Stripping down science, the naked scientists.

The Naked Scientists. Now don't panic, but we are being invaded because bedbugs are mounting a silent attack

they're sneaking into the country and setting up homes in our bedrooms.

Victims of these nocturnal blood-sucking parasites develop large itchy red bites.

I'm already starting to itch and the numbers of infestations are on the rise. We'll be finding out why and what we can do to stop it.

Plus evidence of the earliest human use of the bow and arrow and also Ash Die Back disease. What is this threat and can we actually stop it?

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It's Sunday the 11th of November. This is The Naked Scientists with me Ben Valsler and with Chris Smith.

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Bed bug infestations are on the rise.

Although the UK has been relatively clear of them for the last 50 years,

we are now seeing a rapid rise in the number of cases.

But it's not entirely clear why.

Now scientists are turning to genetic techniques to help them to uncover the cause of this bed bug

comeback and Toby Fountain is a PhD researcher at Sheffield University where he's looking at this very question.

Hello Toby? Hello? Ever been bitten by one?

Unfortunately I have, yes.

And what was it like? What happened?

It's not very pleasant. The thing with bedbugs is they don't like to just bite you once. They tend to bite you several times because they're trying to find a juicy capillary. So what you normally find is you get kind of like a row of bites so even one one individual might bite you

five or six times so it could be quite quite grim really tell us about the

...