in the effort to stop the emerald ash borer, said the wasps were one of several species tested before release for their potential effectiveness against the ash borer, as well as whether they would cause any adverse effects of their own. MDA’s Cheltenham facility grows ash borer eggs to send to a lab in Michigan, which uses them to cultivate the wasps for use in Michigan and Maryland. “[This species of wasp] and the emerald ash borer evolved together for many years,” Duan said. “It will be very hard for the wasps to switch to another egg.” Dick Bean, program manager for plant protection and weed management at MDA, said the wasp effort is one of the last options available for saving the ash tree in Maryland. Given the region’s abundance of waterways and Chesapeake Bay tributaries, more conventional pest control means such as crop dustings of pesticides were out of the question. “There’s just nothing on the market that we can use, especially [in Prince George’s County] because of environmental reparation efforts,” Bean said. “Biological control is one of the last hopes we have. But there’s no silver bullet yet.” Bean said the first batch of eggs should at least make an impact on the ash borer population. Officials will keep track of the effectiveness of the wasps, as well as the dispersal system used thanks to a postdoctoral study conducted in conjunction with the effort by the University of Maryland.

How we control a pest in our garden without the use of pesticides

The potato beetles are coming, and we’re ready for them. Every garden has its nemesis, and ours is the Colorado striped potato beetle, a sly creature that tends to acquire resistance to whatever pesticides are used against it. According to one theory, the beetle’s co-evolution with toxin-containing host foods in the nightshade family — potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, peppers — has made it able to adjust to toxins in general. At our place, we’ve tried to avoid the pesticide issue altogether by evolving our own campaign against the pest with a bag of nontoxic tricks. We’ve found that in very wet summers, our potatoes are especially vigorous and able to ward off beetle attacks, so we mulch the crop heavily with decomposing hay to maintain moisture levels. The mulch also keeps the sun from warming up the soil too much, which would stress the plants and make them more susceptible to the beetles. We encourage birds and pest-eating insects by keeping our farm poison-free. Sometimes we put a barrier of floating row cover over the potato crop at planting time. We rotate the potatoes to a new spot each year to make it harder for overwintering beetles to find. And we pick off any egg masses, larvae and adult beetles that appear, as these creatures are voracious and can entirely defoliate the plants. If we have postponed this depredation long enough by hand-picking, we’ll find a decent crop of potatoes waiting for us under the soil. This year, we’re also trying a trap crop. It’s a time-honored garden practice by which you deliberately plant something as a decoy to lure a pest away. It could be a completely different plant, such as a row of radishes to distract flea beetles from the arugula. Or it could be the same crop you’re protecting but at a different time or place. For instance, we’ve sprouted some of our seed potatoes extra early and set them ahead of the main crop in the section of the garden where they grew last year, where the beetles are sure to find them. Potato beetles overwinter in the soil as pupae near the place where they have been feeding, then emerge in spring as adult insects, ready to walk or fly to the nearest nightshade-clan feast. When they do, we will start destroying any we find, before they have a chance to move on and discover where the main crop is growing. This is important, of course. There’s no point in trying the trap crop maneuver unless you make every effort to eradicate what you attract. Look under the leaves for orange egg masses and rub them off with your fingers. Knock the round, striped adults into a quart yogurt container full of soapsuds before they can fly away. Drown the fat, bloated pink larvae, too, or squish them with your fingers. Disgusting? Yes. Tedious? Yes. But easier to do it with this small crop than with your larger one. At times it’s best to cut off the most affected leaves and plunge them into a bucket of water, a fate the pests will not survive. Another trap crop you can try is eggplant, which potato beetles love most of all. And because the flea beetles do, too, your arugula will thank you as well. Check the condition of screens on rain barrels to prevent access by egg-laying mosquitoes. A larvicide product containing natural bacteria — Bt — will provide an added, organic form of protection. **— Adrian Higgins**

Learning to live with ants and the rest

Last March, at a lodge in coastal Mexico, I stood in a courtyard admiring the jasmine and hibiscus and I happened to look down. Along the edges of the terrace, thousands of ants were marching in tidy, ordered lines. The scene looked like the subway map of a major city. My host explained that the ants had free run of the place. “They clean the houses,” he said. “They eat all the dropped crumbs, spiders and scorpions.” I enjoyed his relaxed view, one I try to cultivate at home. Each spring, small black ants journey through the kitchen, and realizing that they do no harm at all, I have stopped squishing them. Once I found a honey pot full of them, but I now put the honey pot in a saucer of water and they don’t cross the moat. Problem solved. Outdoors, the buds on my peonies swarm with ants attracted by the nectar the buds secrete. But they open and bloom nonetheless. In my flower garden, ants sometimes make nests among the plants lining the gravel paths. It can look a little messy, but as I learn how useful ants can be — aerating the soil with their tunnels, pollinating flowers, eating insect predators, and removing and composting debris — I’ve stopped pouring boiling water on their homes to drive them away. Currently, the one nest I have, a spectacular mound, is covered with the sedum variety Weihenstephaner Gold. Normally the plant creeps along the ground, but now it’s a little mountain, as healthy as can be, where ants come and go, carrying stuff. Not all such encounters are pleasant. Ants once dug up a section of my mother’s lawn the size of a parking space. My husband and I sprinkled it with bone meal (which we had a hunch might repel them — and be good for the grass as well) and they fled — to a new spot a few yards away. That’s the trouble with ant control. The real control is in the hands of a powerful queen, ruling her empire from a bunker deep in the earth, far from your boiling water, citrus oil, dried molasses or organic spinosad-containing pesticide. She will immediately replace any ants you destroy, and the best you can hope for is that she’ll move the operation to a less bothersome place, leaving the earthworms to do all your soil-aerating for you. Often they move on of their own accord anyway, and besides, most ants are only a minor annoyance. Obviously, no one likes ants that sting, as many native ant species do. Non- native ones can do even more harm, because like so many imported insects they have not brought along the natural predators that kept their numbers in balance at home. Fire ants are the most notorious example, both the South American ones that have caused havoc in our southern tier of states, and the northern ones recently arrived from Europe, that injured the eyes of a friend of mine when she mowed an infested lawn. Sooner or later we will adapt to the existence of fire ants, just as we have to deal with bedbugs, rattlesnakes and black widow spiders. Maybe we’ll even find a use for fire ants — perhaps a crop that just loves the way they rototill the soil. You don’t believe me? Recently I read about a creature whose deadly venom can be used to treat brain cancer. You’ll never guess which one. It was the scorpion. Mosquitoes are emerging and looking for areas to breed. Patrol the yard for items that can hold rainwater, including tarpaulins, soda cans, toys, tires, wheelbarrows and wading pools. Check under decks and behind outbuildings. **— Adrian Higgins**

Dealing with spring weeds

This dynamic and compressed early spring has brought a concentration of long-awaited blossoms and bulbs but also an epic confluence of weeds. Winter annuals usually have gone out with a bang by late April; this year they have saved their fireworks for the arrival of such spring nuisances as the wild onion, the common blue violet and the dandelion. The lingering winter players also are led by a wily threesome: the lamium, the chickweed and the hairy bittercress. They germinate late in the year and count on the gardener retreating indoors for weeks on end while they grow under the radar. In the darkness of the soil, they develop extensive root systems. When the days grow longer and warmer, the weeds vegetate, flower and seed at an alarming rate. At that point, neglect is catastrophic. The lamium comes in two closely related versions, the henbit and the purple deadnettle. The latter afflicts my world, though it has a certain beauty to it. The leaves have a red-purple tinge to them, and the pink flowers peek out from beneath the foliage. The chickweed grows low and spreads. The bittercress is that weed with a rosette of disk-shaped leaves and a slender stalk capped in clusters of white flowers. In just a few days, the blooms turn to hundreds of seeds, wrapped in slender exploding capsules known as siliques. This makes the weed valuable to a Scrabble player but few others. All these weeds keep the gardener busy. They will show up in any cultivated bed or gap in the lawn. One of the best ways to beat them is to lay a 2-inch layer of chopped leaves in November. A few will sprout, but they easily can be handpicked. If you have, say, a vegetable bed that is now overrun with lamium, the most efficient approach may be to turn the soil with a garden fork and pull out the dislodged weeds as you go. Bag them — don’t compost them, or the seeds will come back to haunt you. Weeds in the lawn, unseen a month ago, cause people to panic. Much of this reaction is based on the idea that the lawn is a quasi-public space and as such an open invitation to judge our shortcomings. This angst spurs many to reach for herbicides, either directly or by using a lawn-care service. I am more unsettled by herbicides than weeds. Deep-rooted plants such as dandelions, onions and violets can be removed using a fishtail weeder. The others are sorted out with a hoe. The problem is that the places where most people buy hoes tend to offer great clunking versions. You need one with a straight, razor-sharp blade, either a draw hoe or a Dutch hoe, which you push rather than pull. These can be found at garden centers or in garden-supply catalogues. Weeds in the lawn are symptomatic of a larger problem: a lack of grass. This is caused by any number of reasons: soil compaction, too much shade, poor drainage, extreme pH levels. The difficulty with sorting out weeds now is that this isn’t the best time of year in these parts to seed a lawn — there isn’t enough time for seedlings to germinate and develop before the heat of June sets in. A mixture that includes perennial rye may give you a few weeks of coverage, but the permanent fix should occur in September for the preferred turf-type tall fescues we use. Sod may help, but again, I’d worry about it taking and setting enough roots before summer descends, even with great soil preparation. Removing the winter weeds now will reduce their seeding for next year. If you leave them, they will die naturally, leaving further holes in the lawn. This will soon be covered with wire grass and crabgrass, which should leave enough room for the chicory. Corn gluten applied now will curtail the crabgrass germination organically, which may be enough to get you set for the early fall assault proper. All this talk of weeds may force us to miss the larger picture, to wit, the glory of the spring garden. Of all the burgeoning perennials — the hostas, the hakone grass, the ferns — I am suddenly struck by the magnificence of the epimedium, or barrenwort. This is a plant valued for its dense, arrow-shaped foliage and mounding habit. It is unfussy, long-lived and is a rare ground cover that can take dry, shady conditions. But in April it is the flowers that take the stage, appearing as a froth amid the new leaves. I have a drift planted more than 15 years ago of the basic hybrid Sulphureum, with lemon yellow blooms that are conspicuous in an unflashy way. Another plant that keeps my mind away from the weeds is the humble grape hyacinth. It is now a ribbon of blue purple down a hillside of emerging plants. I curse it when its stringy leaves appear in early autumn, but now it brightens the whole garden. The November days spent planting it, years ago, have been long forgotten. Read past columns by Higgins at washingtonpost.com/home. **@adrian_higgins on Twitter**

A parasite named Obama

Obama is a parasite. He’s also a fungus, a spider and an extinct lizard. But before President Obama’s critics rejoice, having unappealing species named after you is apparently a good thing. “Honestly, it’s difficult for me to envision a higher honor,” Jason Bond, an Auburn University professor, told the Loop. “It’s permanent. In science, there are few things that we do as scientists that has the permanency that taxonomy does.” Bond, a spider expert at the university’s Department of Biological Sciences and its Museum of Natural History, discovered several new species of trapdoor spiders in late 2012, and named one of his favorites, “Aptostichus barackobamai” after the president. It had unique characteristics, Bond said, like Obama. This week Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced plans for a Barack Obama Preparatory High School to open in fall 2017. There are already schools, and roads, and even a mountain in Antigua, with the sitting president’s name. Bond called the White House to let them know “there’s a really cool trapdoor spider named for” Obama, but never heard back. The president is, however, well aware that a high school in his home state is in the works. “I’m not going to put words in his mouth, but he knows about it and he’s excited about it,” Emanuel said, according to the Chicago Tribune.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University We wonder if Obama would feel the same about these: **1.** In December 2012, Bond named a new trapdoor spider “Aptostichus barackobamai” after Obama. The spider, according to LiveScience, builds a protective shield and hides behind it before attacking prey (insert joke about dealing with House GOP).    *[WSU]: Wayne State University **2.** In April 2009, a researcher at the University of California Riverside found a new lichen species, which is a kind of fungi, and named it “Caloplaca obamae,” according to a press release from the university.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University **3.** In November 2012, new fish species were named after Democratic presidents, who were committed to environmental protection, according to a Scientific American article. The “Etheostoma obama” is a bright orange fish speckled with blue marks. The other partisan fish are named for former Presidents Clinton, Carter and Roosevelt. A fifth fish is named for former Vice President Al Gore.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University **4.** In April 2012, a new parasite was discovered near Obama’s father’s birthplace in Kenya. The hairworm, unique because it can reproduce without a male, is named “Paragordius obamai” in honor of the president, according to the University of New Mexico.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University **5.** In December 2012, just after Obama won re-election, Yale scientists named an ancient extinct lizard species “Obamadon.” According to a Boston Globe story, the scientists waited until after the election because they didn’t want Obama to think they were calling him extinct if he’d lost.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University

Stinkbugs: Taste like chicken?

