DDT, the wonder insecticide, which has been second only to penicillin as the biggest continuing science news of 1944 (TIME, June 12 et seg.), was at it again last week. Its latest performances:
¶ A DDT solution, sprayed on a wall, has been found deadly to flies for three months. But two British biochemists, G. A. Campbell and T. F. West, think they have developed a method of making it last longer: they mixed it with paint. Using an oil-bound water paint with a 5% DDT solution, they painted the inside of a cage containing fly pupae. It killed the flies as fast as they were hatched. The experimenters found that this method worked just as well in the room of a house and in a factory canteen. DDT may be a common ingredient of postwar paints.
¶ Malaria is endemic among southern sharecroppers in the U.S. Recently the U.S. Public Health Service tried DDT against malaria-bearing mosquitoes in Arkansas. In a 36-square-mile area of cotton country, it hired high-school boys to spray the walls of nearly all the sharecroppers' shacks. Cost: 74¢ per house for DDT and labor. Result: a 94% reduction (for at least two months) in the number of mosquitoes in the treated houses. Dr. F. A. Knowles, bacteriologist of the Public Health Service, announced last week that as soon as more DDT is available for civilians, a nationwide spraying program will begin, to guard against infection from homecoming malarial servicemen.