The war on bedbugs

The Mountain Eagle . . Wednesday, November 24, 2010 . . Page B2
The video game Pac-Man was introduced in 1980. The only known perfect score
of 3,333,360 was set in 1999 by 33-year-old Billy
Mitchell. It took him six hours to go through all 256
screens, gobbling up every dot, energy blob,
ghost and fruit — without losing a single life!
“I’ve always been a physical
comedian. I’ve always been the
gangly goofball who is awkwardly
taller than everybody and will
do anything to get a laugh.”
— “iCarly” actor Jerry Trainor
on tv.com.
— World Almanac for Kids
A chat with the popular actress/singer
NEWSDAY
We met up with Miranda Cosgrove, 17-year-old pop recording
artist and star of Nickelodeon’s “iCarly” to ask her a few questions.
Now that you have established yourself as a singer, do
you like all the cheering when you’re performing?
A Yeah, when I’m performing onstage it’s so different from
when I’m on the set — because we don’t have an audience on
“iCarly.” ... So it’s real exciting being onstage and having
people in front of you and being able to jump up and down
and have the crowd jump with you.
C H R I S WA R E / M C T
What got you started in acting?
A When I was 3, I was in a restaurant with my mom and dad,
and an agent just asked them if I wanted to join their agency.
And my mom was like, no, that’s weird, no thanks. And then
she looked into it, and I ended up just trying it out, and I
loved it. It’s kind of funny because I can’t see myself doing
anything else, but in a way I just fell into it.
If you had to choose between acting or singing ...?
A If I had to pick right now, I’m really into singing because
it’s so new to me. It’s just such a cool experience.
Do your song ideas come from real situations?
A Sometimes, it’s things that happen to my friends.
... but usually it’s something that happened to me.
Like with “Kissing You,” the single, I wrote that
about a guy I really like, and it’s about a real person.
Balancing movies, “iCarly” and recording,
how does schoolwork get done?
A It’s probably the hardest thing finishing
school work. Because I have a tutor on set and I
don’t go to regular school. ... I’m terrible in
pre-calculus. It’s scary. ...
What is your favorite part about being a
star and being on tour? Do you like being
recognized in public?
A I love when people come up to me and talk
about episodes they like about Carly or they say
“Oh, I love your song, I love this.” ... It’s cool,
too, when parents say they don’t mind watching
the show with their kids. It’s always nice.
What do you like better, your TV show
“iCarly” or “Drake and Josh”?
A It’s hard to pick because I don’t have any siblings. Drake and Josh are literally like my brothers.
I just went to Drake’s concert in L.A., ... and I see
Josh all the time. ... I have seen him six times in Yogurtland in the last three months. And also, I run
into him at the movies all the time. I feel like I’m
stalking him. ... But, yeah, those guys are the best.
... It’s just hard to pick between the two (shows).
Since you are a role model to kids, who is
your role model?
A Thanks. My mom or Gwen Stefani because they’re so much alike. Just kidding.
Gwen Stefani is awesome; I love her.
Who is your favorite on “iCarly,” and
what is your favorite episode?
A It’s so hard to pick my favorite
character because, well, actually this season, Gibby (Noah Munck), he’s a regular.
... He’s really funny. ... And then Jerry
(Trainor), who plays my brother on the show; he is
the best. He gave me my first driving lesson, and he’s
totally crazy, so I love him. Everybody on the show
is so much fun and Nathan (Kress), Jeannette (McCurdy) and I go see movies all the time. We hang
out. But my favorite episode is probably “I Saved
Your Life” where Carly likes Freddy.
That’s one of my favorites. I (also) love
the Halloween episode. I got to wear this
crazy bug suit. ... I was 13, and I remember I had to walk
around in that bug suit for a week ... And Jerry kept grabbing the back because it had a stinger ... He kept grabbing
it and spinning me in circles. So that was pretty fun.
The war on
bedbugs
“Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite!” It’s
a silly thing to say. But it’s a real problem. Bedbugs hide in headboards, mattress seams and furniture. They come out to find
food. Like mosquitoes, bedbugs eat human blood.