Regarding the interesting, if not somewhat depressing, April 10 front-page article “Partying like it’s 1996,” on the return of Brood II of the cicadas, wouldn’t it be nice if cicadas ate stinkbugs? ****LeRoy LaRoche** , Potomac**

Lawmakers, scientists are focused on the growing threat to crops from stink bugs

Although this month’s frigid temperatures might make spring seem very far off, Virginia lawmakers, scientists and farmers are already focusing on the upcoming growing season and the potential effects of the dreaded brown marmorated stink bug on crops. This week, Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) announced that Congress has again directed the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency to ramp up efforts to combat the mounting threat of stink bugs, which have devastated apples, peaches, corn, grapes and other local crops in recent years. In a statement, Wolf’s office said the House’s recently approved 2014 omnibus spending bill would continue to prioritize stink bug control research at the USDA, as part of a five-year plan to solve the problem. The bill requires USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to help states implement biological control technology — once it is developed — to blunt the damage done by the bugs. The legislation also directs the EPA to quickly approve any research recommendations so that pest-control products can be sold on the open market, Wolf said in the statement. There is currently only a limited number of products that growers and homeowners can use against the bug, with varying degrees of success. “Whether you have a home herb garden or acres of farmland, we can all agree that the pervasive problem of stink bug infestation needs to be tackled head-on,” Wolf said in the statement. “These pests are an annoyance that not only affect everyday life in people’s homes, but also vital American industries that have a broader impact on the economy.” Last year, experts cautioned that the shield-shaped bugs, known for emitting an unpleasant smell when they are threatened or crushed, were likely to make a strong reappearance in the Washington area in the spring. The population that was observed at the end of last year’s harvest season appeared far more robust than it had in previous months, according to entomologists, who predicted there could be a 60 percent jump in population this year. About $21 billion worth of crops could be at risk from the bugs across the country, according to USDA estimates. The insects, which are known to feed on hundreds of varieties of host plants, caused about $37 million in losses from damage to apple crops alone in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania in 2010, officials said. As lawmakers focus on funding for research, Virginia scientists report that the large population of bugs currently hibernating in trees, barns, sheds and homes across the region appears to be doing fine, despite the record-setting cold temperatures that have affected mid-Atlantic states in recent weeks. “It’s difficult to say what the 2014 population will bring, but there’s no indication yet that there will be any adverse effect from weather on the size of that population,” said Christopher Bergh, a Virginia Tech associate professor of entomology. Experts say they are working to understand the rapid spread of the bug, which is native to China and made its U.S. debut in Allentown, Pa., in 1998. Tracy Leskey, a research entomologist with the Agriculture Department, said stink bugs have been detected in 40 states and the District — an increase of 15 states in the past several years. “The other thing that has changed is the increase in crop injury — not to the same devastating levels reported in the mid-Atlantic, but in new states like North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Oregon and Washington state,” Leskey said. Although it’s difficult to estimate how many stink bugs might be in the region, Leskey said, a pheromone trap has been developed to help track their population numbers. “We feel like now we have a really good, sensitive tool to detect their populations and get a handle on it,” she said. “We’re really going to be able to do that over the next couple of years, to capture the up-and-down of the size of their populations.” She said entomologists are also hoping to understand more about what affects the stink bug’s mortality rate. In the past, low populations were sometimes thought to result from weather phenomena such as hurricanes, but with many variables at play, scientists have said it’s difficult to know what helps or hinders the stink bug population. It appears clear that the recent bitter cold will do little to thwart the brown insects in the months ahead. “They have the capacity to tolerate cold temperatures, unfortunately,” Leskey said. “We pulled some out just the other day from a shed, and it was cold as anything, and the bugs were just fine.”

Bedbugs: A Rental Reality

“I thought it was poison ivy, but it persisted,” says the Rockville, Md., woman, who found red welts on her skin. She declined to give her name because of the nature of her problem. A month later, her boyfriend casually mentioned he’d had bedbugs, and she put two and two together. But by then, the pests had made themselves quite at home in her house. “I wore clothes and a coat to bed,” she says, “but they traveled to my face to bite me.” Welcome to Washington’s icky domestic reality. In the past couple of years, bedbugs have been making inroads in the region, following a national trend that shows no sign of abating. A 2012 Terminix report rated Washington the sixth-most bedbug-infested city in the country — up from No. 7 in 2011 — and reports of the critters in public places and in homes are increasingly common. Last month, for example, a cluster of University of Maryland dorms reported an infestation. As any military strategist will confirm, removing an established invader is a lot harder than preventing one in the first place. Killing the insects is a long process, often requiring months of repeated visits from an exterminator. The insects — which don’t carry disease but do cause itchy bites — had largely been eradicated in this country after World War II. So why are they back now? “There’s more international travel, so we’ve been re-infesting with bedbugs from other parts of the world,” says Thomas Henry, a USDA research entomologist. Bedbugs like to travel. If you stay in a hotel with a serious infestation or have neighbors with a problem, chances are a few of the bugs might find their way to your bedroom. And like little pioneers, they will gradually colonize that space. It’s important to catch the bugs early. If you’re moving into a rental unit that’s been freshly painted and cleaned, there’s little chance you’ll know they’re there. Ask around: Former residents and neighbors might give you some history. Online resources such as Bedbugregistry.com — which lists buildings that have had recent infestations — could help. If you think you’ve got bedbugs, undertake a serious inspection of your bed and the area surrounding it. Check the sheets and mattress for blood marks, black fecal matter or the bugs themselves, which as adults are about the size of an apple seed. Lift your mattress, look under box springs and bring a flashlight to check crevices. These guys are good at hiding. “I’ve read that they can fit into a crack as flat as a credit card,” Henry says. If you only find a few bugs, the problem can probably be managed without professional help — “but there’s a lot of work involved,” says Gerard Brown, the D.C. Department of Health’s program manager for rodent and vector control. Kill every bug you can find, then wash all of your clothes and bedding in hot water. Invest in a tight cover for your mattress and box spring, available at big-box stores that sell household goods. If your searches regularly turn up five bugs or more, it’s time for outside help. “We’re booked every day,” says Michelle Pine, co-owner of Capital K9 Pest Solutions (1001 N. Fillmore St., No. 144, Arlington; 703-399-2414). Capital K9 offers a range of options, from the increasingly popular dog inspections to sniff out the bugs, to chemical treatments or an intense heating process that warms the entire house to more than 120 degrees. Other firms use nontoxic products — although David Hersh, president of pest-control company A Healthy Home (240-351-6604), says that when it comes to bedbugs, “even people committed to the green lifestyle will go with the thermonuclear option.” The more effective a treatment is the more it usually costs. Filling a house with hot air does the best job of killing the vermin — and costs thousands of dollars. If the bugs were there when you moved in, or if other units in your building are infested, your landlord may be legally required to pay for treatment. Some landlords just decide it’s better business to pay for eradication than acquire a bad reputation. That’s how it worked for a man whose Northwest D.C. group house developed a problem last month. “Our landlord had someone come and check, and they confirmed it,” he says. After the subsequent heat treatment, the bugs seem to be gone. “The landlord paid for everything, and it was definitely more than $3,000.” That renter, who also chose to remain anonymous, is remarkably philosophical about the bugs. “I’m not so freaked out,” he says. “I just sort of assume this is the price you pay for living in an urban area.”

Navy grants $750,000 to develop bomb-sniffing locusts

Locusts came to fame as agents of destruction during the eighth plague of Egypt in the Bible, but some researchers envision a new occupation for the humble insects: cyborg bomb detectors. Yes, you read that correctly. The Office of Naval Research has given Washington University in St. Louis associate biomedical engineering professor Baranidharan Raman and his team a $750,000, three-year grant to continue his research into turning ordinary locusts into military tools. The idea is simple, even if the execution is not. Like most insects, locusts are equipped with an exponentially more powerful and sensitive olfactory system than anything humans can artificially replicate — so why not use this preexisting system to hunt for bombs, rather than attempting to create what will inevitably be a pale imitation?  So the first step is harnessing those antennae. And that requires the implantation of sensors, which can record and decode certain neural activity, into the locusts’ brains.  These sensors have been used in Raman’s research, but for the locusts to be useful in the field, they’ll need to be mobile. The plan is to hook those sensors to a small “backpack,” which will contain a transmitter to send signals to a receiver hooked up to an LED. If there are explosives, it will light up red. If there aren’t any, the light will shine green. That, though, will be only half of the battle during the next three years. The other half will be actually learning how to guide locusts to the areas that might contain bombs. That’s where the tattoos come in.     Raman said he is not as concerned with the practical battlefield usage of the locusts at this point — the team is currently focused on reaching a point where that’s a concrete concern. But, at the tune of three-quarters of a million dollars, the Navy certainly seems invested in the idea.

Food for thought: Would you eat an insect?

The latest weapon in the fight against hunger, global warming and pollution might be flying by you right now. Edible insects are being promoted as a low-fat, high-protein food for people, pets and feed animals (or livestock). The United Nations, an international organization that helps countries work together, says the bugs come with appetizing side benefits: reducing greenhouse gas emissions and livestock pollution, creating jobs in poor countries and feeding the millions of hungry people in the world. Some edible-insect information in bite-size form: Two billion people do, mostly in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said last week as it issued a report exploring edible insect potential. Some insects may already be in your food. Demand for natural food coloring instead of artificial dyes is increasing, the agency’s experts say. A red coloring produced from the cochineal, a scaled insect that lives in Peru, already is used in a popular brand of strawberry yogurt. Scientists who have studied the nutritional value of edible insects have found that red ants, small grasshoppers and some water beetles pack enough protein to rank with lean ground beef while having less fat. Are you bored with whole-wheat pasta or brown rice that your parents prepare to help you get fiber in your diet? Edible insects are fiber-filled, and they also contain useful minerals such as iron, magnesium, phosphorous, selenium and zinc. Beetles and caterpillars are the most common among the more than 1,900 insect species that people eat. Other popular insect foods are bees, wasps, ants, grasshoppers, locusts and crickets. Less popular are termites and flies, according to the U.N. report. Insects don’t need to eat much before they can become food themselves. Cattle need to be fed about four times as much to produce the same amount of food. Most insects raised for food are likely to produce fewer environmentally harmful greenhouse gases than livestock, the U.N. agency says. Edible insects are a moneymaker. In Africa, someone who gathers four big water bottles full of grasshoppers can sell them for as much as $20. Some caterpillars in southern Africa and weaver ant eggs in Southeast Asia bring even higher prices at market. As an entree, they are considered head and thorax above the average bug. **— Associated Press  **

Fencing out the Easter Bunny

Without much coming up in the March garden, the sight of brightly colored eggs tucked into a yard’s greenery is a welcome one, especially if they are real eggs, home-dyed, rather than candy ones wrapped up in foil (though maybe my inner 4-year-old would differ). In any case, I’ve always found this a charming, if puzzling, tradition. This year I did a bit of research into the past, and yes, it’s quite logical that the rabbit, associated as it is with the ancient fertility goddess Eostre (whose name gave us Easter) should be a spring totem. After all, a rabbit can produce 18 bunnies a year, and may conceive new ones even while pregnant. As for eggs, they’re a fertility symbol, too. One legend about Eostre had her turn a freezing bird into a rabbit in order to give it warm fur — hence the rabbit that delivers eggs. As for the future, let’s hope that a biotech lab doesn’t engineer some sort of furry Frankenfowl that lays rainbow eggs. Sometimes science is stranger than myth. Meanwhile, thoughts of bunnies at Easter time occupy the minds of many a gardener: bunnies eating lettuce, bunnies eating Swiss chard, bunnies girdling the trunks of young trees. In some areas they are a yearly threat, in others only when predators are scarce. But protection is essential because the cute cottontail can be as voracious as it is fertile. Shooting rabbit trespassers is hard to do. If you are close enough to get a good shot you can probably see how their little noses quiver and admire their soft, floppy ears. Trapping isn’t a good option, either. My husband once showed me a baby one he’d caught in his cap, and the best we could do was relocate it down the road. I do find that a sprinkling of dried blood (a fertilizer found at many garden centers) is a great nontoxic repellent. It needs to be reapplied after rain, but that’s fine. Applications of nitrogen-rich blood meal give garden greens a terrific boost. The permanent solution, however, is a rabbit-proof fence, which means one with openings no wider than an inch. (Tiny rabbits, because of their numbers, can be just as destructive as big ones.) It needn’t be very tall: Two or three feet will do. In fact, you can buy a “rabbit guard” fence with wide mesh above and finer mesh at the bottom, widely available at hardware stores and mass merchandisers. Chicken wire also works fine. It’s best to bury chicken wire at least six inches down, so nobody tunnels under. You could also just bend it and lay some of it flat on the ground, weighted with bricks or stones. Fencing really works, as long as you keep the gate closed. Remember Mr. McGregor? You don’t want furry creatures trapped inside the garden, wondering how to get out. Check to make sure no crops are being nibbled. Hopefully, there are only bunny tracks outside the fence. And no eggs. ****Sow tomato seeds for transplanting in early to mid-May. When seedlings reach three to four inches, transfer them to larger pots for proper root development — a six-inch pot can take four seedlings. The larger pots can be placed in a cold frame that vents on warm days. Don’t plant tomatoes too early: Cool nights and cold, wet soil will slow their development. **— Adrian Higgins**

