Bug-bitten and bedeviled: a delightful dive into the bedbug

Testing five common beliefs about bedbugs

Bedbugs are one of the most stigmatized pest infestations due to their resilience and tendency to dwell where humans are most unconscious for long periods of time: beds. A bedbug problem can lead to horror stories and intensive interventions to...

Portraits of a pest: a photo gallery of bedbugs

Bedbugs are reemerging as a major urban pest after half a century of relative dormancy. These wingless insects take blood meals at night, hiding during the day in dark crevices. Check out these sophisticated images of the common bedbug, Cimex...

How bedbugs have evolved immunity against pesticides

Bedbugs, once nearly eradicated in the United States due to the use of pesticides like DDT, have made a resurgence, with New York being declared the most bedbug-infested city. The primary reason for the return is the evolution of resistance in...

Why bean leaves are an effective bedbug pesticide

No one wants a bedbug infestation because getting rid of them is infamously difficult. High heat and diatomaceous earth are two of the most effective bedbug pesticides, but there's another, obscure method: bean leaves! Watch this four-minute video...

A day in the life of a bedbug exterminator

Hugh Barrie is a bedbug specialist known as the Bed Bug Doctor, in Sussex, United Kingdom. Barrie employs a unique approach to bedbug extermination using heat treatment. Follow along as one journalist goes through the daily motions of a bedbug...

How to have a bug-free backyard dinner

An entomologist’s advice for bug-free backyard barbecues, including tips on the use of chemicals and how fans are pretty effective at keeping bugs away.

More than 2 billion people across the globe include bugs in their diets

Entomophagy is the practice of eating insects. It has been around for millennia. Bugs are nutritious and, in some places, considered a delicacy.

Identify household beetles with this database

Beetles are the largest order of insects in the world, with over 400,000 described species. They are found on every continent except Antarctica, and in every habitat imaginable, from the deepest oceans to the highest mountains. A small percentage...

The American cockroach is actually from Africa—an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people—with evidence suggesting it may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s

This podcast delves into the history of Periplaneta americana and explores why the bugs elicit such fear, disgust, and, at times, shame. The bug likely climbed aboard the slave ships because they had both unprotected food sources and places to hide during their journey.

Tardigrades typically live between 3 and 30 months

While avoiding predators, including other tardigrades, nematodes, snails, mites and some fungi, these organisms feed on decaying plant matter and cellular fluid, which they access by puncturing cell walls with their stylets—spear-like structures within their mouths.

Dogs smell a lot of stuff we can't, including bed bugs and chemicals in electronic devices

In addition to identifying medical smells and tiny insects like bed bugs, dogs can also detect electronic storage devices. These tools often contain triphenylphosphine oxide, a chemical used to prevent overheating.

Sleep deprivation leads to buildup of danger molecules in the gut

Fruit flies genetically engineered to be awake for as long as they live tend to live half as long as their well-rested brethren. Analysis shows these modified flies suffer from a buildup of DNA-destroying reactive oxygen species in their guts. When enabled to sleep, the flies live as long as their counterparts.

How a worm helped give the southern US its reputation

"The germ of laziness" that blanketed the southern US for centuries with unshakable fatigue, brain fog, and distended bellies paired with emaciated frames was actually a worm. This parasitic worm lives in the gut, where it can stay up to five years, laying up to 10,000 eggs daily. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide continue to suffer from hookworm infections, often obtained by walking barefoot across infected soil.

The 'kissing bug disease' occurs when a bug's parasite-laden poop gets into your blood

Chagas disease transmission can occur when triatomine bugs bite someone infected with a Trypanosoma cruzi parasite and then bite someone else, passing on the pathogen, though the parasite can also be transmitted in other ways, including via food, congenitally, and through blood transfusions. The bugs tend to feed at night and can bite anywhere on the body, but their reputation for biting people around the mouth and eyes created the idea that the bugs were "kissing" humans. Recent research suggests the disease may be endemic in the US.

