Although many of us are familiar with the popular rhyme, the bed bug is a pest that not a lot of people know very much about. According to the CDC, this may be because bed bugs have been customarily viewed as a pest problem in developing countries.  However, bed bug infestations have been spreading rapidly in parts of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe."  The CDC also claims that they have been "found in five-star hotels and resorts." In addition, where you find a bed bug has nothing to do with "the cleanliness of the living conditions." These blood sucking pests are usually transported by travelers moving from place to place. First, read the popular nursery rhyme.  Cute? Right? Good night, sleep tight, Don't let the bedbugs bite, Wake up bright In the morning light To do what's right With all your might. And while bed bugs are not a medical risk and are not known to carry disease, their bites, while usually harmless, can cause serious allergic reaction. The idea of something sucking on your blood is just creepy. Fortunately, for bed bug victims, a biologist in Vancouver British Columbia has figured out a way to attract and repel bed bugs. Regina Gries, a biologist at Simon Frasier University, has recently discovered that bedbugs communicate by odor. Through "painstaking" research, she was able to identify that histamine effectively repels bed bugs. In the process of allowing herself to be bitten 180,000 times, she also discovered five odors that attract bedbugs. These odors can be used to draw them into traps. As a result of this ground breaking research, a British Columbia company called Contech Enterprises is currently developing what could be the first affordable bait and trap system for detecting and monitoring bed bug infestations. Yahoo! https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/bedbugs/faqs.html https://ktla.com/2015/01/10/biologist-researching-how-to-kill-bedbugs-allows-them-to-bite-her-180000-times/ https://www.scrapbook.com/poems/doc/2712.html