Bedbugs' Favorite Color, Micro Thermometers & More: 5 Things We Learned This Week

From the impact of Edward Snowden's revelations to a tiny thermometer made from DNA, here are five things we learned in Tech and Science this week:

• The national security community may not thank him, but Edward Snowden's revelations sped up the development of encryption technology by about seven years, says Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Commercially available products, such as the iPhone, have introduced stronger encryption tools, although Clapper warns that nothing will likely ever be developed that's totally invulnerable to hacking.
• Robocop has nothing on the security robot unveiled in China this week. The AnBot has sensors that mimic human ears, brain and eyes and is "equipped with weapons to prevent and control violence by remote control," says Xiao Xiangjiang from the National Defense University.

• If you want to keep bedbugs at bay, use green, yellow or white linens. A study in the Journal of Medical Entomology shows that the hated critters vastly prefer black and red; black because it mimics darkness, and red is likely a suggestion of other bedbugs due to the reddish hue of their exoskeleton. The study could be used to design more useful traps rather than the white ones in circulation: "exactly the opposite of what you'd want," says study first author Corraine McNeill.

• People who have suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) may experience problems sleeping for long after the injury, according to a study in Neurology. While that seems logical, perhaps the most interesting finding is that those with brain injuries didn't report feeling any sleepier than those who weren't injured; the study authors propose including sleep lab evaluations for those who have suffered traumatic brain injuries. They theorize that TBI damages the part of the brain that regulates sleep patterns.

• A thermometer 20,000 times smaller than a human hair is a reality and could be used to measure what happens inside a body at the cellular level. The thermometer, created by scientists at the University of Montreal, uses DNA molecules to create a micro device that folds and unfolds at specific temperatures.