Insects

Bed feeling a little crowded? Maybe you have company. The Cimex lectularius, better known and despised as the common bedbug, is snuggling into households across Southern California, giving people the heebie- jeebies. The blood-sucking, heat-seeking, pint-size parasites aren't believed by the experts to transmit disease, but they do have a way of cranking up stress levels.

Biological diversity does not come easily near the intersection of Olympic Boulevard and Hoover Street. The neighborhood just west of downtown is one of the most crowded in Los Angeles County, with 25,352 people per square mile. It's chock-full of buildings and has lots of pavement, little landscaping and many economically disadvantaged families. In that setting, Leo Politi Elementary School wanted only to make a dreary corner of campus more inviting to its 817 students. Workers ripped out 5,000 square feet of concrete and Bermuda grass three years ago and planted native flora.

Bugs. Bugs on the sidewalks. Bugs on the street. Bugs on the lamp posts, the bridges, the boats, the cars. The landscape wrapped in a blanket of squishy, buggy fur. Piles of bugs. Sometimes it seems like miles of bugs. Bugs on your toes and your nose. Bugs on your thighs. Here's bugs in your eyes. Bugs in your mouth, too, if you are not careful. Oops! Crunch. The mayflies are back, and for many folks along the Upper Mississippi River, there is no escape.

Area homeowners are responding to agricultural officials' call to action to help save the state's $2-billion citrus industry and their beloved backyard trees from a bacterium that the Citrus Research Board has referred to as "a death sentence for California citrus. " About 100 worried homeowners buzzed with questions during an information session last week in the San Gabriel Valley. State agricultural inspectors have enacted a quarantine in a five-mile radius around the neighborhood where Huanglongbing, or yellow dragon disease, was first confirmed March 30 in a citrus tree in Hacienda Heights.

They live almost everywhere--in the air, water and soil, in and on animals, including humans. Insects make up almost 90% of animal life on Earth. Without them, many plants could not survive. And though small insects such as flies, fleas and ants are the most familiar to us, much larger ones are common. The stick insect of the tropics can grow to a length of 14 inches. Want to learn more about insects? Use the direct links on The Times' Launch Point Web site. http://www.latimes.

Joe Keiper squinted into a microscope and pressed the dead maggot with a pair of surgical forceps to determine how much human flesh the fat white larva had eaten. The forensic entomologist had plucked hundreds of them off a corpse found inside a Cleveland house the day before Halloween. "Understand insects, and you can understand death," said Keiper, a slender, balding scientist of 40. For nine years, Keiper has studied all things creepy-crawly as the Cleveland Museum of Natural History's director of science and curator of invertebrate zoology.

Thomas Eisner, who became known as the "father of chemical ecology" as a result of his pioneering studies of how insects use chemicals to mate, elude predators and capture prey, died March 25 at his home in Ithaca, N.Y. He was 81 and had Parkinson's disease. Eisner, who spent his entire professional life at Cornell University, combined the observational skills of Charles Darwin with an inquisitiveness that caused him to look far beyond superficial characteristics. At a 2000 celebration of Eisner's career, biochemist John Law of the University of Arizona said: "Thousands of people can look at the same plant or animal and see the same thing, and there is the one person, like Tom, who comes along and sees something different.

If "Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo" sounds like some retro Japanese creature feature, guess again. This is, in fact, a gentle docu-tribute to Japan's age-old connection to the insect world, a meditative piece that is by turns hypnotically beautiful and painfully slow. It's the kind of film perhaps best appreciated in smaller doses, in the same way bench rest can help sustain a tiring museum visit. Written and directed by American filmmaker-botanist Jessica Oreck, "Beetle Queen" follows no firm structure as it mixes fascinating shots of Japan's most popular insects — dragonflies, fireflies, crickets, butterflies and, of course, beetles — with related (or not)

Britain's insect population seems to be falling, and so about 100,000 people will arm themselves with "splatometers" next year to count them. The device is effectively a square of flypaper on a car windshield that traps insects when they crash into the glass. Drivers will be asked to send the bug-filled sticky paper to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which is carrying out the survey. The society hopes 100,000 to 200,000 people will take part in next summer's survey.

