Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, there are many ways
Speaker 1: to catch a fly. A sticky strips of paper, sprays, swatters,
Speaker 1: or a handy pair of chopsticks. If you're really looking
Speaker 1: for a challenge, can all do the trick. It turns out, however,
Speaker 1: that one of the most popular tools for staying bug
Speaker 1: free may do more harm than good. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: bug zappers. They obliterate flies and other critters by emitting
Speaker 1: a UV light that indiscriminately attracts flying insects, and then
Speaker 1: electrocuting any winged object that comes into their path. There
Speaker 1: are a number of reasons that backyard grillers and chillers
Speaker 1: should ditch zapping machines. For the article this episode is
Speaker 1: based on House to Forks, spoke with Jonathan Day, associate
Speaker 1: professor of entomology with the University of Florida's Institute of
Speaker 1: Food and Agricultural Sciences. Back then, they estimated that seventy
Speaker 1: one billion non target insects are slaughtered by these devices
Speaker 1: in the US alone every year. Most of these were
Speaker 1: pollinator moths and beneficial beetles, ants and midges, along with
Speaker 1: parasitic wasps, which control other insect pests. Several other studies
Speaker 1: from that same time period, including one from the University
Speaker 1: of Delaware, found similar results. With the drop in insect
Speaker 1: populations that's being observed around the world, indiscriminately zapping bugs
Speaker 1: is bad environmental policy. Day still maintains that the biggest
Speaker 1: threat from zappers is what he calls this non target impact.
Speaker 1: The UV lights that the devices used to lure mosquitoes
Speaker 1: and flies in are also likely to attract a number
Speaker 1: of other bugs. Day said mosquitoes are a very small
Speaker 1: part of the population attracted to bug zappers. Furthermore, when
Speaker 1: an insect is zapped, the devices send bug bits and
Speaker 1: any bacteria and viruses that they may be carrying flying
Speaker 1: into the immediate area. According to a study conducted in
Speaker 1: the year two thousand by researchers at Kansas State University,
Speaker 1: a bacteria that bugs pick up on the surface of
Speaker 1: their bodies or accumulate in their digestive canals aren't killed
Speaker 1: by zapping. Instead, they survive on the small particles of
Speaker 1: an electrocuted bug body that go hurtling through the surrounding
Speaker 1: area and what goes flying into the air has to
Speaker 1: land somewhere, right, So there are a couple of reasons
Speaker 1: to ditch zapping machines, though, really the health threat of
Speaker 1: having a bug incinerated onto your burger while completely on
Speaker 1: appetizing is actually at the bottom of the list. And
Speaker 1: they said, I think that's a very minor concern with
Speaker 1: bug zapper usage. That event is going to be a
Speaker 1: very rare one. It requires the bug zapper to be
Speaker 1: hung over your picnic table and an infected fly to
Speaker 1: come into that bug zapper at the same time that
Speaker 1: your sandwiches sitting within range. It's probably a lot more
Speaker 1: dangerous for you to have a fly walking over your food.
Speaker 1: The good news is that backyard enthusiasts have a number
Speaker 1: of other options for combating mosquitoes and other bugs, where
Speaker 1: athletic clothing that bugs can't bite through, use a decent repellent,
Speaker 1: and turn on the fan. Day said, mosquitoes are poor flyers.
Speaker 1: There's nothing more effective than a fan. So the next
Speaker 1: time you invite your friends over for a cook out,
Speaker 1: you may want to reconsider how you go about warding
Speaker 1: off bugs. A wise fellow once said something about using honey.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article are Bugsapper's bad
Speaker 1: News on house toffworks dot com. Written by Chris Optor.
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is a production of iHeart Radio in partnership
Speaker 1: with HowStuffWorks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Clang.
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