A deep dive into how a body decomposes

Dead bodies are, understandably, scary and unsettling. Learn about the fascinating process of decomposition that takes place in every human, and how its teeming with life.

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

Culicidology is the study of mosquitoes

This deep dive mosquito science podcast states that the word culicidology dates back to the 1970s, and comes from the Latin word for "midge"—a separate, tiny biting insect. It first appeared in a book review about a book called "Mosquitoes of New York."

Mosquitoes stop flying at wind speeds equivalent to the swishing of a horse's tail

This low-threshold for wind—halting flight at 2 to 3 miles per hour—underscores that the bugs are actually not particularly strong flyers. But they don't need to be particularly robust fliers since their tiny, dark bodies and erratic movements can make them challenging to spot.

Go inside a real beehive with this interactive

Beehives are where the magic honey-making happens, where thousands of honeybees beat their wings, throw up partially-digested nectar to further purify it into sugars, and make wax. The goings-on of a beehive—the name for a man-made habitat for...

Desert wildlife: diverse, threatened, and misunderstood

This article sheds light on the surprisingly diverse wildlife that thrive in deserts, while also highlighting the gaps in human understanding of these ecosystems. Deserts are home to one-quarter of terrestrial vertebrate species—three percent of...

Hookworm infection, though risky, may help fight certain autoimmune conditions by tamping down the immune system's inflammatory response.

Hitchcock films thrive on the terror of the ordinary

Hitchcock's films rely on seemingly ordinary elements—like birds or hotels—but slowly turn them into menaces, thanks to the director's pioneering camera techniques. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Explore the history of antibiotics with 'This Podcast Will Kill You'

The show blends medical history with storytelling and science. In Episode 50, the hosts trace the dramatic origins of antibiotics—from Fleming’s moldy petri dish to Florey’s wartime labs—and explore their lasting impact on health.

Watch this octopus win every single Escape Room challenge

Octopuses are famously intelligent, solitary creatures covered in hundreds of chemical-sensing suckers. They're also pretty fascinating pets, and even enjoy playing. The crew at OctoLab put one of its more playful mollusks into four different Escape Room-like cages to see how long it would take for it to escape. Watch this video to see the brilliant, if a bit unsettling, methods the animal uses.

A brief explainer on food expiration dates and what they really mean

Roughly 20% of food items in the US are thrown out because consumers don't understand how to interpret expiration labels. Over time, when supermarkets began carrying processed foods, grocers use packaging codes to track how long foods had been on...

Bed Bath and Beyond’s 20% off coupon had a cult following

The home goods store’s most fervent fans loved these coupons so much that some bought them in batches on eBay. The FBI even reportedly found one of these big blue coupons in famous mobster Whitey Bulger’s junk drawer. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Read a deep dive on the 'all-purpose healing' peptide BPC-157.

About 12.5% of US adults experience a phobia in their lifetime, a diagnosis that hinges on the intense fear interfering with daily life and persisting for at least six months.

From seed to pumpkin, a 3-minute time-lapse

Pumpkins are atypically enormous winter squashes, meaning they are harvested in the fall and then remain edible throughout winter. See how it all happens with this mesmerizing, music-backed time-lapse showcasing a pumpkin's 120-day journey from...

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

Urushiol, the oily toxin in poison ivy, can remain allergenic on clothing for years.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

The Ramones' 'Pet Sematary,' the theme song for the Stephen King novel of the same name, was written while the band was admiring the writer's collection of horror memorabilia.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

This real-time tracking of the hantavirus cruise ship outbreak in May 2026 offers a unique glimpse into the global reach of the outbreak and whether the virus sickened passengers and their communities around the world.

How the most famous Ebola book, The Hot Zone, which sold 3.5 million copies and was translated into 30 languages, got aspects of the disease so wrong.

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

Explore the animals that populate the depths of the ocean, from fish and coral in the first few hundred feet, all the way down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.