Tag: bedbugs

Mapping bedbugs: S. Korean blockchain engineer fights infestation with data

By Claire LEE SEOUL, Dec 19, 2023 (AFP) – When news broke about a bedbug outbreak in his native South Korea, 29-year-old blockchain engineer and self-professed insectophobe Kang Jae-gu got straight to work — on the data. As authorities scrambled to install high-temperature steam heaters at the airport and approve industrial-strength insecticides for home use, Kang started mapping reported infestations. South Korea has been largely bedbug-free for years, but it has seen a surge in […]

Bed bugs are trying to get into your dirty laundry

by Mariëtte Le Roux Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Like a pining lover, bed bugs will seek out your smell and snuggle up to your worn clothes when you are not around, researchers said Thursday. This explains how these tiny, flightless, reclusive creatures have managed their meteoric spread around the world — by catching a free ride in our dirty laundry, a team wrote in the journal Scientific Reports. “A mechanism for this […]