New Orleans ? Fluorescent rodent feces, a promising new mosquito repellant and a better flytrap are all part of a war on bugs designed to protect U.S. troops around the world.

Researchers in the Pentagon’s Deployed Warfighter Protection Research Program highlighted pest-fighting innovations this week at the American Mosquito Control Association convention attended by some 800 scientists and insect control experts. Their aim: to take no prisoners among disease-carrying flies, mosquitoes and other bugs that threaten Americans in uniform abroad.