Boxwood gets a makeover

The boxwood is valued for its evergreen steadfastness, but we are at that one lovely moment in the year when the monarch of shrubs transforms itself with new growth. This is produced between late April and mid-June and gives a bush a shaggier look and, moreover, a brighter appearance that radiates vitality. The new light green growth spends the next month hardening off and reverting to its darker state, so enjoy this phenomenon now. I do like boxwood. Yes, it has an odor some people disdain, and yes, it calls to mind an old formality that can be stultifying, but boxwood shrubs used as accents, to announce a threshold or frame a path can give a soothing strength to any garden. Boxwood is happiest in the shade garden, from places of light shade to gloomier landscapes. It dislikes baking hot spots in summer but detests more than that an exposed and sunny location in winter, which causes discoloration and dieback. The shade garden is a better fit aesthetically as well as physically, because this is the environment where you rely more on leaf ornament. Boxwood’s forte — other than its lack of appeal to deer — is that it provides a steadfast foil of fine texture against coarser-leafed shade plants such as azaleas, hydrangeas, hostas and Japanese maples. A simple line of boxwood, or just one large specimen, is all you need to bestow a sense of structure to an area of the garden. There’s no need to re-create a Colonial garden, unless you want to. I’ve touched on this before, but it is worth repeating: In recent years, the development of new boxwood varieties has revived a shrub that for all its rich history in the American garden was falling quickly from grace. The classic English boxwood was beset with a series of ills, from soil nematodes to boxwood decline disease. The latest, and in some ways most serious, malady is the boxwood blight, a fungus that targets many boxwood types but especially English box. The spores of the disease are spread by bringing in infected plants or tools, so you can keep it at bay if you are careful. If you had an old estate stuffed with antebellum boxwood — admittedly not a problem for most of us — you would do well to keep a set of garden tools for the visiting maintenance crew to use. That’s the advice that Robert Saunders gives to property owners and institutions with such gardens. His family’s nursery in Piney River, Va. — Saunders Brothers — is widely known for its boxwood and grows varieties for garden centers and public gardens from Richmond to Boston. I was recently in a boxwood garden in Georgetown with some other boxwood gurus — Andrea Filippone and Eric Fleisher, whose company, F2 Environmental Design, specializes in restoring boxwood gardens that have become old, tired and diseased. They do this with a two-pronged approach: by using organic practices that revitalize the soil and by planting new varieties. In the old days, the world of boxwood worked this way: If you wanted tall hedges, you used something called American box; otherwise you inherited ancient English box as big blobs that rose five or six feet and almost as much across. If you were well-heeled, you could buy expensive boxwood that had been salvaged from old estates and hauled to your garden. (Even old box moves well, in the right hands.) For small edging box you used younger English box and kept it clipped, or you planted miniature varieties that might grow a foot high after 30 years. Today, you can pick from a raft of varieties by leaf shape, color and — foremost — size. Because they grow at a faster rate than old box, you don’t have to wait inordinately for them to have the effect you want. So for an edging box, Filippone will use a variety such as Grace Hendrick Phillips, which is bright green, very fine in texture and grows to about 12 inches by about 24 inches across. Other choices include Morris Dwarf and Green Pillow, she said. Another great dwarf boxwood is named Franklins Gem, similar in its light green hue and extremely fine texture, but a little taller and wider, getting to three feet across. Vadar Valley bridges the space between small and medium-size boxwood, growing two feet high and four feet across after a few years. After 15 years or more it can get to three feet high and six feet across, Saunders said. Vadar Valley is distinguished by a handsome blue cast to its spring foliage. It’s slow-growing, but with a bit of age “it looks spectacular,” Filippone said. Among the new hybrids that substitute for English boxwood, Filippone commends the variety Justin Brouwers, which has attractive, dense, narrow foliage. Another of Filippone’s favorites is Green Mound. For a larger version, Saunders recommends Green Beauty and Jim Stauffer, both of which can take sunnier sites. The latter is more resistant to leafminer but is harder for consumers to find, he said. Many of these varieties have their quirks. But they are not as sickly as boxwood of yore, assuming they are free of blight, and very much worth planting instead of, say, azalea or hydrangea. If you want more verticality in your boxwood, Filippone commends a variety named Rotundifolia which, as its name suggests, has markedly larger and rounder leaves that pop out in the presence of other boxwood foliage. Another, named Fastigiata, takes on the form of a medium-size Christmas tree. Saunders thinks it should be used in place of the screens of arborvitae that people like. It’s more handsome, he says, and deer-resistant. For all their benefits over English box, many of these varieties face a couple of issues. They can be hard to find in an industry where growers must anticipate demand years in advance. (Saunders’s Web site, www.saundersbrothers.com, lists the retail nurseries it supplies.) Also, some are more prone to boxwood leafminer, which can disfigure the foliage. One way to reduce but not eradicate the problem is to prune and destroy the fresh growth where the midge lays her eggs in May, but do this after the new growth darkens next month. Varieties derived from the species _Buxus sempervirens_ aren’t as susceptible. These include Vardar Valley, Rotundifolia and Fastigiata. Filippone also uses organic, insecticidal soap to kill the adults when they emerge and fly about in early May, giving the boxwood several sprayings as weather requires. Saunders sees a day when future varieties are resistant both to blight and to leafminer. What is clear is that a plant once thought moribund is springing back to life, courtesy of growers and breeders who refuse to let this ancient shrub sink into history. **@adrian_higgins on Twitter** **Also at washingtonpost.com**   Read past columns by Higgins at   washingtonpost.com/home. **More fromHome & Garden:** What to do with spent bulb foliage The serenity of a shade garden Our favorite pots for spring plantings 7 milkweed varieties and where to find them

An Earth friendly reading list

With spring in full swing,  bookstores and libraries  are sprouting with books about the environment. Here are a few that offer a smart take on the natural world as well as being fun to read. _**“Out of the Way! Out of the Way!”** By Uma Krishnaswami and Uma Krishnaswamy (Groundwood Books, ages 4-6). _ This book uses charming illustrations and poetic language to tell the unlikely story of how a tree grows in a sprawling city in India. _**“Life in the Ocean: The Story of Oceanographer Sylvia Earle”** _ ___ _ __ _ By  Claire A. Nivola (Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers/   Frances Foster Books, ages 6-9) _ Sylvia Earle is one of the most important pioneers in the exploration of the deep sea. Her work has helped broaden our understanding of the oceans and the creatures that live in them. What makes this book exceptional is the way it uses Earle’s own words to describe the sea. Challenging the traditional image of whales as “big and fat and ponderous and lumpy,” Earle declares, “Whales are like swallows . . . like otters. . . . They move in all directions. . . . Rollicking, frolicking creatures, doing all this wonderful dancing in the sea.” _**“Marty McGuire Digs Worms!”** _ _ By Kate Messner and Brian Floca (Scholastic Press, ages 6-9)  _ It’s hard to think of cafeteria composting as the topic for a good chapter book, but Messner and Floca pull it off. It’s the characters who make this book entertaining, whether it’s Marty’s wildlife rehabilitator mom or her inventive Grandma Barb, who thinks both worm slime and duct tape have essential uses. _**“How to Raise Monarch Butterflies: A Step-by-Step Guide for Kids”** _ _ By Carol Pasternak (Firefly Books: ages 8-12) _ Reading about insects is one thing; learning to raise them is another. Pasternak has written a clear, practical and family-friendly guide to raising butterflies, which includes plenty of compelling scientific information along the way and ends by explaining what we can do to save their habitat. _**“The Lorax Pop Up!”** _ _ By Dr. Seuss, with pop-ups by David A. Carter (Robin Corey Books, All ages) _ Perhaps you saw the movie version of “The Lorax,” but we all know that the original book is better than the movie. This pop-up version can give kids of all ages a new appreciation of Dr. Seuss’s pro-environment message. ** — Juliet Eilperin  **

You can train your cat to use the toilet. Just don’t expect it to flush.

The apartment Daniel Freudberg shares with his girlfriend has two bathrooms. One is used by the couple and visitors. The other is used by their 7-month-old kitten, Kal, who does all his business in there — on the toilet. “We never bought an actual litter box,” said Freudberg, 27, an Arlington, Va., retail store manager who so strongly believes in cat toilet-training that he has encouraged his boss to try it. “I love it, honestly.” Many people treat their pets like furry children. But within that demographic is a small minority of cat owners who have taken pet humanization to the next level by eschewing litter in favor of sharing the toilet with their animals. Toilet-training cats is surprisingly possible, evangelists say, and the benefits are great: No litterbox smell. No gravelly grains underfoot. No scooping. (Just flushing, because thumb-less felines are no good at that.)  “We are an elite group, those of us who train our cats” to use a toilet, said Brooks, 56, who is now working on a book about cat-walking and meditation. “Most people say, ‘My cat can’t do that.’ And I’m here to say all cats can do it.” The methods detailed in both books and kits are all relatively similar and will sound familiar to anyone who has potty-trained a toddler. They involve baby steps, rewards like treats or praise, occasional accidents and no reprimands. In the case of cats, the process also involves placing a litter-filled insert in the toilet bowl, then gradually reducing the litter inside it while widening a hole in the insert that allows the litter and waste to drop into the water below.  Brooks — whose eight-step method relies on items readers likely have at home, such as an expendable mixing bowl — advises first doing a “truffle test”: Dropping an orb-shaped chocolate into the toilet to make sure the splash isn’t so high that it will dampen and disturb the feline above. Brooks said he has successfully trained eight cats and is currently coaching his two kittens, Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt.  She taught Hanuri using a product called CitiKitty, and it took two rounds of training. But now, Hanuri reliably goes No. 2 once daily in the early morning. No. 1 happens whenever the cat likes. Lee, who said she is a “little bit like a clean freak,” finds this all far preferable to a litter box, though she said it baffles her friends. “Even if they love their cats, they don’t want to share their toilet with their cats,” said Lee, who sometimes takes Hanuri along when she goes out for brunch. “We share the toilet. We share everything.”  While none of the toilet-training cat owners interviewed said they had experienced that complication, they did acknowledge that sharing a bathroom with a cat can lead to awkward moments. Guests who use the bathroom, for example, might find the litter insert in the toilet or even unflushed waste that they might attribute to the human. This happened to Brooks, and there also was the time a cable repairman found a pile of cat poop on the floor because someone had shut the bathroom door and left the kitty no place else to go. “You’ve got to make sure you keep the seat up all the time,” Brooks said. “You can’t forget that.” A trained cat can also develop some humorous habits. Brooks said one of his cats closed the door behind her when she used the bathroom. And every cat he’s trained has taken up the practice of racing him to the toilet when he gets up to go. “You’ll have to stand there and wait for them,” Brooks said. “I literally think they think it’s amusing.” For Freudberg, Kal’s owner, toilet-training was a selling point. He had recently taken care of his brother’s and sister-in-law’s cat, Fuzz, for a year. And Fuzz, coming from a tiny Brooklyn apartment, came toilet-trained. That “awesome” skill was one reason he took her in and fell in love with her, recalling that she’d wait to do No. 2 until he got home from work, because she knew she would get a treat when she did. When Fuzz returned to New York in January, Freudberg’s apartment felt like an empty nest. “I didn’t want to get a new cat,” he said. “I felt like Fuzz and I, we had a weird bond.” His girlfriend, Beth, who had recently moved in, did want a cat — so badly, in fact, that she created a 13-slide Power Point presentation titled “An Argument for Cats: Why We Should Adopt a Cat.” She made her case on Jan. 16, citing evidence of health benefits for pet owners, statistics on cat homelessness, quotes from famous cat owners including Charles Dickens and, on slide 7, a bullet-pointed assertion that “toilet training will be easy” with help from Fuzz’s owners and YouTube videos.  “Happy to report no accidents have occurred since within the first week that we got him, and he has taken to the toilet wonderfully,” Beth, 28, who did not want her last name published, wrote in an e-mail this week. “Pretty soon we will live litter-less lives.”

From jasmine to rotting flesh, flowers emit fragrance to attract pollinators

More than 130,000 people visited the U.S. Botanic Garden in July, many just to see a single flower. The bloom of the titan arum is notable for three things. First, it’s enormous: The flower doubled the height of the plant from four to eight feet. Second, it’s rare: Since it takes so much energy to produce a flower of that size, the bloom was 10 years in the making. Finally, it stinks: The titan arum’s blossom is known as the “corpse flower,” because it reeks of rotting flesh. For all of our interest in the scents of flowers, few people have bothered to consider how and why flowers give off their aromas. Robert Raguso, a chemical ecologist at Cornell University, and his colleagues have hypothesized several reasons plants give off scents. The most obvious is attraction. Most animals worry about attracting mates for reproduction. Since flowers are rooted to the ground and have sex from a distance, they must attract pollinators that will transport their reproductive products to nearby flowers. Flowers that best attract pollinators will have an advantage in proliferating their genes. Scents that we consider “floral” tend to attract bees, hummingbirds and other famous pollinators. But not all animals share our aroma preferences. Beetles and flies can act as pollinators, too, and they simply adore the smell of rot and excrement. To each his own. A second use for floral scents is the opposite: repellence. Not all creatures are pollinators. Some bees punch holes in the backs of flowers, and swarms of ants can easily destroy a plant. Some flowers use offensive odors to keep those dangerous creatures away. A flower’s scent also acts as a training mechanism, a variation on the attraction theme: Attraction means that the pollinator likes the smell. With the training theory, the pollinator may not have strong feelings about the smell itself, but it learns to link it to nectar. “Think of scents as olfactory billboards that teach pollinators to associate a certain smell with a good meal,” says Raguso. Aroma also acts in concert with color to train pollinators. Insects, birds and other pollinators have memories, but they can only hold only so many recollections of individual colors and scents in their minds. Using the two in combination (red plus a honey smell, for example) is a better billboard, more likely to be remembered. A flower’s smell can also act as a navigational tool. Humans, with only one nose, are pretty bad at this. But bees, for instance, are different. Like many other pollinators, they have several olfactory organs, some on the ends of their antennae. Bees use the slightly different olfactory signals from their two antennae to find their way around. A flower’s scent can direct a pollinator to its exact location. There’s one more theory to explain the role of floral scents. Charles Darwin, the father of natural selection, pointed out that some pollinators flit between flowers of different species, increasing the chances that a flower’s reproductive products will go to an unrelated species, producing a hybrid offspring. Hybridization in the plant kingdom has some benefits, such as creating new species, but many hybridized plants are sterile and mark the end of a genetic line. Scents help prevent this from happening. If a flower can differentiate itself from other species, it is more likely to attract specialized pollinators and maximize contact with others of the same species. If you really like one brand of beer and it has a very distinct flavor, you’re unlikely to buy the competition. The same goes for bees and flowers. So what causes all the different floral scents? Flowers give off volatile aroma compounds as a result of a process called anabolic synthesis: putting together small molecules to make big ones. “Isoprene is a very small molecule that’s most famous as a greenhouse gas,” Raguso says. But, “if you condense two isoprene molecules, you get a monoterpene — a 10-carbon molecule that can smell like lemons, lavender or many other things, depending on how the molecules are combined.” One monoterpene has an alcohol compound in its structure and smells like Earl Grey tea. A molecule with the same formula but without the alcohol smells like a newly manufactured carpet. Two versions of a related substance, essentially mirror images of each other in their chemical structure, smell like spearmint and caraway. Other aroma compounds are the result of catabolism, the breaking-down of a large molecule into a smaller one. The smell of cut grass, for example, comes from a catabolic process. Like bees, many people have a favorite flower smell. (Mine’s jasmine.) Few people know more flowers than Raguso, so I asked for his favorite. “The Rangoon creeper,” he said. “It’s a big woody vine from tropical Asia, with long, tubular flowers that turn from white to pink and eventually scarlet. At the pink stage, they’re the perfect color of watermelon, and would you believe what the flowers smell like? Watermelon Jolly Ranchers.” If human children could serve as pollinators, the Rangoon creeper would have it made.

