原文

Good Night, Sleep Tight, Don't Let The Bedbugs :NPR

Good Night, Sleep Tight, Don't Let The Bedbugs...

The bedbug is sometimes called the"perfect parasite."

"They bite you while you're sleeping and the bites are painless,"explains entomologist Michael Potter. Potter, who works at theUniversity of Kentucky and specializes in pest management, says thereare several reasons bedbugs are more insidious than other parasites suchas lice, fleas and ticks.

"Bedbugs don't stay on the host — they scurry away to their hiddenharborages that are far from obvious," he tells Fresh Air'sTerry Gross. "And then on top of all of that, people react to bedbugbites differently. Some don't react at all; others' reactions aredelayed until days or weeks later. So it's a very efficient critter fromthe standpoint of doing its business and creating a lot of anxiety interms of what's happening."

Bedbugs are more likely to inhabit a bed thananywhere else because, as Michael Potter says, "Why crawl further thanyou have to for your next meal?"

Bedbugs are more likely to inhabit a bed thananywhere else because, as Michael Potter says, "Why crawl further thanyou have to for your next meal?"

What's happening when a bedbug bites a person is tricky, he explains,because initially a human may not even realize he or she has beenbitten.

"They inject both an anti-coagulant, which allows a bedbug to extractblood from a human, and also a sort of anesthetizing agent, whichallows the bite to be painless," Potter explains. "That's a goodsurvival mechanism because if you woke up and felt the pain, not toomany bedbugs would survive to feed another day."

Potter says that not only have bedbugs survived, they've thrived. Inrecent years, the tiny critters have moved beyond homes and hotels —affecting many different types of facilities, including collegedormitories, homeless shelters, nursing homes, office buildings,hospitals, schools and day cares, movie theaters, modes oftransportation, laundromats, retail stores, libraries and camps.

Though bedbugs are certainly appearing more frequently than they usedto, Potter says it's important to have a healthy attitude about theinfestation.

Michael Potter has a B.S. in entomology fromCornell University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in entomology from theUniversity of Arizona.

"We're still in the early stages of bedbugs showing up in these lessconventional places like clothing stores and libraries and movietheaters," he says. "People should probably be unconcerned aboutencountering bedbugs in those types of places at this point. Is itpossible? Certainly it's possible. But what's happening is the newsmedia attention focusing on these isolated infestations here and therecreates a huge concern among people and I think we have to keep a bit ofthis in perspective."

Michael Potter is a professor of entomology at the University ofKentucky. He was previously the national technical director for Orkin,the world's largest pest control company. Recently, Pest ControlTechnology Magazine named him one of the 25 Most Influential Peoplein the Pest Control Industry.

译文

好眠的夜晚，小心床虱。。。

床虱有时候被称为“完美的寄生虫”。

“当你在睡觉的时候，他们会叮咬你，而你却毫无感觉。”昆虫学家麦克•波特说。波特在肯塔基州大学工作，他的专长是处理害虫。他告诉我们，比起其它的寄生虫，例如虱子，跳蚤，壁虱子，床虱要来的更为阴险可怕。

“床虱不会在它们的作案地点久留 — 它们会在事后迅速地离开，躲避到一个不容易被发现的地方”，他告诉“清新空气”杂志的泰瑞•格罗斯，“所以当面对床虱，人们有着不同的反应。有的人根本没有任何反应，有的人知道几天甚至几周以后才有了滞后的反应。所以说，在寄生虫这一行里，床虱是一种很高效率的动物，它会带来让人很不安的结果。”

波特解释说，人被床虱咬了的后果是十分复杂的，因为一开始人们甚至都不能发现他们已经被咬了。

“这些床虫在人体内注入一种抗血凝剂，使得它们能够吸食人类的血液，并且它们能产生一种特别的化学物，使得人们被咬无痛无痒。”波特继续解释说，“它们这种构造是一种绝好的求生技能，因为一旦当人们醒来察觉到疼痛，那么离这些寄生虫的死期也就不远了。”

波特说，这些床虱不但容易存活，而且发展兴旺。近些年来，这些小小的寄生虫不仅仅在家里，旅馆里猖獗，而且一直繁衍到了各类场所，像大学宿舍，救助中心，养老院，办公楼，医院，学校，托儿所，电影院，各式交通工具， 自助洗衣店，超市，图书馆以及露营地，它们无处不在。

但波特认为，尽管现在床虱比以前多得多，但我们还是应该抱着健康的心态来对付它们。

“在一些场所例如时装店，图书馆和电影院，床虱们还是不多的。” 他告诉我们，“人们现在并不需要为这些地方有床虱而大为担心。那可能吗？这当然是可以做到的。但因为媒体的大肆报道这种孤立的寄生虫，在人群中间出现了许多的焦虑和恐慌，我认为这是值得商榷的。”

 麦克•波特是肯塔基州大学的昆虫学教授。他曾经是全世界最大的害虫控制公司，欧肯公司的国家技术主管。

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