Researchers from Rutgers Devise Bed Bug Detection Device …

As bed bugs become a problem in the wake of a ban on DDT, three researchers from Rutgers University are working on a trap that wont kill the pests, but will alert homeowners to their presence, National Geographic reports.

Narinderpal Singh, Changlu Wang, and Richard Cooper created a bedbug detector out of a dog bowl and black duct tape, according to the report. The bedbugs are attracted to black and natural climb vertical surfaces. Once they climb the tape, they get stuck in the bowl.

The detector becomes more effective when two body odors, nonanal and 1-octen-3-ol, are mixed with spearmint oil, and coriander Egyptian oil as a cocktail and put into the bowl, although sugar, yeast and water are just as effective, according to the report.

According to the report, their invention captures three times more bedbugs than the Climbup insect interceptor, the leading bedbug detector currently on the market.

Wang is an an assistant extension specialist at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, and is studying the feeding habits and dispersing patterns of bedbugs, according to Rutgers.

Its an area of study that has become more important since the ban of DDT, an enormously effective insecticide from 1939-1972. It was banned in 1973.

The bed bug problem has become prolific in the northeast, according to Rutgers.

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Researchers from Rutgers Devise Bed Bug Detection Device ...