Science: Useful Fog

Along Long Island's Jones Beach rolled a truck, laying a curtain of thick white fog like a smoke screen. Within a few minutes, flies and mosquitoes in its path were observed to stagger and collapse. In half an hour, every insect on the beach was dead. Next day, the four-mile beach area got another fog dose. By the time weekenders arrived, a few hours later, the DDT beach test was clearly a "100% success."

This spectacular show was staged last week to demonstrate one of the most promising methods yet found for applying the wonder insecticide, DDT. The Todd Shipyards had rigged up an insect-killing version of its Army & Navy smoke-screen generator. The contraption sprays a dry, odorless, stainless cloud of fine oil particles containing a 5% solution of DDT. The fog disappears in a few minutes, leaving a deposit of DDT crystals on everything it touches.

One dose, according to the experimenters, clears an outdoor area of insects for about two weeks. Blown through a house, the fog makes a season-long death trap for flies and mosquitoes. On the basis of tests so far, the DDT fog seems to be harmless to people, birds and animals (see below).