Why Are Bedbugs Back?
The Bed Bug Brooke BorelA Kickstarter project by a PopSci contributing editor tracks the history of the biting pest. You probably know someone who has had bed bugs--or you've had them yourself. If not, chances are you will: since the late 1990s, bed bugs have spread across the U.S. and other parts of the world, making their way from coastal cities and travel hubs to inlands and smaller towns. If you were born post-World War II in the U.S. or any other industrialized country, the news reports about bed bugs have likely left you scratching more than your heads. What are these things? Why haven't they bothered us before? Turns out they have. 3,300-year-old preserved bed bugs have been found in tomb builders' sleeping quarters in an Egyptian archaeological site. The ancient Greeks even ate them. The most popular theory suggests early hominids lived with the bugs in bat-infested caves...