As it happens, the coffee-like stains that he and his colleagues had been trying to remove with fast-drying solvents was actually the solution to his problem, since they remained in contact with each other as they dried and preserved conductivity, but left about 95 percent of the light through the holes in the center, thereby making the screen itself almost fully transparent.

ENGADGET: Coffee-like stains inspire new type of touchscreen

They split any colony that seemed to be healthy into two and persuaded a firm that usually sterilizes contact-lens solution to blast several truckloads of beekeeping equipment with radiation.

NEWYORKER: Stung

The solution to this ongoing problem is two-fold: Tell older relatives and friends to simply avoid contact with salesmen and financial consultants.

FORBES: Why Older Folks Are Targeted for Fraud