How to bug bugs

Insights on insect repellents may help reduce spread of disease

Bug dope is loathsome to insects in all sorts of ways, new research finds.

BUGGED New research offers a detailed glimpse of how DEET and citronellal may keep mosquitoes from biting. Jim Gathany/CDC/Wikimedia Commons

Insects are known to intensely dislike the smell of the common repellent DEET, but they also hate the taste of it, a study appearing online August 25 in Neuron shows.