The polar vortex could make regional wines better AND worse

The Polar Vortex wasn’t ALL bad. It’s a boon for wineries, whose crops can be ruined by stinkbugs. Anthony Aellen, of Linganore Winecellars in Mt. Airy, Md., was ecstatic to learn the polar vortex could knock out 95 percent of this year’s brood.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Bug-infested grapes aren’t actually the problem at Linganore, as they are at some other wineries, Aellan says. It’s the bugs’ presence in the tasting room, which adds a note of stank to the experience. On the downside, the polar vortex might have killed some grapes. Growers don’t know yet if that’s the case. “We can’t go out there and put a little heating blanket around each plant and warm it up,” Aellan says.

Can insects get fat? Mosquitoes and dragonflies can, but no fruit flies.

Consider all the advantages you have over the fruit fly: You’re able to use tools, make jokes, binge-watch “Game of Thrones.” But you know what? You can get too fat for your waistband. The fruit fly, that ubiquitous subject of scientific experimentation, cannot. “Can insects get fat?” was the question posed to the Ask Anything column at Popular Science magazine in its May issue. Dan Engberg responds with an entertaining disquisition on obese mosquitoes (a Florida entomologist hand-fed them with a tiny dropper instead of making them sting for their supper, thereby turning half their bodies into fat) and obese dragonflies (a Penn State biologist found fatter dragonflies were less successful at mating). But as is true in many scientific inquiries, the most extensive work on fat bugs has been done on fruit flies. Fed high-calorie diets, they develop something like diabetes and die sooner than their average 30-day life span. Interestingly, once they reach adulthood, which takes about seven days, their exoskeleton hardens and stops growing. So even when they develop fat cells, their bellies can’t expand; they just pack more cells into the same space. As the column notes, those lucky flies “never lose that slender figure.” Related: Edible insects pack in the protein Invasive bugs are primed for a comeback

This praying mantis is terrifyingly good at pretending to be a flower

The next time you stop to smell the flowers, just remember that you might be sniffing a terrifying carnivorous insect. Nature is horrifying, and it will eat you for breakfast (especially if you're a bee). Yeah, yeah, sometimes one kind of animal or plant will try to look like another kind of animal or plant. This is often impressive and sometimes adorable (we're looking at you, baby bird who pretends to be a caterpillar), but every once in a while this camouflage is _so_ successful that a creeping sense of foreboding and horror is the only possible response.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The aptly-named orchid mantis (Hymenopus coronatus) is actually the only insect known to imitate a plant as an offensive mechanism instead of a defensive one. Stick bugs and the like blend into the foliage in order to avoid predators; the orchid mantis uses its faux petals to ensnare prey of its own. Other animals hide themselves _among_ foliage to accomplish the same feat, but the orchid mantis remains unique: It doesn't need to find a flower to hide in.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico It's the whole flower. Humans are quite easily fooled by this trickery -- in 1879, a journalist actually wrote about butterfly-devouring flowers he'd seen in Indonesia \-- but scientists only recently found evidence that bugs are fooled as well. From National Geographic:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Another interesting finding: The orchid mantis isn't actually mimicking any flower in particular. They just look like really big, pretty, generally welcoming flowers. To a bee brain, that's quite enough. And sometimes they're bright pink, which is somehow even better.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Read More:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **This college student is eating bugs for 30 days hoping you will too**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **This sea slug steals plant genes to live like a leaf**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **The scorpion fly’s newfound attraction to human remains could help solve murders**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **Happy Darwin Day! Here are our favorite stories about evolution**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Rich homes come with a greater variety of everything – including bugs

Armed with kneepads, headlamps and glass vials, the research team collected samples of arthropods — think insects and spiders — from 50 urban homes in Raleigh, N.C. They also took notes on the homes' sizes, nearby vegetation and locations. Back in the lab, they used microscopes to identify each kind of bug and note its species. They identified each dwelling's mean neighborhood income using publicly available information, then ran the numbers to see whether they could tease out possible biological connections between the factors.  The signal was so strong that Leong ran the numbers again and again just to be sure. "We wound up analyzing the data a bunch of different ways," she says. "I kept asking myself, 'Is this a fluke?' " But even homes with relatively light ground cover outdoors had more diverse arthropods inside when they were in wealthy neighborhoods.   Though Leong admits that more thorough studies of high-density households in lower-income neighborhoods are needed to complete the picture of indoor bug diversity, her findings fly in the face of a lingering perception of poorer homes as places with bug problems. Many existing studies on income and bugs focus only on pests such as cockroaches or arthropods as disease vectors. That's important work, Leong says, but it can skew the public's perception about bugs. "It's a bit of a humbling fact that no matter how impervious you think your house is to the outdoors, it's very easy for tiny things to find their way in," she says. That's especially true for wealthy homes and houses in ritzy neighborhoods filled with parks, flowers, trees and other havens for nature-loving arthropods. Those habitats are the direct result of the investment and political clout of the wealthy, who can turn their attention to green space instead of focusing on the bare basics. "There are untold benefits of wealth that aren't necessarily noticed but that somehow translate to enhanced environments and ecosystems," Trautwein says. "Even if we can't really pinpoint what those benefits are, we can see that bugs and plants and birds and plants and lizards all respond to affluence."  Even bugs, it seems, like a bit of luxury.

Tired of all those pesky songbirds rattling around in your yard? Relax! There is a solution! For just $89, The Post’s Value Added columnist, Thomas Heath, possibly got rid of all his birds by hiring a mosquito-control company, which killed off the mosquitoes that the birds eat. I thought The Post had mistakenly run a 50-year-old article, but not so. Exactly half a century after Rachel Carson published “Silent Spring,” we still have business writers and homeowners who get excited about the miracle of annihilating every inconvenient creature on the planet. Caroline Emmet Heald, Alexandria

Bedbugs! Many DIY methods of getting rid of them don’t work, but some do.

As bedbugs become more resistant to various pesticides, other defenses are growing in importance. But new tests give low grades to several  homespun methods of bedbug defense. Rubbing alcohol is often recommended for killing bedbugs, for example. But spraying a group of the insects with it left about half alive four days later, Changlu Wang reported at this month’s Entomology 2013 conference. His research team at Rutgers University also found that mothballs failed to wipe out bedbugs after seven days in a plastic bag full of infested clothes. Eggs and immature bedbugs survived the mothball treatment well, and only 44 to 60 percent of the adult males died. In spite of these and other underwhelming test results, Wang encourages no-pesticide, DIY tactics. The common bedbug ( _Cimex lectularius_ ), for decades so rare in the United States that many entomologists had never seen a wild one, has had a resurgence in homes, hotels, planes, ambulances and offices. People’s watchful eyes and mindful habits are the best ways of preventing infestations or stopping them early. And since bug populations are growing increasingly resistant, pesticides that are still in use, especially those available without a professional license, may not help. Dini Miller of Virginia Tech, analyzing bedbugs’ growing resistance to pesticides, said that among the bugs’ defenses are variations in enzymes that can detoxify certain pesticides and an enhanced outer cuticle that reduces pesticides’ penetration. Miller has found that bug populations combine such defenses, creating a formidable mix. Bringing back DDT, a fantasy that Miller said she often hears from people fighting infestations, won’t help, because bedbugs demonstrated decades ago that they develop resistance to it. That insecticide was banned in the United States for agricultural use in 1972. A commercial blend of essential oils turned out to have a major drawback under likely real-world conditions. In a lab where bugs had no chance to bite anybody, treatment with the product Bed Bug Fix had killed 92 percent of bugs by the end of two weeks. But when researchers sprayed bugs and then allowed them to feed, as they might in a home, the insects survived. Just why isn’t clear, Wang says. Ultrasonic bedbug-repelling devices are popular, but they don’t work, Wang said. In a survey of 23 places infested with bedbugs, five had an ultrasonic repeller. Based on his research, Wang does support some tools and stratagems for a home campaign against bedbugs. He recommended using bug-blocking mattress casings, washing clothes in hot water and drying them at high temperatures, and, if people have access to the equipment, steaming mattresses and other surfaces. He has also had good results testing dry ice in a big plastic bag as a low-cost fumigation chamber for toys and other hard-to-launder items. He is concerned, however, that people might hurt themselves if they handle dry ice improperly. His talk inspired discussions among bedbug entomologists about vacuuming to reduce populations of bedbugs. “There are things you can’t steam,” said Mark Goodman of the University of Kentucky. However, others pointed out that vacuuming can make things worse if the vacuum cleaner itself gets infested. With all the challenges of bedbug control, Goodman says he sees people so overwhelmed that they do nothing but try to endure. Resistant as bedbugs are to many pesticides and superb as they are at hiding, he encourages people to try simple things that can at least knock down their numbers. “Bedbugs aren’t resistant to my foot,” he says. **— Science News **

Spring officially begins March 20. Devote a cold, rainy day earlier in the month to one of the spring-cleaning rituals that still makes sense: Clean out your closets, or tackle the one or two in the worst shape. A few tips: -- Take out everything and sort it. Recycle whatever you don't need. -- Vacuum all the crevices. -- If you don't have a system that allows you to use the space efficiently, switch to high and low rods or install shelves above, below or to the side of hanging garments. -- If clothes are dusty, briefly tumble them in a dryer before you put them back.  While the weather's still cool, schedule a heating and air conditioning company to tune up your air conditioner. Maintenance should include checking the components, lubricating fans and motors, tightening or changing belts, testing the capacitors and crankcase heater, and calibrating the thermostat. You can also do a few things yourself. Clear leaves, grass clippings, pollen and other debris from the screen of the condensing unit. Clean out the condensate hose so it doesn't become blocked with algae. And keep an eye out for drip marks on the compressor and tubes; these could point to a leak.  As the weather warms and days lengthen, head outside for a big spring cleanup. -- Clip off spent perennial foliage, and rake leaves. -- If you have a backyard compost system, stockpile those "browns" for the soon-to-come day when you'll have an overabundance of "green" garden trimmings. Then you can make compost by layering them in approximately equal amounts into your compost bin or pile.

Allergy alert: Tidal wave of pent-up pollen could be headed our way

Goodbye, polar vortex. Hello, pollen vortex. It turns out that this brutally cold, miserably long, snowfest of a winter did more than wreak havoc on the bundled Mid-Atlantic masses. It also caused elms, cedars and other trees that typically flower early in the year to hold off for warmer weather. Now, with more springlike days finally in the forecast, those trees are poised to pollinate alongside oaks, cottonwoods and pines, as well as some grasses. The result could mean a perfect storm of pollen in coming days — and an especially miserable stretch for allergy sufferers. “Grab your Kleenex,” said Susan Kosisky, chief microbiologist at the U.S. Army Centralized Allergen Extract Laboratory. “It’s coming.” Every day on the roof of Kosisky’s lab in Silver Spring, two small greased rods spin through the air, collecting pollen particles. She said that over the past 15 years, the average daily measurement for the first week in April has been about 353 grains per cubic meter of air. That figure can spike to more than 4,000 at the peak of the allergy season. Earlier this week, the reading stood at 109 grains per cubic meter, well below average. That meant temporary good news for many allergy sufferers, Kosisky said. But it also suggested a tidal wave of pent-up pollen could be coming our way as the area heads toward the height of allergy season later this month. In fact, by Friday, the decent weather already had sent pollen counts climbing. [READ: 10 tips for surviving a severe allergy season] “As soon as we get four to five days of sunshine in a row, we’re going to see the buds on the trees explode and people are going to be really suffering,” said Clifford Bassett, medical director of Allergy & Asthma Care of New York. “If it warms quickly, everything is going to pollinate at once,” said Estelle Levetin, a professor of biology at the University of Tulsa who studies airborne allergens. “Trees, grasses, weeds, even mold spores,” Kosisky said. “In our area, there is something for everyone.” Soon, the cars and sidewalks that have been covered in snow through much of the winter (and into spring) could be coated in a familiar yellow-green dust. And many people will be trading in winter coats for runny noses, itchy eyes and uncontrollable sneezing. The danger of a shorter but more intense allergy season, specialists say, is that it could overwhelm immune systems, triggering potentially serious health issues. “It’s more than just a nuisance for some people,” said Sally Joo Bailey, assistant professor of allergy and immunology at Georgetown University. “On some really bad days, if you have pollen allergies, you could have a severe asthma attack. When your nasal area gets inflamed because of allergies, it doesn’t just stop there. It can get into your lungs.” Experts say people with allergies can take measures to lessen their contact with pollen, including using central air conditioning rather than opening windows, wearing sunglasses when outdoors and washing their hands frequently. In addition, doctors say patients who know they have spring allergies can begin taking antihistamines before the worst of the season arrives. This year’s cold-induced pollen delay in the Washington area seems like an anomaly, but it could be part of long-term weather fluctuations affecting allergy seasons everywhere. Scientists have documented that in many parts of the world, the allergy season starts earlier and lasts longer each year, potentially because of climate change. Researchers have theorized that the more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the warmer the temperatures, the more plants produce flowers or food, which means more pollen. The spring ragweed allergy season has lengthened by up to 27 days since 1995 depending on where you are in North America, according to research by the Agriculture Department published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2011. Higher latitudes are warming faster than those closer to the equator and are seeing proportionally longer pollen seasons, according to that study. For instance, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, the season was 27 days longer than the usual 44 days, while in Minneapolis, it was 16 days longer than the usual 62 days. By contrast, the effect in places such as Texas was minimal. Lewis H. Ziska, a plant physiologist with the Agriculture Department’s crop system and global change laboratory and the study’s lead author, said the data his team has collected since then is consistent with the previous findings. He said that this year’s long, frigid winter is especially intriguing to scientists because one of two extremes could happen: “It could be everything happening all at one time. In that case, there will be records for pollen count set. Or the damage to plants could be severe enough that you may not get much of a pollen season at all.” Mark Scarupa, an allergist at the Institute for Asthma & Allergy, a medical practice in Montgomery County, agrees that it’s difficult to predict the severity of any allergy season. “Like the weatherman, we can get it wrong pretty bad,” he said. Still, he said that in more than a decade of private practice, he has never seen an allergy season begin as late as this one. But like other local specialists, he said he expects that when pollen counts spike this spring, so will the number of patients seeking help. “We have every expectation in the next week or two,” he said, “that we’re going to be flooded with people.” Related: Oh nose! Tree pollen spikes to high level FDA approves first hay fever allergy immunotherapy tablet Your parents determine your allergies, not the air around you

Cicada sounds and more: Fun facts about the the cicada bugs

Dan Babbitt of the National Museum of Natural History’s Insect Zoo came up with cool things about the bugs that some people — maybe your parents — think are just a bother. **1.** Cicadas can survive a huge fall as babies, or nymphs. They are about the size of a grain of rice when they drop from a tree branch to the ground and start digging. **2.** The loud whirring or buzzing sound you hear is an all-male cicada chorus. (Females make a much quieter sound by flicking their wings.) Cicadas don’t sing at night, so don’t blame them if you can’t sleep. **3.** They’re true bugs (from the order _Hemiptera_ ). So you can call them a bug and be scientifically accurate. **4.** Most have red-orange eyes. But occasionally cicadas have blue, white or grayish eyes. Keep on the lookout. **5.** Females may be attracted to the sound of motors. So you get to watch your dad, mom or older sibling get swarmed while they’re using the lawn mower or power tools. **6.** Their short adult life is not unusual for bugs. The adult stage for many insects is only for finding a mate or moving to a new location. **7.** They improve lawns by digging tunnels that allow air into the soil. When they die, their rotting bodies put nitrogen into the soil. **8.** Their predators, or animals that will eat them, don’t know they’re coming. Lots of animals, including birds, mice and raccoons, are in for a bug surprise!

