* * * Among those leading the attack is Mark F. Feldlaufer, an entomologist at the Invasive Insect Biocontrol and Behavior Laboratory on the Agriculture Department's sprawling research center in suburban Maryland. His mission is to find compounds that kill the bloodsuckers, which have made such an itch-inducing comeback in recent years that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency issued a joint statement last month noting their "alarming resurgence."

A common household pest for centuries, bedbugs were virtually eradicated in the 1940s and '50s by the widespread use of DDT. That insecticide was banned in the 1970s, and the bugs developed resistance to chemicals that replaced it.

* * * And rightly or wrongly, it is considered imprudent to spray insecticides in areas around the bedroom, he said. That means pest control companies are often unable to get rid of all the bugs at once. Return visits increase homeowner costs, and also risk increasing the bugs' resistance to insecticides.

Read the whole story...

By Frank Munger  Knox News

In this case, the big one is the B53, one of the most powerful nuclear weapons ever built. The Oak Ridge plant is making plans to begin dismantling components from those bombs in coming months.

The B53 bombs were introduced into the U.S. nuclear arsenal in 1962 and retired in 1997. Not only were the bombs among the most powerful ever built, with an explosive yield of about 9 megatons of TNT, they also were among the biggest. Each of the bombs is about the size of a minivan and weighs about 10,000 pounds, according to information released by the National Nuclear Security Administration.

* * * Y-12 typically dismantles the same parts that it originally manufactured, and the Oak Ridge plant specializes in sub-assemblies containing the second stage of thermonuclear weapons -- so-called secondaries -- made of highly enriched uranium and other materials.

* * * There are eight operating procedures for the B53 dismantlement, according to the board memo. Based on the memo's description, the procedures are apparently pretty complicated. According to the report, "one of the procedures includes 94 up-front precautions and another includes 53 up-front precautions and limitations."

Read the whole story...

Just seems like such a waste, to dismantle all those 9 megaton thermonuclear bombs without testing to see if radiation kills bedbugs. We might have the cure for bedbugs right there, but we're going to waste more of the taxpayers' money on finding some other weapon against bedbugs, and meanwhile, we're spending money to dismantle those perfectly good bombs.