Bedbugs Scoff at Our Puny Pesticides

Bedbugs are starting to take on the characteristics of comic book villains. The first comprehensive study shows that as we keep dosing them with pesticides, they keep getting stronger, reports the Wall Street Journal. They've quickly developed natural defenses on three fronts—better nerve centers to fight off the chemicals, more enzymes to detoxify them, and even thicker shells to block them. In other words, they're not going away anytime soon.

"These bugs have several back doors open to escape," says one evolutionary entomologist. "Simple spraying around of some pesticides may not (be enough) now or in the future." The study helps explain why the critters have spread so quickly over the last decade. Let's hope they don't share their tricks with the stinkbugs.
(More bedbugs stories.)