There’s a popular term for this (synonym is in the title), I won’t use it here, this being a family publication and all, but suffice it to say that they have found a way to interfere with the leafhopper’s (a devastating pest to grape growers everywhere) method of getting a date.
Entomologists have taken the act of bugging conversations to a whole new level — recording sexual vibrations emitted by tiny insects living on grapevines in vineyards…an innovative technique in pest management, decades in the making, chemical free and not lethal to anything. Vineyards across the U.S. and Italy are being devastated by incurable diseases caused by bacteria hitching a ride on leafhoppers — a diverse group of plant-piercing insects closely related to cicadas…scientists are using a technique called vibrational mating disruption to interrupt male-leafhopper courtship songs, preventing them from finding mates and slowing population growth.