Cucumbers need bees

Watch any plant of the cucurbit family in summer (cucumber, squash, melons) and you’ll see a lively drama unfold. Bright yellow flowers open in the morning to receive bees, eager to burrow deep within for nectar and pollen. In so doing, they transfer pollen from the male stamens to the female stigma — a little golden circlet that crowns the ovary, where a new fruit will form. Members of this tribe have both male and female blossoms on the same plant, and if all goes well the ovaries of the female will soon swell and turn into something that resembles a tiny cucumber, melon or squash. If you see a lot of bees going in and out of the flowers, it’s a good sign. It’s also a good sign when the little fruits start to appear, but it does not guarantee success. Fruit set can begin without pollination and — unlike a human woman — a female squash blossom can be a little bit pregnant if enough pollen has landed on the stigma to get the fruit going but not enough to create a vegetable worth picking. That takes numerous bee visits. For instance, you might have seen a little zucchini get off to a good start, then turn to mush at the flower end. That’s not a case of blossom end rot; it’s a poorly pollinated fruit that can go no further. If you get a small harvest of cucumbers or melons, inadequate pollination might be the cause there as well. So along with giving your plants good soil and sowing them on time, you need to think about bees. If, for example, you covered your early cukes with row covers to prevent early damage by cucumber beetles, or covered your squash against squash beetles, you must remove those covers as soon as blossoms start to appear. It’s also worth keeping track of bee numbers. Are there lots of them on each plant or just a few? If you’ve planted cucurbits inside a greenhouse to get an earlier harvest, are the bees coming inside? (Growers sometimes place bumblebee hives inside greenhouses because they will work under glass or plastic, while honeybees will not.) If you see a lack of bees outdoors, think about what you could plant to attract more of them. Even if there are few honeybees around, many species of native bee will be lured to a yard full of nectar-rich flowers. Observe which flowering plants bloom at the same time that cucurbits are flowering, and watch to see which ones are quivering with active bees. Those that bloom in the purple range are their favorites, and it takes only a glance to see that catmint, followed by any of the purple-flowered sages, is bee heaven. From there, move on to liatris and bee balm in midsummer and purple asters for fall. Hate the color purple? Get over it. And don’t use poisons in the garden. The number of articles tracing huge bee die-offs to chemical pesticides such as the neonicontinoids (see www.xerces.org) is not only a sad tale of furry little bodies lying dead. It could also foretell poor harvests for you. Trim back the season’s growth of wisteria to promote the formation of flowering buds next spring. Vigorous growth is best tackled two or three times during the growing season to keep the vine in bounds and encourage flowering the following April. Asian wisterias can be invasive: Consider planting a less rampant native species named _Wisteria frutescens_. **— Adrian Higgins**

Should we eat more insects? The U.N. thinks so.

Get ready for bug burgers. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has a massive new report out today arguing that we should all have more insects in our diet.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University That's right, insects: "Insects are healthy, nutritious alternatives to mainstream staples such as chicken, pork, beef and even fish," the report argues. (Yes, they're serious.) What's more, edible insects are environmentally friendly — farmers don't need to clear acres of forest to raise them, and the bugs produce fewer planet-warming greenhouse-gas emissions than, say, cows. It could be a sustainable way to help feed a growing world whose demand for protein is soaring. Over at Slate, Matthew Yglesias lodges the obvious objection: "Of course the problem with eating insects is that it's kind of gross and they don't taste very good." To address that concern, the U.N. report includes a chapter asking _why_ Westerners are so averse to eating bugs. After all, some 2 billion people around the world include insects as part of their diet.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Unfortunately, there aren't any slam-dunk theories here, but the report does lament the fact that Westerners are pushing their anti-bug bias on the rest of the world: Granted, not everyone in the West is so averse to eating bugs. My colleague Ashley Halsey III has an amazing story today about D.C.-area residents who are actually excited about the coming cicada invasion this summer — for culinary reasons:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University So there's one vote for a bug diet. Nothing a little butter and sautéing can't cure. Then again, if Dobbyn's recipes don't inspire a new generation of cicada gourmands, the U.N. report does have a few other recommendations. For instance, as this paper notes, farmers might consider using insects as chicken feed, instead of increasingly expensive fish meal or soybean meal. There are even some side benefits: "By feeding insects to chickens, the use of antibiotics in the poultry industry — which may lead to human infection with drug-resistant bacterial strains — may be diminished."    *[WSU]: Wayne State University That's a bit more palatable, at least.

Calling citizen scientists: Researchers want you to track nesting birds in your garden

The ridiculous extremes of weather of late have unsettled not just the plants and the gardener on the landscape stage, but the songbird. The balmy late winter (before it turned cherry-blossom frigid) encouraged a white-throated sparrow in my garden to build a nest in the climbing hydrangea. The nest was later abandoned, presumably after the sparrow noticed the freeze damage to the magnolia tree and hydrangea bushes, and decided that spring had jumped the gun. April, everyone hopes, will hit the spring reset button. We can get on with planting, and the birds with building nests, laying eggs and raising their young. The next eight weeks offer, for many types of birds, their one chance in the year to produce a new generation. This nesting business is an extraordinary and perilous feat. Parent birds must gather the materials to fashion a nest, build it at just the right spot — sheltered and away from predators — and then incubate the eggs. Once the babies arrive, life is a continual hunt for worms and flying insects to feed the young. Fledglings make the leap in May and June, a particularly fraught time. Rearing chicks can be trying for the gardener, too. Forget about pruning the hedge where the birds are nesting or oiling the wooden bench in the vicinity — the avian parents get anxious and the best thing we can do is give them some space. But if you want to turn your curiosity into something of scientific value, consider NestWatch, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s springtime enlistment of citizen scientists to monitor nesting birds. Volunteers across the United States register to track the progress of nests around their homes. Last year, more than 2,000 registrants tracked 21,000 nests, said Robyn Bailey, the project leader. The monitoring does involve some contact to check the number of eggs laid and how many nestlings survive, but watchers are instructed in how to minimize the disruption. This rite dates back to 1964, so the annual data offer valuable insights into such matters as the shifting range of birds. In that time, the records have helped to establish that bluebirds, for example, are now doing well after a period of decline, but that the American kestrel and northern flicker seem to be scarcer. Some species can be helped with nesting boxes — bluebirds, wrens and chickadees, for example. Others don’t need any help, thank you, and build their nests in generally conspicuous places, such as mourning doves and robins. Other common species, though, are more secretive. Goldfinches, which nest in the summer, generally make their teacup nests in the lower branches of trees, while dark-eyed juncos actually make camouflaged ground nests. Some nests are inaccessible. Binoculars will help figure out the offspring situation. For barn swallows, “it’s easy to find the nest but they tend to be a bit high,” Bailey said. “That might be a selfie stick kind of situation.” This year’s NestWatch comes with an app that should make recording data more convenient, she said. A focus of this year’s observations, she said, will be in trying to see if bird feeders have a measurable effect on the success of the enterprise. Whether you monitor a nest or just take it in as part of the spring experience, you should not bother the parent birds, attempt to move a nest to a more convenient spot or generally interfere. “Outdoor cats are definitely a problem,” Bailey said. She puts her cat on a harness when she takes it into the garden. Separately, the National Audubon Society is launching an online guide to selecting native plants of particular value to birds, either directly as shelter or food, or indirectly in attracting insect larvae that nestlings need in large quantities to develop. Configured to offer plant lists for your growing zone, the society’s Plants for Birds database offers a comprehensive range of trees, shrubs, perennials and grasses that provide an array of support for birds, particularly those spring migrants moving north. I would add that you might also consider your space and site conditions before sticking in, say, an American basswood. This is a handsome linden, and Plants for Birds says it will sustain such beauties as cedar waxwings, grosbeaks and vireos. But it’s a big tree that will define a landscape. You might just have space for some salvias for the hummingbirds. What I found fun about this database is that I could type in existing plants in the garden to see which birds are drawn to them. Part of the motivation, said John Rowden, director of community conservation, is to enlarge the suite of plants available to birds because climate change threatens to disrupt the synchronization of arriving birds to food sources. Plants leaf out in response to temperatures, and many birds are spurred by increasing day length, “so there can be mismatches,” he said. **@adrian_higgins on Twitter ** **More fromLifestyle:** Beyond birds and butterflies, this garden welcomes all critters — even raccoons The food industry isn’t going to ditch pesticides any time soon, but you can in your own garden Why I want my politicians to spend some time in a garden

Sample It: Must-have camera gear

There are certain things that every photographer needs and should be happy to have, such as extra batteries and memory cards. But those items are essentially the socks and underwear of the photo world. If you’re going to treat yourself to some gear to upgrade your bag (or give a photographer a gift), you want something a little more fun than the photographic equivalent of boxers. There are items in all price ranges that can make a surprising improvement in your shots, and a lot of them cost less than $50. Here’s a sampling: **** Although this bulb for blowing air looks   like a toy, it’s indispensable. Dust on your camera sensor will leave marks that show in the same place on each and every shot you take. If you sometimes change lenses, you’ll eventually get dust on the sensor. But unless you really know what you’re doing (really, really know), you shouldn’t use any cleaning product that touches the sensor. That’s where a bulb can be handy. Squeeze it, and a little burst of air clears the dust. The bulb is better than canned air, which uses propellants that can cause more damage to a sensor than dust. The fins aren’t just for a cutesy look: They keep the bulb from rolling away, as round ones have a tendency to do. **$10.** **** Camera lenses and LCDs collect dust, and eventually the dreaded fingerprint or two, which leave hard-to-remove oils that dirt clings to. The lens pen is a two-step tool containing a soft goat-hair brush for removing loose debris, and a carbon-impregnated pad that soaks up oils. It’s simple, it’s clever and it works. **$15.** **** When you want to carry your camera outside your back or shoulder case, you’re often left with a tangle of straps that can make it hard to jump on that sudden photo opportunity. Capture is a creative answer to that tangle, adding a high-quality, quick-release camera mounting system to any strap. You can secure your camera to a strap you’re already wearing, such as a shoulder bag, a backpack or even a belt. The Capture is made of powder-coated aluminum and claims to support up to 150 pounds. The screws used to attach it to a strap can be opened without tools, and it fits straps up to three inches wide and about a half-inch thick. It has a locking mechanism to foil grabby thieves, and the part that screws into the camera doubles as a mount for most Arca-Swiss-style tripods. **$80.** **** A reflector is an inexpensive way to remove harsh shadows from your shots. Collapsible reflectors, such as those from Lastolite, which range from 12 inches to 6 feet by 4 feet, consist of fabric on a wire frame and fold to about a third their open size. They come in highly reflective silver; a less reflective white; gold, which casts a warm glow; and other variations. To use one, place it facing your light source. Using a reflector makes it possible to shoot in harsh sunlight without having to use a remote flash, which is much costlier than a reflector. **$15 to $100.** **** A flash tends to spray harsh light somewhat indiscriminately, creating a flat image, especially if it’s mounted atop a camera’s hot shoe. Some pros bounce their flash off the ceiling or a cardboard reflector to reduce the harshness; the Flash Bender takes this concept a step further. The device is like a cardboard reflector, except that it has built-in bendable wire so that you can adjust it to focus the direction and shape of your light for each shot. Adding a $20 diffusion panel can give your flash the softer look of studio lighting. **$30.** **** Although there are a lot of tricks that you can do in Photoshop, one that software has yet to match is the look you get from mounting a circular polarizing filter on your lens. These filters reduce reflections, just as polarized sunglasses do, but the advantages are far more abundant. Blue skies become a richer blue, rock and asphalt show more detail, and clouds go from featureless masses of white to detailed swirls with depth and texture. As a bonus, the filter will serve as a first line of defense against anything that might fly up into your lens. It may be worth spending an extra couple of dollars to have a lens filter wrench in your bag. It applies even pressure to remove a stubborn filter, which may decide at the worst possible moment that it doesn’t want to come off. **About $70, depending on size.** **** If you’re ready for an all-out splurge, then a camera from this awkwardly named category may be the ticket. These cameras have smaller sensors than digital single-lens reflex cameras (that’s not so good), but without the mirror of the DSLR, they’re much lighter and smaller, about the size of a large point-and-shoot camera. As with DSLRs, you can change lenses for true wide-angle and telephoto shots. And because there’s no mirror, there’s no DSLR “mirror slap” sound — the loud click that accompanies each shot. Mirrorless cameras are almost silent (that’s all good). The sensor size and lens formats vary from brand to brand, but an entry that typifies the largest class of these cameras — called Micro Four Thirds — are the Olympus Pen cameras, which range in price from $400 to $900, with lenses priced from $300 to $900. Unfortunately, those prices are also typical of the category. **$400 to $1,000.** Camera bags can be a major expense, but you can convert your messenger bag into a camera bag with a padded insert such as the Timbuk2 Snoop. It has a scratch-resistant lining and partitions that can be moved and reconfigured using some hard-gripping Velcro. The inserts are $30 to $50, depending on size. It would be nice if the zip top were padded and you could buy extra partitions, but that’s not the case. The curved shape is great for messenger bags, but if you have more squared-off luggage, you might consider the $30 BBP Camera Paddy Insert. **$30 to $50.**

When bugs want to bite, what do you do?

