September 28, 2001

A New Use for Catnip; Early Memory Loss; Chinese Writing and Math Skills; Stroke Risk From X-Rays

A potential way to keep away bugs may make you very popular with your kitty. Researchers at Iowa State University reported at a meeting of the American Chemical Society last month that an oil found in catnip is 10 times as effective at repelling mosquitoes as DEET, the active ingredient in most commercial insect repellents.

Using a glass tube two feet long to house the bugs, two entomologists, Chris Peterson and Joel Coats, tested whether yellow-fever mosquitoes, Aedes aegypti,

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