In which we give advice to newcomers to New York City.

From time to time, you may see enormous critters of the roach-like variety, particularly on the floor, on their backs, with their legs in the air. (Bug porno!) If they're scuttling around or, worse, flying, just leave the apartment for a while. This on-their-back thing generally means that your building has had an exterminator visit and/or it's rained really hard! Your new bug friend is dying. :(

1. The discovery is the grossest part. You may be moved to panic! Don't. You can wait this out. One of two things will happen: it'll either die, or it'll crawl [...]

36. Bedbugs 35. Lice 34. Cicadas 33. Locusts 32. Scorpions 31. Termites 30. Ticks 29. Mosquitoes 28. Roaches 27. Beetles 26. Water bugs 25. Scabies

"An organism on your back that's about the size of a dinner plate, which creates a hole through which it can feed and through which its family can feed. The hole doesn't seal up—they drink blood through it and inject viruses into it." —Dr. Giles Budge from the National Bee Unit in Yorkshire, describing the human equivalent of the Varroa destructor, the parasitic mite that has been a major factor in the worldwide decline of the European honeybee over the past decade (often referred to as "colony collapse disorder.") Scientists have developed a methodology called RNA interference to combat the mites, introducing genetic material that will cause their [...]