Bugged by the sight of yet another cockroach nonchalantly crawling out of a crevice despite all the insecticide you sprayed? Try a boric acid bait for a change, suggest scientists.

Various methods to control cockroaches include crack and crevice treatments, aerosols, foggers and baits containing insecticides in water or food.

Baits are becoming increasingly useful in cockroach treatment in recent years because they lead to less environmental contamination and are easier to apply. For a bait formulation to be effective, it must be palatable and non-repellant to insects, toxic to the pest in amounts consumed and have good stomach poison action.

A team of scientists from the National Chemical Laboratory in Pune and the Ahmednagar College at Ahmednagar in Maharashtra tried out a novel boric acid-based bait against cockroaches, known in the scientific world as Periplanata americana.

The bait was prepared as a paste using boric acid, flour and honey mixed ina 3:5:2 proportion in boiling water.

Their study showed that as boric acid consumption increased, the total body protein concentration and survival rate of the insects decreased.

Safer smoke

Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. is experimenting with a curing process that removes a potentially cancerous substance from a cigarette, while preserving the taste.

The process was developed by a small Richmond, Virginia, firm to remove some of the nitrosamines from tobacco. Nitrosamines, which are related to nicotine, cause cancer in laboratory animals. They are among the dozens of carcinogens in cigarettes.

Also, R J Reynolds Tobacco Co. (RJR) has announced that it has developed a curing method that could dramatically reduce nitrosamines.

Gary Burger, RJR's senior vice president of research and development, called the advancement a ``breakthrough in the company's ongoing efforts to reduce the toxins in cigarette smoke''. He refused to say whether the curing process would produce a safercigarette.

But Brown & Williamson said its advances were the latest in efforts to make cigarettes safer. ``It's something we've been trying to do for 40 years,'' spokesman Mark Smith said.

Brown & Williamson, the third-largest US tobacco company, puts out the Kool, Lucky Strike and Viceroy brands. The company bought 45,000 kilos of tobacco last year that was cured with the new process. It hopes to buy another 540,000 kilos this year.

Paul L Perito, a spokesman for Star Scientific, which began as a small manufacturer of discount cigarettes, said the process will be licensed to other cigarette manufacturers.

LCA database on US industry

An exclusive cooperation between the renowned US-based Franklin Associates and the Dutch market leader in LCA (New Standard Environmental Life Cycle Assessment) software, PRe Consultants, has resulted in a unique US LCA database. The database is exclusively available for the world's most widely used LCA software SimaPro. With this database, companies can producemuch better LCA studies then before, at a fraction of the normal cost.

US issues tough clean fuel rules

For the first time, the US government is mandating a uniform tailpipe emissions standard for passenger cars, sport utility vehicles and other light-duty trucks. President Bill Clinton announced the new standard in his radio address to the nation recently. ``For the first time, we would require all passenger vehicles, including the popular sport utility vehicles, to meet the same tough pollution standards. And for the first time, our plan addresses not only the cars we drive, but also the fuel they use. Because sulphur clogs and impairs anti-pollution devices, we're proposing to cut the sulphur content of gasoline by about 90 per cent over the next five years,'' Clinton said.

The new standard would result in cars that are 77 per cent cleaner, and SUVs and other light-duty trucks that are 95 per cent cleaner, than today's models. It will be effective beginning 2004 and will be phased in over thefollowing five years. The proposed measures, when fully implemented, would reduce vehicle emissions at a level equivalent to removing 166 million cars from the road.