Illustration by Adam McCauley

Pine bark beetles are destroying millions of acres of forest in the American West in what has become the largest known insect infestation in the continent's history. Richard Hofstetter, an entomologist at Northern Arizona University, has a plan: he wants to drive them away with really annoying noises. Using tiny speakers like those found in greeting cards, he pumps sound into beetle enclosures in the lab. He's played recordings of Rush Limbaugh and Guns N'Roses, but nothing disturbs the beetles quite like the scrambled sounds of their own mating and stress signals. "Some sounds cause them to flee, while others appear to disorient them," Hofstetter says. Still others disrupt mating patterns. "Sometimes they even attack each other, just chew each other up." Whether these behaviors will add up to fewer dead trees has yet to be determined. Field testing has only just begun.