Every spring it starts. The Facebook posts and the conversations overheard at the coffee shop. A solution of equal parts vinegar and water was just the thing to keep mosquitoes from biting. And rose geranium oil is magic against ticks. Concoctions are offered up as natural alternatives to traditional insect repellents, nearly all of which contain the chemical DEET. Some perceive that DEET, shorthand for a synthetic chemical with an unpronounceable name, is a dangerous substance to be avoided. In addition to home brews, there are commercial versions of DEET-free bug sprays, labeled with words like natural, organic and botanical. Side-by-side tests show a range of effectiveness. Some are good, some are short-lasting and others are practically useless. “There are lots of promises out there that don’t deliver and people end up going back to DEET,” says Brooke Bissinger, who specializes in plant-based repellents and is director of entomology at AgBiome, a North Carolina biotech company. “There are some people who refuse to use DEET and some who are reluctant users — especially parents who want to put something safe on their kids.” Here’s the thing — DEET is not what many people perceive. The Environmental Protection Agency considers DEET safe when applied according to package instructions. This includes children of all ages. The American Academy of Pediatrics says no insect repellents should be used on babies under 2 months old. And DEET is very effective. A study from 2002, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found the DEET- containing bug sprays to be superior in protection and duration against mosquitoes when compared with most botanical formulations. The overall winner was Off! Deep Woods insect repellent, made by SC Johnson, which protected study volunteers for five hours. The volunteers put their arms into a cage of mosquitoes intermittently and the time to the first bite was recorded. (In the study, Off! Deep Woods was reported to contain 23.8 percent DEET; today’s product is labeled as containing 25 percent DEET.) What else worked? Three other DEET repellents with concentration ranging from 2.75 percent to 20 percent offered complete protection for more than one hour. One DEET-free product did as well; called Bite Blocker and made by HOMS, the tested spray contained 2 percent soybean oil. Products containing citronella or citronella with a mix of plant oils (peppermint, cedar, lemon grass and geranium) offered less than 30 minutes of protection. Also in this group was Avon’s Skin-So-Soft Bug Guard Plus, containing 7.5 percent of a synthetic repellent known as IR3535. (Avon’s Skin-So-Soft bath oil, long rumored to offer insect repellent properties, came in at less than 10 minutes.) Plant oils do have repellent properties, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re good choices. “Depending on the formulation, the botanicals — citronella, cedar and eucalyptus oil — are typically short-lasting,” says Jonathan Day, a medical entomologist at the University of Florida in Vero Beach who co-authored the 2002 study in the New England Journal of Medicine. “So, you could reapply every 20 minutes. More realistically, we look for protection times of at least an hour.” It depends on your needs: how long will you spend weeding the garden or out on the deck at a neighbor’s barbecue? The DEET-free insect repellents exist because there is a market for them — people who worry about the risks of spraying DEET on their skin. Day reminds people to weigh the potential risks of DEET against the risk of being bitten by a West Nile Virus-carrying mosquito or a Lyme disease-loaded tick. Plant repellents are not completely risk-free either. “Oil of eucalyptus tends to be irritating to some people,” Day says, adding that a couple of the volunteers in his study developed skin reactions. That’s one reason the concentrations of plant oils tend to be low, in the 2 to 10 percent range, he says. Likewise, some people are sensitive to DEET, again with rashes or other skin reactions. Reports of adverse events related to DEET are relatively rare, health officials say, and improper use — such as ingestion, inhalation, eye exposure, or heavy, repeated application of DEET-containing products — is often to blame. “The number of adverse events is very small,” Bissinger says, especially when you consider the millions of people who use DEET repellents every year. Far less information is available on the hazards of plant-based insect repellents. Those are typically skin reactions — irritations or allergies. Product labels carry application instructions to keep the product from getting beyond the skin. That means taking care to stay away from cuts or wounds, the eyes and mouth, and to avoid breathing in the sprayed mist. For kids, we’re told to not apply DEET-containing repellents near the eyes or mouth or on hands, so that fidgety kids don’t rub the stuff someplace it shouldn’t be. Day says other protective measures can help you limit DEET exposure, such as wearing long pants and long-sleeve shirts and a hat. “I put repellent on my neck, my forehead and my hands,” he says. For tick protection, tuck your long pants into your socks and spray DEET repellent on your boots and pants up to your knees. Companies focusing on the market for natural products are trying to develop more robust products. Two recent studies showed that a plant-based repellent called TT-4302, was comparable to DEET in terms of protecting against mosquitoes and ticks. (The studies were conducted by scientists at TyraTech, the company that makes TT-4302, but were peer-reviewed.) The repellent contains 5 percent geraniol — a naturally occurring compound that’s found in rose oil, citronella oil and geranium oil. TyraTech markets its product under the name Guardian Wilderness.

These bionic spinach plants can sniff out bombs

MIT researchers have engineered a bionic plant that can detect explosives and send a warning signal — without wires! — to scientists nearby. Talk about spinach as superfood, Popeye!   The technique takes advantage of an ability that plants have spent hundreds of millions of years honing: “Plants are very good analytical chemists,” as Strano put it. Unable to move around in search of food or in response to threats, plants must be very good at monitoring their environments and exploiting nearby resources. Their extensive root networks and sophisticated internal transport systems mean that they're constantly sucking up water — and anything else that's in the soil — and sending it to their leaves. A plant is a better groundwater sensor than pretty much any machine a human can build. The trouble is that plants aren't able to tell humans about what they find in the soil. So Strano and his team developed tiny nanosensors made of carbon, which can be tailored to be sensitive to various dangerous compounds. They've made sensors that detect nitric oxide — a pollutant produced by combustion — as well as hydrogen peroxide, the explosive TNT and sarin gas, a colorless, odorless chemical that disrupts the nerve system and is used as a chemical weapon. When the target molecule hits the carbon-nanotube sensor, it binds with a polymer wrapped around the tube, changing the type of radiation it emits when it's viewed with infrared light. In the new study, Strano and his colleagues embedded nanotubes inside the spinach plants by painting their leaves with a solution full of the tiny sensors, which the leaves then absorbed into their photosynthetic regions. Some of the sensors emitted a constant fluorescent signal, while others were designed to respond only to nitroaromatics. This allowed researchers to quickly compare the signals and determine whether the sensors had detected anything. They doused a plant's roots in nitroaromatic contaminants and waited. After about 10 minutes, the nanotubes began to emit infrared light.  Plants may seem like an unlikely variation on bomb-sniffing dogs. But Strano thinks there's a lot they can tell us, if we can only figure out how to help them sent the message. “Plants are very environmentally responsive,” he said in a statement. “They know that there is going to be a drought long before we do. They can detect small changes in the properties of soil and water potential. If we tap into those chemical signaling pathways, there is a wealth of information to access.”

Tick season is here, and it’s time to learn how to stop the suckers

Worried about ticks? There are good reasons. _Ixodes scapularis_ , the blacklegged or deer tick, transmits Lyme disease, a bacterial infection that can affect the nervous system and joints. But there are a host of other tick- borne diseases as well, and in some cases, they can make you pretty sick. A study released last week that looked at decades of tick research found that while there’s no silver bullet to protect against tick-borne disease, such as a vaccine, a combination of preventive measures can be quite effective. Most of these methods are fairly easy to do, yet a 2015 national survey found that slightly more than half of respondents reported doing nothing to protect themselves against tick bites. April through September is considered the most active season for ticks. Here are the best techniques to avoid getting bitten, according to the new study, tick experts and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ●Change your environment: Make your yard less inviting to ticks. For example, keep leaf litter away from your home, and put kids’ play equipment in areas of full sun to discourage ticks from lurking. They prefer shade and cooler areas. ●Change your clothing: Ticks live at or near the ground, so shoes, long pants and socks are your first line of defense to prevent them from latching on to you. “I swear, about 90 percent of the people I talk to think ticks fall from trees,” said Holly Gaff, a tick researcher at Old Dominion University. Tuck your pants into your socks to keep ticks off you, particularly in wooded areas; it’s not very fashion-forward, but it works. Thomas Mather, director of the University of Rhode Island’s Center for Vector-Borne Disease, recommends that people spray or treat their shoes with a repellant. Permethrin-treated clothing, which the military uses to protect soldiers from all manner of biting insects worldwide, is available online and at many camping stores. Spraying socks, shoes and clothing with the insecticide DEET is also effective, although that treatment will need to be reapplied over the course of the day. ●Check your body for ticks: Since no repellant is 100 percent effective, experts say you should always do a visual tick check of your body once you return inside, ideally in a shower. The water will help wash off ticks that haven’t attached to you yet, but you need to look thoroughly, too. Deer ticks are small — the larvae are the size of poppy seeds and like to hide in hard-to-see places, especially around the groin, but also in hair, behind the knees and around the ears. In most case, ticks need to be attached for at least 36 hours before they begin to transmit Lyme disease. The lesson of the new study, said one of its authors, Lars Eisen, a research entomologist with the CDC’s Division of Vector-Borne Diseases, is that “no single existing method, in the continued absence of a human vaccine for tick bites or Lyme disease, will be sufficient.” But the preventive measures, he said, really do make a difference.

Teachers are using theater and dance to teach math — and it’s working

The children puffed out their chests and mimicked drama teacher Melissa Richardson, rehearsing their big, booming “rhino voices.” “Giant steps, giant steps, big and bold!” the kindergartners yelled in unison in a classroom at Westlawn Elementary in Fairfax County. In groups, the children were then cast as animals and bugs: Big, stomping rhinos; delicate lady bugs skittering across the tile; leaping kangaroos and tiny frogs. All made their way to the classroom’s imaginary “water hole,” formed with blue tape. This giggly play session actually was a serious math lesson about big and small and non-standard measurements. Dreamed up by Richardson and kindergarten teacher Carol Hunt, it aims to get the children to think of animal steps as units of measurement, using them to mark how many it takes each animal to get from a starting line to the target. Teachers call such melding of art and traditional subjects “art integration,” and it’s a new and increasingly popular way of bringing the arts into the classroom. Instead of art as a stand-alone subject, teachers are using dance, drama and the visual arts to teach a variety of academic subjects in a more engaging way. Middle-school students in Arlington have built sculptures to learn about exponents, and students have used art to express their thoughts and opinions about police brutality and racial equality. Educators and artists who are proponents of the method say it reaches students who might not otherwise absorb traditional classroom methods. The Wolf Trap Institute, based at the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, brought Richardson to Westlawn Elementary through a program that pairs art teachers with early-childhood educators to formulate math lessons. The program also provides professional development to teachers. And the program appears to have been effective: A study by the American Institutes for Research found that students in classes headed by Wolf Trap-trained teachers performed better on math assessments than did their peers being taught by teachers who were not in the program. Researchers found that pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students in classes taught by Wolf Trap-trained teachers gained about 1.3 months of math learning in the first year over their peers. By the second year, they were 1.7 months ahead. Researcher Mengli Song said the students in the program did not necessarily learn additional math content but they did demonstrate a better grasp of the material. And the effect was comparable to other early-childhood interventions. “It’s not a huge effect, but it’s a non-trivial, notable effect,” Song said. Researchers followed students in 18 schools. In 10 of the schools, Wolf Trap Institute art teachers helped classroom teachers generate math lessons. In the other eight, teachers taught students as they normally would. Researchers administered math assessments to about eight students per class. Teachers who were trained by the master artists and participated in professional development with Wolf Trap continued to use what they learned in their classrooms, even when they were no longer working with teaching artists, the study found. It demonstrated that a year or two of training could have a lasting impact. Hunt said it can be difficult to work with the arts-integration lessons — they take far more time to plan and it can be challenging to figure out how to use drama to teach a math concept. But she has worked well with Richardson and has seen the payoff. Hunt’s students were not among those researchers studied. A 17-year veteran of teaching kindergarten, she said the arts integration lessons are one way to reach children who struggle with English. The vast majority of her 22 students are English-language learners. Some mix up the word “big” and “small,” so teaching the concept can be a challenge. In the lesson with the animals, she attempted to demonstrate that the smallest animal took the greatest number of steps to the pond — in other words, that a big number can still signify something small. “Visually they need to see that,” Hunt said. “That concept is very difficult. The numbers are big but the measurements are small . . . it makes so much more sense when they act it out.” Richardson said some children can struggle with math because it’s abstract. Children can get emotionally invested in acting out a story, though, that involves counting. And they are exceptionally good with imagination, far better than her adult acting students, she said. On that day, the children did not totally grasp the concept, but they practiced counting by fives and studied how some animals have larger strides then others. And judging by the giggles, smiles and their enthusiastic participation, they had fun, too. “Which animal had the biggest jumps or steps?” Hunt asked, pointing to the chart that listed rhino, frog, ladybug and kangaroo. “A panda!” one girl yelled enthusiastically. Hunt said that’s the other key. Her students never get bored when they are involved in the arts-integration lessons, even if they do get “wiggly.” Jennifer Cooper, director of the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts, said arts integration — particularly lessons where children get to move and play — is a good way to reach a lot of children who struggle with traditional book lessons. “By embodying a concept . . . and putting it through your body in a multi-sensory way, you’re going to reach a lot of different kinds of learners,” Cooper said.

