Synthetic pheromone offers cockroach control
PUTTING an end to a decades-long effort, researchers have identified the pheromone that the female German cockroach uses to attract males when she's ready to mate. Wendell Roelofs and colleagues report that traps baited with synthetic versions of the pheromone successfully attracted males and might therefore be used to detect and monitor cockroach infestations.
The sticky traps that are available now are relatively inefficient, so pheromone-based traps should help people use insecticides more effectively, according to co-author Coby Schal.
The standard method for purifying compound from a mixture is gas chromatography, which involves heating the mixture and collecting the compounds as they evaporate at different temperatures.
The cockroach gland produces sparse amounts of pheromone, which is also too fragile to survive much heat. Using a new method of low-temperature gas chromatography, the researchers were finally able to isolate the pheromone. — Our Bureau
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