Bug powder causes male bedbugs to stab each other to death with their penises

Male bedbugs will schtup anything, and when they do, their stabby little penises can do great damage to one another. Female bedbugs have some "down there" armor that absorbs the punishing blows of the bedbug's love-spear, but males lack this protection. A pheromone discovered by a Swedish researcher can cause male bedbugs to kill each other with their penises through uncontrolled shagging:

According to lead researcher Camilla Ryne, bedbugs are notoriously undiscerning about who they mount, and are accustomed to stab their penis straight into another male's abdomen...
Males with blocked glands were mounted as often as other males, but for longer and suffered more wounds.
"This is the first time I've seen an alarm pheromone used as a sexual one," New Scientist quoted Ryne as saying.

New discovery may help deal with bedbug infestation (Thanks, Steve)

(Image: 98221_hires.jpg, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from liz.novack's photostream)

Previously:

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: bedbug • Science

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Antinous / Moderator

Bill: Where is Hank?

Joan: He got embarrassed and left.

Bill: Not before he came, I hope.

Joan: Hank’s on junk. He doesn’t come.

Bill: Not before you came, I hope.

Joan: I’m on bug powder. I don’t need to come.

http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/n/naked-lunch-script-transcript-cronenberg.html
- IWood
  
  Terrible. Yup.
- Anonymous
  
  Nice! Next we’ll have the William Tell routine.
- Avram / Moderator
  
  Antinous, I read “Bill: Where is Hank?”, and thought it was going to be a King of the Hill quote.
naufragio

so: death by gay.
Anonymous

Fornicating creepy crawlies Batman! Yes Robin I shall deploy the tiny codpiece’s from my belt!!!!
nanuq

Am I the only reminded of “The Screwfly Solution” by Racoona Sheldon? I hope alien real estate agents don’t find out about this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwfly_Solution
Snig

This has at least been imagined on the human level:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_bomb
Anonymous

best. heading. ever.
justawriter

Expect to see this from a fundie near you, gay sex kills, if you are a quarter inch long insect. Sadly, Oral has left the building, since God offed him for not paying his protection money.
Anonymous

sounds like possibly the cruelest form of pesticide. i’d feel kinda sorry for the little guys, but i’ve had experience with them before and they are pretty awful things.
Cowicide

Bedbugs, fuck off and die.
Anonymous

It sounds like the weakest males (ones with blocked glands) get killed by the others.
Anonymous

Mugwump bug powder!
Anonymous

Here’s a link to another article that describes how the pheromone is used. As you can see, it *prevents* penis stabs:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/10/male-bed-bug-fear/
Blinde Schildpad

This. Is. Just. So. Wrong.

Chemically inducing your enemies to rape each other to death; is that a meme we really want out there?
- Anonymous
  
  YES!
Anonymous

I want to point out that the pheromone they discovered actually *prevents* the male from stabbing the other male. It’s the male’s way of saying, “Hey, I’m a dude!”

So the pheromone would be used to keep males from stabbing females as well, thus preventing reproduction.

They merely discovered this pheromone’s use by blocking the males’ receptors, which caused them to stab other males to death with their penises.
- SamSam
  
  Link is 404. Can anyone confirm or deny anon’s statement that the bed-bug-killing plan is actually to prevent all sex, rather than cause genocide by mass rape?
adderaltered

You just know Glenn Beck will lead off with on Monday and somehow tie it gay sex, AIDS, and the “will of God.” And he’ll cry. ALOT!
insert

Cue the CIA to start trying to develop something similar for “enemies of the State.”
ameta4

I love how, if you share this post on Facebook, the title reads, “Bug powder causes male bedbugs to stab each other to death with their penises Boing Boing”.
Razzabeth

Murderous Penis, a sweet rock band name.
Anonymous

It’s like something out of Naked Lunch.
DarwinSurvivor

DEATH BY SNOO-SNOO!!!
- Anonymous
  
  FTW!!!
- mdh
  
  heh heh heh
Anonymous

If the military develops this pheromone as a weapon, I will enlist.
-_-

Literary implications aside, I’m looking forward to the trailers for the movie adaptation of Mr. Clancy’s (or Mr. Koontz’s) book that runs with this concept as a terrorist weapon adapted to humans.

gravely announcers voice: “In a world where lifestyle is a choice”
Anonymous

Do you all read Dinosaur Comics? Because they made a hilarious strip about this last month…
http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1604

“Bed Bugs Have Institutionalized Stab Rapes!”
Anonymous

this is too much. One entire floor of a business that I am responsible for is infested with bed bugs. Here is a cure but I can’t share it with my female director because it isn’t suitable for work! I probably could forward it if it hadn’t been posted on boingboing!
Anonymous

What a way to go!

No cruelty to animals. Die in ecstacy :D

So now, how do we get them to do this? I got bed bugs :(
Anonymous

OMG; whatever you do; never never give this powder to an adult human male; think of the damage…!
Snard

“Night night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

I’m sure everyone remembers this little rhyme.

So… I’m guessing that the bedbugs weren’t really “biting”?

Ewww….
Anonymous

If you think this is a horribly nasty and unwarranted method of killing bed bugs, obviously you’ve never had them. My only regret is that bed bugs cannot scream.
Alex_M

Something else I happened to learn about bedbugs recently (apart from that they’re named Cimex Lectularis – “Bed Bug” in Latin too!) is that when they bite you, they not only inject venom, but a protein that releases nitric oxide into your blood.

Nitric oxide acts as a vascodilator. So not only are they injecting you with venom, they’re making sure that stuff gets maximal penetration!

Nature’s scary.
- Anonymous
  
  that’s just to keep your blood flowing better while they drink, it’s not to allow venom to more easily penetrate your body :D
sirkowski

There are some things in nature that need to be exterminated with extreme prejudice.
Tedsville

Reminds me of this
http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1604
Pipenta

Bedbugs mate by traumatic insemination. I never heard about any “down there armor”. Female bedbugs get stabbed by the males during mating. Female bedbugs don’t like it. It injures them. As soon as they experience their first mating, just after reaching sexual maturity, female bedbugs get the hell away from the male bedbugs. It encourages dispersal. It’s nasty.

Nature is brutal.
mdh

hooray for fourth generation pest control!
Snig

So they kerfuffle with the hormone, and use it in topical form. And what happens if it doesn’t just remove gender discrimination, but also interspecies discrimination?

“Well, Mr. Davis, that mark on your gluteals is definitely the rash from a bedbug bite.”
“Thank goodness”
“It’s actually just the marks left by dozens of the fellas’ stabby little penises when they use your ass as a sexual pincushion. Fortunately they carry no STD’s that we know of…”
- Fred H
  
  Snig, amazing good news/bad news joke. I laughed out loud. Antinous, this does honestly seems like something Burroughs would have made up.