Conservationists hope an artificial bat cave will stave off a deadly fungus

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, TENN. — Just in time for Halloween, the world’s first artificial bat cave is expecting the arrival of its first winged visitors. The nearly 80-foot-long concrete chamber was built to protect bats against white nose syndrome, a disease named for a white fungus that infects the skin of the muzzle, ears and wings of hibernating bats. In the six years since bats with the syndrome were discovered dead or dying in a cave near Albany, N.Y., more than 5 million infected animals from seven species have died, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In the northeastern United States, 85 percent of hibernating bats have died from the disease, which has spread rapidly through Canada and New England, into the Mid-Atlantic and through most of Appalachia. White nose syndrome is “unlike anything we’ve ever seen,” says Ann Froschauer, a spokeswoman for the Wildlife Service. Scientists have been confounded by the rapid spread of the disease and its mortality rate, which is higher than has ever been observed in wildlife disease, according to Froschauer. This fungus is particularly hard to treat because it invades deeper layers of the skin than most other fungi that attack mammals. Such a novel affliction, Froschauer said, requires novel strategies for blocking it without harming other cave life. “Natural caves have lots of good fungi, amphibians and reptiles, insects and arthropods and isopods that live inside, so you can’t go in and hose them down with bleach to kill everything in there,” says Froschauer. In Tennessee, conservationists reason that if they can’t rid the caves of the disease, maybe they can coax the bats out and lure them into a safer haven. Gina Hancock, state director for the Nature Conservancy in Tennessee, says the idea of building a bat cave seemed “crazy” to her and others at the organization — until scientists and donors gave it their approval. Construction of the winter cave, or hibernaculum, cost about $300,000. (It was paid for through private donations to the Nature Conservancy.) Buried beneath a hill in north-central Tennessee, about a 90-minute drive from Nashville, the cavern was outfitted with infrared cameras to allow scientists to observe the animals and with air conditioners to help cool it to a bat-attracting temperature of 45 to 48 degrees. The cave’s ceilings and textured walls offer bats a wide choice of nooks to explore; netting and metal ridges offer other places to roost. The animals will enter through a rectangular opening aboveground and descend through a wide shaft to the main chamber, about twice as long and twice as wide as a large school bus. When the bats are away in the summer, the human caretakers can enter through a doorway built into the side of the hill. When operational, the cave will host hibernating bats over the winter. After they clear out in the summer, humans will disinfect the room to get rid of any stray spores of the disease. (The fungus does not pose any threat to humans.) “In a normal cave, you don’t see bat mortality until about three years after you see the fungus in there,” says Cory Holliday, coordinator of the Nature Conservancy’s cave research and protection efforts. A yearly disinfection has the potential to reset the clock, giving the bats a disease-free roost for the winter. The animals still run the risk of getting the fungus from fellow hibernators, but they won’t get it from the environment itself. Every year will be the first year, from the point of view of a fungus that moves into the cave. That problematic fungus, _Geomyces destructans _, thrives in the damp soil of caves. It doesn’t require bats as a host, which means an infected cave remains toxic even if all the resident bats flee or die: The fungus just squats in the soil. The rapid spread of the disease is believed to be attributable, in large part, to spelunkers who have carried it on their shoes from cave to cave. For the bats of Montgomery County, the artificial cave may be opening just in time to make a difference. A short walk down the hill leads to a small sinkhole overgrown with vines, with a dark, rugged opening at the bottom. The crevice leads to a large cavern inside Bellamy Cave, a winding, mile-long underground tunnel that is home to hundreds of thousands of gray bats, small wooly creatures that change caves according to the season. Bellamy is one of the country’s handful of large hibernacula for gray bats, which are listed on the federal endangered species list. The bat entrance to the artificial cave was sited to align with the routes of bats headed to hibernate in Bellamy Cave. Between 2011 and 2012, the number of Tennessee counties with infected caves doubled. And early this year, near the end of winter, white nose syndrome showed up in the habitat of gray bats for the first time — in Bellamy Cave. Bats can still enter the cave, but scientists hope they choose the artificial one instead. Even after the first bats arrive at the new cave, it will take at least three years to see if the artificial cave will make a difference in keeping white nose syndrome at bay. “Bats are known to adopt abandoned mine shafts and places like that, so we know they’ll go to man-made structures,” says Hancock. “If we see any bats go in this year, that will be our first success.” Once the first bats move in and deposit guano, others will follow, she says. The Fish and Wildlife Service, which is exploring a wide variety of ways to treat the disease, will be among the organizations watching. A success could inspire the creation and construction of similar subterranean structures. “If this works really well, it’s not out of the question that we would build a bunch of bat caves in the future,” Froschauer says. She points out that artificial caves provide not only a safe haven for bats but also a laboratory for bat scientists, including microbiologists working on a way to treat infected animals. The University of Tennessee and Southern Illinois University have both arranged to start doing research at the Montgomery County site. “Another idea behind this cave was to give researchers a place to come and actually be able to do some things that wouldn’t hurt other things in the cave system,” such as deploying fungicides or other cleaners, says Hancock. For now, bat lovers must simply watch and wait for the wing-flapping to begin. “We have a lot of square footage,” Holliday says of the cavern. “It could physically fit over 200,000 bats, but we’ll be happy with 10 to 15 thousand.”

Your guide to Rock Creek Park: Getting the most out of Washington’s natural beauty

_Update: In March 2014, the National Park Service made changes to the Rock Creek picnic grove reservation system and increased the rental fees. This story has been updated to reflect those changes._ Countless commuters swing through Rock Creek Park daily, paying attention only to the dashboard clock and the cars in front of them. But the park beckons. Swing off Military Road onto Glover Road NW and into the Nature Center’s parking lot, and you’ll be greeted by a canopy of lush trees and the smells of spring. Drops from the previous night’s storm still cover the ground, and the chatter of birds fills the air. A man walks by with binoculars around his neck. Another is beginning a hike, pants tucked into his socks, sleeves to his wrists, sure to suffer no bug bites on this quiet morning. A smiling couple meanders along the path, hand in hand. The city, and the office, seem far away. Washington’s Rock Creek Park covers more than 2,000 acres, encompassing the Georgetown Waterfront, Thompson Boat House and Meridian Hill Park. It has 32 miles of paved and unpaved trails, and some of its main thoroughfares are closed on weekends so visitors can bike, run and wander undisturbed by cars. Rock Creek Park, founded in 1890 as one of the first federal parks, is where we, as common folk, can summer. The park can be our escape inside the city, our oasis. Here, kids skip rocks, teens hold hands as they walk the trails, retirees keep in shape and families picnic on the grass. Tennis, golf and horseback riding are cheap and easy to try. But it can be a challenge to figure out how, exactly, to get the most out of Rock Creek Park beyond the commuting path to our offices downtown. Here, we hope to remedy that. **WHERE TO START** Scott Einberger is a park ranger and volunteer coordinator for Rock Creek Park — and a self-described “national park dork.” When you don’t know what to do in this huge mass of land, trails and activities, Einberger says to start at the **Nature Center** , off Glover Road on the northern end of the park. Here you’ll find trail maps and exhibits about the park’s plants and animals, and a ranger at the front desk can help guide you in the right direction. Pass the front section and enter the park’s little museum: taxidermied animals and a few live ones. The box turtle, snakes and fish that come from the park have names (guess which one is Pokey?) and descriptions to teach visitors about these residents of Rock Creek Park. In the next room is another park perk: The  **planetarium** . Visitors can learn about Washington’s night sky and figure out how to see constellations from their home or learn more about outer space. It’s open on weekends, with shows at 1 and 4 p.m. The other must-see is  **Peirce Mill** , an 1820s water-powered gristmill south of the center. Mill demonstrations run the second and fourth Saturday of the month and include children’s games and tours. Maps and park information also can be found here. The mill began working again in 2011 after closing in the 1990s when the water wheel broke. Bring a picnic and lay a blanket on the grass surrounding the mill after the tour. **HIKING** Hiking is one of the most popular activities in the park, but with 32 miles of trails, it can be hard to decide which path to take. Park ranger Tony Linforth explains that the trails are laid out like a ladder. **The Western Ridge** and the **Valley Trail** are the two primary paths that run north and south. Numerous “rungs” run east and west. “People can make some fantastic loops” using the ladder analogy as a guide, Linforth says. Behind the Nature Center is Einberger’s favorite trail, the **Rapids Bridge Loop** , a two-mile trail that passes the park’s scenic whitewater section. Pick up the trail behind the corral at the Horse Center. After a half-mile, hikers hit the creek. Three-quarters of a mile in is the Rapids Bridge, which is a great place to stop and check out the view. Pass the bridge and turn right up the hill to return to the Horse Center. Beth Mullin, executive director of the Rock Creek Conservancy, a nonprofit group that works to protect the park, says she spends a lot of time on the “extraordinarily beautiful” **Boundary Bridge** trail at the northern end of the park, near the D.C.-Maryland border. She makes a loop from Boundary Bridge, hikes down the west side of the creek, crosses the water at Riley Spring Bridge and loops back up on the Western Ridge Trail to where she began. “It’s really remote and just lovely,” she says. **BIKING** If you’re feeling ambitious, you can bike from the Lincoln Memorial through Rock Creek Park and into Maryland. Portions of Beach Drive are closed to vehicles on weekends and holidays, making it easier to bike, jog or just wander through the main thoroughfare. At the right time during the week, bikers seeking solitude can avoid cycling traffic, too. “On weekdays from 11 to 2:30 in the afternoon, Rock Creek Park feels like you’re in [Canyonlands in Utah] or Lassen Volcanic National Park [in California],” Einberger says. “It’s quiet roads, and you can get back to nature because people are working.” Mullin bikes south from her home in upper Northwest toward Georgetown, and then hops on Metro at Foggy Bottom and heads back. The ride south is mostly downhill. **PICNICKING** As soon as the weather warms, everyone has the brilliant idea of having a cookout in Rock Creek Park. It’s only when they try to reserve a space that they find the prime pavilions were reserved months ago. “You need to make reservations as early as possible, at the beginning of the calendar year,” says ranger Deanna Ochs, who works in Rock Creek’s permits office. “So if you want to have a birthday party in August 2014, you should call in January 2014.” There are 30 picnic areas in the park, and only eight require reservations. But there are reasons those spots are always in demand. “Generally, a lot of people want shelter,” Ochs says. “The only ones with shelter are ones that take reservations. Not all of [the picnic sites] are close to restrooms. The ones that take reservations are.” The most popular of the reserved areas is No. 24, near the Carter Barron Amphitheater. Adjacent to acres of ballfields and the tennis courts, as well as wooded picnic spots, “that whole area gets a lot of use,” Ochs says. The next most popular is picnic area No. 1, which lies in the grassy area next to Peirce Mill, followed by “either number six [near Miller Cabin and the golf course] or 13 [near the Horse Center],” she says. But Ochs prefers to head farther up Beach Drive to picnic groves 8, 9 and 10, which are north of the golf course and often open for reservations. “They’re big, they’re right on the creek and they’re at the quiet end of the park,” she says. “They don’t have shelter, that’s the only drawback.” If you can’t get a reservation, head out early to one of the unreserved areas and stake out your spot. The most essential thing? “I always tell people to bring their own grills,” Ochs says. “Some picnic groves have them; some don’t.” _2014 update: To reserve a picnic area, go towww.recreation.gov. Full and half day rentals are available. A half day rental (9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. or 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.) costs $25. Picnic grove reservations are no longer accepted by the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation._ **No-Fuss Picnic Spots** If you want to grill at your gathering, you must be within a designated and numbered picnic area, whether it requires reservations or not. But if you don’t want to grill and want to picnic without making a reservation, try one of these scenic areas. **Milkhouse Ford** : Located just north of the Miller Cabin, the area around Milkhouse Ford has a few picnic tables and a rather romantic, high-backed round bench — almost more of a booth, really — for cuddling up on the edge of Rock Creek. **The riverbank around Rapids Bridge** : As you move downstream, the banks are covered with a jumble of large, smooth boulders, where you can easily stretch out on a summer day and listen to the water rush past. There’s a cool, secluded slab of rock that hangs over the creek on the east side. **Boulder Bridge** : You wouldn’t want to sit in the shadow of the historic Boulder Bridge during the week, when traffic steadily rumbles over it. But on weekends, when Beach Drive is closed, there’s a wide, grassy area on the creek bank where you can spread out a blanket with the scenic stone bridge as a backdrop. **** **HISTORIC SIGHTSEEING** **Fort DeRussy** One of the many earthen forts that protected Washington during the Civil War, Fort DeRussy was an 86-acre complex back when this area was mostly farmland. The site is now overgrown by forest, but you can still walk the parapets and make out where the magazines, rifle pits and cannon placements were. **Miller Cabin** Poet Joaquin Miller built this rustic split-log cabin at 16th and Belmont streets NW in the 1880s. It was moved to this location in 1912 to be used as a shelter. **Jules Jusserand Memorial** This bench, with its views of the creek and passing cars, honors French Ambassador Jules Jusserand, who frequently explored the park on long rambles with President Theodore Roosevelt.