A voracious disease-carrying insect, the glassy-winged sharpshooter, has gone from mere annoyance to major disaster, throwing the Ventura County Agricultural Commission into chaos, costing growers millions of dollars and pitting farmer against farmer. "Just when I think things cannot get any worse, they get worse," said Earl McPhail, Ventura County agricultural commissioner. "I'm spending 80% of my staff time on this program.

As the popularity of vampires wanes, zombies seem to be coming into their moment. "The Walking Dead" has become a hit show on AMC. Atlanta is trying to claim the title of Zombie Capital of the World. Even the federal government is getting in on the action: This year the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted instructions about emergency preparedness by warning about a "Zombie Apocalypse. " But when it comes to wandering around mindlessly, feasting on brains and generally creeping out the populace, the champion zombies haven't been drawn from human ranks.

Mark Hoddle waits for the door to click into place. A magnetic sensor won't let him open the next door, just an arm's length away, until the first has been sealed shut. Then he's walking through a maze of darkened corridors. Black lights — positioned to lure and then zap any fugitive bugs — cast a dim lavender glow that suggests rather than reveals the way forward. Finally, Hoddle reaches a high-security laboratory. Inside, behind a wall of glass, his wife and fellow entomologist, Christina, hunches over a microscope.

Scientists have isolated a viral gene that induces zombie-like behavior — in caterpillars. The virus causes gypsy moth caterpillars to climb to the tops of trees, where they die and their disintegrating bodies rain infectious particles on their unsuspecting brethren below. The discovery, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, highlights a singular pathogen gene that manipulates the behavior of its host. Researchers had long commented on the odd behavior of caterpillars infected by the virus, dubbed LdMNPV (short for Lymantria dispar nucleopolyhedrovirus)

A 95-year-old man was in stable condition Wednesday evening after being stung more than 400 times by bees in Redondo Beach, police said. "Most men would have died, but he's taking it in stride," Sgt. Phil Keenan of the Redondo Beach Police Department said. He said the man was expected to be released Wednesday evening from a local hospital. The bees attacked the man about 2:50 p.m. in the 1700 block of Ruxton Lane. The bees apparently became agitated by a private fumigator who was trying to remove them from a nearby apartment building, police said.

Two shows at the Craft and Folk Art Museum (through Sept. 11) demonstrate how artists can work their magic to make unconventional materials impressive and expressive. Walking into Jennifer Angus' installation "All Creatures Great and Small" is a bit startling, as one realizes the wee components of her work. Insects. About 5,000 of them, pinned to the wall in patterns and posing in display cases. They're in glorious jewel-like colors and obsidian sheens, in the shapes of leaves and in shapes not seen in nature.

June gloom might not be the only thing keeping people away from beaches in the South Bay this weekend. Swarms of black kelp flies — scientifically known as Coelopa frigida — have invaded beaches in Torrance, Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach, covering trash cans and lifeguard stands and annoying visitors. Though the flies are typically found in Redondo Beach near the rock-laden Topaz Street jetty, lifeguards said, there are definitely more this year.

The first evidence that insects can have an immune system similar to that found in animals was presented last week at a meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) by researchers from the University of Cincinnati. The results contradict the longstanding belief that insects have much more primitive defenses against disease. Immunologist Richard D.

Most people know the feeling of driving along a highway and watching a small winged insect make violent and messy contact with the windshield. But few view the results as lovingly as Mark Hostetler, a University of Florida researcher and devoted student of splattered bug remains. Hostetler has just published "That Gunk on Your Car," a book that opens up the world of insects to people outside the scientific community through the goo left by vehicular impact.

Things to consider when choosing an insect repellent: • Look for an EPA registration number on the product. This means it's been tested, not just for safety but also for its effectiveness as a repellent. • For alternatives to DEET, Scott Carroll, director of Carroll-Loye Biological Research Consulting, an independent company that does extensive testing on insect repellents, recommends products based on oil of lemon eucalyptus (Citriodiol) or, for conventional synthetic products, Picaridin- or IR3535-based products.

Choosing an insect repellent that prevents bug bites but that doesn't contain potentially risky chemicals might be one of summer's peskier problems. Synthetic repellents with the chemical compound DEET have been the standard for more than 50 years, ever since the U.S. Army developed it to protect soldiers from insect-borne diseases such as West Nile virus, malaria, Dengue fever and Lyme disease. A synthetic compound — N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide, or DEET — was approved for use by the general public in 1957.