In the 1950s, a chemical called DDT almost
wiped out bedbugs. But a few critters hid, ate and
survived. Now they’re back! And DDT is no
longer used, because it’s bad for the environment.
The common bedbug has been found in “all
50 states and around the world,” says Jeff White,
star of the Internet show “Bed
Bug TV.”
Two out of three people react
to bedbug bites. They may mistake the itchy, red welts for
mosquito bites. The good news
is that bedbugs don’t fly or
spread diseases. But they do
upset people. “They’re creepy,” AC T UA L S I Z E
White explains.
➤
FAST FACTS
● Newly hatched bedbugs are light tan in color,
nearly transparent and about the size of a poppy
seed. Adult bedbugs are rusty red in color, with
flat, oval bodies. They are about the size of an
apple seed.
● Signs of a bedbug infestation include small,
dark spots; red stains; live bugs; and tiny, white
eggs. They can be found on headboards, box
springs, and mattress seams and tufts. The bugs
also live in baseboards, upholstered furniture,
and crevices and cracks in furniture.
● To protect against bedbugs in the home, the
Environmental Protection Agency recommends
reducing clutter, using special mattress and boxspring covers and inspecting secondhand furniture before bringing it inside.
● An adult bedbug can survive 550 days without
food.
● Bedbugs love warm, dry climates. But they like
cold weather too. They have been found in the
northwest woods of Canada. In Alaska, infestations
have risen 800 percent over the past five years.
— David Von Drehle
© 2010 Time Inc. All Rights Reserved.
TIME FOR KIDS and Timeforkids.com are registered trademarks of Time Inc.
What are bedbugs’
favorite flowers?
Spring flowers!
Where can a bee find
a bathroom on the go?
The BP station!
What
do you call
two spiders who
just got married?
Newlywebs!
— MCT
Mind-boggling Rubik’s Cube is back, in class
Seven-year-old Emma Bahr’s eyes lit
up when she got close to piecing together a solid side on her Rubik’s Cube.
“Ms. Sullivan helped me, but I am
getting better,” said the second-grader
at Raven Stream Elementary in New
Prague, Minn., as she held up the
brightly colored cube. “My hands hurt,
but I think it’s really cool.”
Once thought of as a puzzle that
only geniuses could solve, the basic
30-year-old toy is making a comeback
in classrooms across the country, from
elementary to high schools. Interest
has been spurred by the company’s
new school-oriented initiative called
You Can Do the Cube, but teachers say
the three-dimensional cubes teach kids
KidNews is
sponsored by
math skills as well as how to manage
their frustration.
“I think it’s really just invaluable,”
said teacher Margaret Sullivan, who
uses the cubes to show spatial reason-
G L E N S T U B B E / M I N N E A P O L I S S TA R T R I B U N E / M C T
Lain Chapman, Kylee Chromy,
Adam Hillstrom and Tanner Paden
had fun learning the techniques to
solve the Rubik’s Cube.
ing using the squares’ different
positions. “The kids just love
it. If they can touch it and
move it, then it becomes
more meaningful for
them.”
But the lessons get far
more complex, as well.
David McMayer, an algebra
teacher at Southwest High School
in Minneapolis, used the cubes to
teach transformations and functional
analysis.
“When you’re holding the cube, you
have to look ahead at the three or four
modifications you’ll be doing next, so
it gets complicated,” he said. “It’s kind
of an ‘Aha’ moment for them.”
At Burnsville (Minn.)
High School, the cubes
got enough attention
in Chuck Croatt’s
geometry class that
he decided to start a
Rubik’s Cube club
last spring, dedicated
to solving the puzzle
and having informal,
inter-club competitions.
“I just brought it up and kids got really excited about it,” said Croatt, who
has taught entire classes to solve the
puzzle layer-by-layer, based on the approximately 10 basic algorithms needed
to achieve consistent results each time.
— Amelia Rayno, Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
Premier Elkhorn Coal Co.