Crabbers use sex to catch naked soft-shell crabs

“As you were doing your regular crabbing, you would look for a white sign or red sign,” he says. These “signs” are a color change in the crabs’ swimming fins. The edges turn white five or six days before molting, and then reddish a day or so before molting. At this life stage, when a new shell is beginning to form under the existing one, crabs are called "peelers." If you're lucky enough to get some peelers in your trap, all you have to do is throw them in a tank of water and keep a close eye on them. Once they wriggle out of their shells, you pull them out and eat them whole. That’s the appeal of soft-shell crabs: Since there’s no shell, you can eat nearly the whole thing, including the claws.  The new traps contain male crabs, and their pheromones — chemical signals that subconsciously affect animal behavior — draw female peelers in. These females are caught in the trap not because they are seeking food, but because they are following an instinctual drive to reproduce, which they can do only during molting season. “That’s the nature of commercial fishermen,” Romano says. “They’re always going to find ways to leverage the natural environment.” Romano invited me to see some crabs at his home, which he jokingly describes as the Redneck Riviera. The little house perched above a narrow inlet off the Masonboro Sound seems like an afterthought among all the crabbing equipment. Boats outnumber cars in Romano’s yard and driveway, and mountains of crab traps rise out of the grass near the sea wall. He leads me down to the dock, where he lifts the hinged lid off a shallow tank about the size of a dining table. “You just missed it!” he laments, pointing to a female blue crab sitting motionless behind what looks like another crab’s carcass. “That’s her old shell,” he explains. “Now she’s pumping water and hardening up.” If he doesn’t pull her out of the tank within a few hours, she will absorb enough calcium from the water to form a new shell. This is Romano’s molting tank, where he keeps a watchful eye on his peelers and plucks them out once they molt. The crab that just molted sits inside a protective cage that keeps her safe from the others. “They will eat each other,” Romano assures me. “They’re like, ‘I need to feed before this major event in my life.’” And this often means eating their recently molted peers. As we watch the peelers scuttle around the tank, Romano points out a male crab protectively holding onto a female. He explains that the male is waiting for her to molt. But not so he can eat her. “The only time a male can mate with a female is while she’s soft,” says Posey. During this critical period, the male inserts a sperm plug that the female will carry with her for the rest of her life, using it to fertilize the eggs she periodically releases. If she does not mate during this period, Posey says, it’s unclear whether she will get another chance. “They molt from the immature female to the mature female, and there are thoughts that they don’t molt again,” he says. But he tells us that scientists are uncertain about this.  That's why you should make sure any soft-shell crabs you buy are still alive. They’ll probably be lethargic since they’re on ice, but they should be moving their mouths or legs at least a little. Your fishmonger can clean them for you, but for the freshest possible crabs, clean them yourself right before cooking. It’s easy. Just take kitchen shears and cut the face off, then peel back the top shell and cut out the gills. Flip it over, snip off the belly shell — or apron — and you’re ready to cook. (You can squeeze out the yellowish guts, but I think they add nice flavor.)

3D printed mud houses will soon be an option in impoverished countries

In the future, cheap housing could be 3D printed in a matter of hours -- using readily available materials, such as mud and wool. MAKE Magazine reports that WASP, a 3D printer company based in Italy, has created a printer designed specifically to churn out sturdy, versatile dwellings.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The structure isn't completed in the video above, but you can get the idea -- the machine (which can easily be moved and reassembled on location) pipes out special mud like frosting, layering squirts of it into a reinforced structure. When that structure dries, it forms a sturdy home. The company's name stands for World Advanced Saving Project, but their house-building process actually reminds me a bit of an actual wasp: Those insects chew wood pulp and spit it out to form the hardening walls of their cell-filled hives. MAKE reports that the company  has no set plans for the time and place of its first futuristic mud hut, but is considering Sardinia. The creators hope to build the first WASP house next year.

How lawn flamingos could trick herons back into New York City

Just 50 feet across a tidal strait from Staten Island sits a grassy, mile-long stretch of land. When I visited on a cloudy day last spring, I couldn’t see the bottom of the brown stream that flowed beneath a railroad bridge toward the strait. The black mud beside the stream was speckled with broken green glass and smelled of sulfur (and is still caked on my loafers). Nearby sat oil tanks, a factory with 100-foot smokestacks, and a dump lined with tugboat corpses.   Hunters killed New York City’s herons for their feathers in the 1800s, and the birds were all but gone by the early 1900s. But the Migratory Bird Treaty — signed 100 years ago this year — set the stage for a recovery. It banned killing, buying or owning more than 800 species of birds, as well as their eggs, feathers and nests.  “We've been thwarted many times” on Prall’s Island, says Jennifer Greenfeld, assistant commissioner for forestry, horticulture and natural resources at the city parks department. No one is sure exactly why the herons left Prall’s, but clearing the island of its trees could have stripped the big birds of the strong, woody nesting habitat they prefer by allowing a carpet of flimsy vines to take over. Raccoons have invaded the island as well, and could easily feast on heron eggs.  Restoring Prall’s Island will probably take years. Parks and Recreation Department folks such as Heather Liljengren gather native plant seeds from around the city, which they plan to replant on Prall’s in the next five years. The department also plans to introduce insects that eat invasive vines (but hopefully leave native foliage alone). Once the native plants are well established, the Audubon Society will try to lure the birds back by playing recorded bird calls and placing “snowmingos,” lawn flamingos painted white, onto the island to fool the birds into thinking Prall’s is a good place to roost. Similar ruses have lured back egrets in the past, according to Elbin. This year, Audubon Society folks spotted the nest of another wading bird — the glossy ibis — on Prall’s. Maybe one day soon, the herons and egrets will join them.

Forget daffodils and tulips: Enjoy an early spring with these lesser-known bulbs

I love spring bulbs for all sorts of reasons: because they are foolproof, because the autumn labor of sinking them in the ground is now forgotten, and because they offer the first cheerful proof that spring is afoot. If you shift your bulb repertoire away from the brassy daffodils of late March and the chaliced tulips of April, you can revel in a bulb display for weeks before that elusive vernal equinox. Many of these early birds are dainty, so you need to plant a lot of them, but what you give up in scale you gain in magical effect. In my garden in Northern Virginia, the crocuses began to open on Feb. 21, a full month before the official start of spring. The snowdrops started blooming before then, spurred no doubt by a ridiculously mild December. In other gardens, I saw long-blooming displays of winter aconite, essentially a jolly buttercup that is quite content to poke up between patches of snow. As with the crocus, it will slowly spread over many years as the ants and other insects carry the seed from the mother plants. Some of these “bulbs” are botanically corms or tubers — horticulturists call the group geophytes — but they all share a need to be in the ground in the fall, so they can first send down roots and produce foliage. When they are in a reasonably sunny, free-draining location, they will return year after year, and expand their numbers. The classic example of this is the _Crocus tommasinianus —_ the “tommies” — which can seed themselves into an entire lawn once planted, to delightful effect. They have been flowering for a while. The more robust and colorful Dutch hybrid crocuses bloom a couple of weeks later. After years of ignoring crocuses, I have gone to town with a mixture of species bulbs (C. _tommasinianus_ , _biflorus_ and _chrysanthus_ ) that are the epitome of cheap and cheerful. I think I paid under $50 for 500, and add that amount each year. The bulbous iris — _Iris reticulata_ — started flowering at the end of February, and my various clumps return larger each year. The daffodil nut can have flowers from February to May, if the volatile weather patterns cooperate, and some of the earliest common varieties include February Gold, Jetfire, Tete-a-Tete and the Tenby daffodil. The earliest tulips to bloom are the ground-hugging wild tulips, and I am awaiting signs of a bunch I planted in the fall of Lilac Wonder, a variety of _Tulipa bakeri_ and _T. biflora_. Apart from their eagerness to come back each spring, they are valued for the way their blossoms open to reveal pretty contrasting colors. The biflora, for example, is white but presents a large yellow heart. It is also fragrant and sure to be a magnet for the first bees of the season, buzzing around for some pollen and nectar. If you want a sense of how moving and romantic these lesser known spring bulbs can be, get over to the garden at Dumbarton Oaks this month, where Siberian scilla, winter aconites and crocuses can be found in such places as the Beech Terrace or below the Lover’s Lane Pool in Melisande’s Allee. Later this month, glory-of-the-snow and snakeshead fritillaries will prolong the display. Another place to see bulbs in March is Longwood Gardens, in Kennett Square, Pa., where gardeners have been planting prodigiously in recent years to bring forward the spring bulb display. They added half a million bulbs last year alone to seven areas of the gardens, including Peirce’s Park and Oak Knoll. Mark your calendar for next September, order extravagantly from the mail-order bulb merchants, and set aside a couple of weekends in October to plant your own early spring. **More fromLifestyle:** The roses of the future The hidden world of exhibition chrysanthemums The slow rebirth of Dumbarton Oaks Park At Longwood Gardens, a new meadow for the ages

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springtraining

Hints From Heloise: Birdbath blowout!

Dear Heloise: I have a CONCRETE BIRDBATH that is too heavy to empty for cleaning. I solved that problem by using my leaf blower on “high” to just blow the water out. It worked very well. -- Renate S., Warren, Ohio Renate, good idea, and a little fun, too! Once the water is all out, give it a quick clean so that yucky slime does not build up. A safe, effective and nontoxic cleaner? Good old baking soda! Sprinkle a few handfuls in the bowl and add a little water to make a paste. Scrub with a stiff brush, and rinse well with the garden hose. Change out the water a couple of times per week; scrub once a month. Baking soda is one of my favorite helpers around the house. In a long time writing this column, I’ve saved my favorite uses for and recipes that call for baking soda, and compiled them in a handy pamphlet, which I’d like to share with you! If you’d like to receive one, send a long, stamped (70 cents), self-addressed envelope and $5 to: Heloise/Baking Soda, P.O. Box 795001, San Antonio, TX 78279-5001. You also can order through my Web site,www.Heloise.com. Two tablespoons of baking soda and 1 cup of water in the microwave for two to three minutes on high will loosen food particles and greasy grime. -- Heloise GNAT TRAP Dear Heloise: Take an old, washed jelly jar, poke holes in the lid and put several tablespoons of vinegar in it. Set it on the counter, and it will soon fill up with those tiny gnats or no-see-ums that plague a lot of us in the kitchen, especially during hot weather! -- Lia D., West Forks, Ark. COMPOST FOLLOW-UP Dear Readers: Composting was a topic in a previous column. During research, the question arose about adding old cotton T-shirts and other materials. Here is what Heloise Central found: You can toss them into the compost pile if you want to. ONLY natural fibers — cotton, silk or the like — are okay. Do cut or tear up the material so it will break down faster. -- Heloise BICYCLE SAFETY Dear Heloise: Our road is a busy two-lane one, and a lot of bicyclers use it. Today I saw a rider with a helmet and gloves on, but she was riding on the wrong side of the road. She was riding facing oncoming traffic when she should have been riding with the flow. Also, she sort of came to a “rolling stop” at the red light, looked both ways but then just pedaled through. Wrong again. Please follow traffic laws, riders. -- Elizabeth M., via e-mail SNAPPY SHADE Dear Readers: Here’s a cute idea to refresh a fabric lampshade: paint it. Use a much-diluted solution of paint to water, about 10 parts water to 1 part paint. Put in a spray bottle and spray away. Let dry between coats. -- Heloise Heloise’s column appears six days a week at www.washingtonpost.com/advice. Send a hint to  Heloise , P.O. Box 795000, San Antonio, Tex. 78279-5000, or e-mail it to Heloise@Heloise.com. , King Features Syndicate

The healing powers of the earth

Gardening feeds you in so many ways that 10 fingers aren’t enough to count them. Beyond the end results — the baskets of fresh food, bouquets of flowers and shady landscaped retreats — the work itself nourishes the grower. When you are gardening, you are outdoors, breathing fresh air and soaking up vitamin D from sunshine. You keep moving, to the benefit of both mind and body, with muscle-building jobs such as digging and meditative ones such as weeding. The companionship of birds, toads and other wild creatures is there for you to enjoy, even in a city garden. Tension melts away, and when you survey your tamed, orderly plot at day’s end, you feel a quiet pride. There’s another, somewhat mysterious dimension to a gardener’s pleasure, though, and that’s your partnership with a living soil. Ever since penicillin was first crafted from a soil fungus, the earth has yielded up agents of healing. As recently as January, researchers at Northeastern University announced a newly tested antibiotic produced from a soil sample that kills resistant strains of staphylococcus and tuberculosis. We can expect more discoveries like these to turn up, along with the more anecdotal stream of evidence that humans, both young and old, are somehow healthier if allowed to play outside in the mud. The mind part of the health equation is equally promising. For some years now, researchers have been working on a soil microbe called _Mycobacterium vaccae_ , which triggers mouse brains to produce serotonin and thereby acts as an antidepressant. A study done at the Sage Colleges in Troy, N.Y., showed that mice exposed to it had less anxiety, learned better and ran through mazes faster and more competently. Could gardeners’ grubby hands be absorbing homegrown Prozac? Among gardeners’ pleasures, many would list the smell of the earth or, I should say, the smells. Warm and dry, it has one odor; warm and moist, another. The rich, fragrant soil of a greenhouse in deep winter turns it into a biosphere where spring has been captured and held. An indoor flower show, on the other hand, though lovely to look at, smells so strongly of shredded bark mulch that even the perfume of a thousand hyacinths is overpowered. A hydroponic operation, of course, has no earth scent at all. In a class by itself is the smell the soil gives off after rain, especially if it has been dry. Whereas the dusty streets of a city yield a slightly acrid odor when rained on, the scent of soaked lawns or gardens is mellow and refreshing. To me, it has always seemed like an expression of gratitude for thirst that has been quenched. Scientifically, the phenomenon is more complex. When rain falls, the increased moisture and the gentle pounding of the raindrops cause certain compounds to be released and combined in the air, one of them an odoriferous bacteria-generated substance called geosmin, and the other a group of oils that plants secrete to inhibit growth in dry weather. First noticed on clay (argillaceous) soils, where it is most pronounced, the soil-after-rain smell was originally spoken of as “argillaceous odor.” In 1964, two researchers, the Australian Isabel Joy Bear and the Briton Roderick G. Thomas, gave it the less-restrictive name petrichor, combining petra, the Greek word for stone, with ichor, the golden blood that made the ancient Greek gods immortal. Were we more sensitive to the earth’s ways, we would no doubt have even more names for the many ways in which it breathes. Strips of fresh sod can be used to patch lawns, but they should be laid on a sod bed that has been prepared first. Lightly tamp the sod for good soil contact, backfill edges with a soil mix, and soak the soil deeply after installation. Keep the sod moist for its initial three-week rooting period. **— Adrian Higgins**