Amir Aharoni, Department of Life Sciences and the National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev (NIBN), Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel. The size of the microbial world is beyond our imagination. In last year’s crystal ball article, Tom Curtis compared the size of the microbial world to the size of the universe pointing out that the number of microorganisms in the world is billion...

Some bugs, among the millions that exist, are similar to each other. When fixing a bug, a programmer tends to search for similar bugs that have been reported and resolved in the past. A fix for a similar bug can help him understand his bug, or even directly fix his bug. Studying bugs with similar symptoms, programmers may determine how to detect or resolve them. Existing work has focused on ana...

The cliff swallow (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) could play an important role in the transmission of West Nile virus (WNV) because of its breeding ecology, reservoir competence status, and potentially high natural exposure rates. Cliff swallows nest within colonies and their nests are occupied year-round by swallow bugs (Oeciacus vicarius), hematophagus ectoparasites that feed primarily on cliff sw...

BACKGROUND The resistance of bed bugs (Cimex lectularius L.) to chemical insecticides has motivated the development of non-chemical control methods such as heat treatment. However, because bed bugs tend to hide in cracks or crevices, their behavior incidentally generates a thermally insulated microenvironment for themselves. Bed bugs located on the outer surface of luggage are less insulated an...

Bed bugs (Cimex lectularius L.) have resurged in the United States and globally. Bed bugs are hematophagous ectoparasites of humans and other animals, including domestic pets, chickens, and bats, and their blood feeding habits contribute to their potential as disease vectors. Several species of Bartonella are re-emergent bacterial pathogens that also affect humans, domestic pets, bats and a num...

Carbon dioxide (CO2), heat, and chemical lure (1-octen-3-ol and L-lactic acid) were tested as attractants for bed bugs, Cimex lectularius L. (Heteroptera: Cimicidae), by using pitfall traps. Both CO2 and heat were attractive to bed bugs. CO2 was significantly more attractive to bed bugs than heat. Traps baited with chemical lure attracted more bed bugs but at a statistically nonsignificant leve...

CONTEXT Bed bug (Cimex lectularius) infestations are rapidly increasing worldwide. Health consequences include nuisance biting and cutaneous and systemic reactions. The potential for bed bugs to serve as disease vectors and optimal methods for bed bug pest control and eradication are unclear. OBJECTIVES To present current knowledge of the health and medical effects of bed bugs and to explore ...

Concurrent programming puts demands on software debugging and testing, as concurrent software may exhibit problems not present in sequential software, e.g., deadlocks and race conditions. In aiming to increase efficiency and effectiveness of debugging and bug-fixing for concurrent software, a deep understanding of concurrency bugs, their frequency and fixing-times would be helpful. Similarly, t...

Multi-thread programs are prone to bugs due to concurrency. Concurrency bugs are hard to nd and reproduce because of the large number of interleavings. Most non-deadlock concurrency bugs are atomicity violation bugs due to unprotected accesses of shared variables by multiple threads. This paper presents a dynamic prediction tool named McPatom for predicting atomicity violation bugs involving a ...

Because true bugs continue to pose a challenge to current and future efforts concerning cotton insect management, we must continue to investigate the potential for yield loss under various circumstances. Excessive terminal and fruit losses from insects, specifically the bug complex (stink bugs or plant bugs), in earlysquaring cotton can result in significant loss of canopy structure and yield. ...