Where can I order one? http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/using-lasers-to-zap-mosquitoes/?src=twt&twt=nytimesbits Using Lasers to Zap Mosquitoes By JENNIFER 8. LEE Can consumer electronics be used to combat malaria? Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft’s former chief technology officer, thinks so. His company, Intellectual Ventures, has assembled commonly available technology — parts used in printers, digital cameras and projectors — to make rapid lasers to shoot down mosquitoes mid-flight. If bed nets are the low-tech solution to combat the deadly disease — caused by a parasite transmitted when certain mosquitoes bite people — the laser is a high-tech one. He gave the first public demonstration of the laser, which was cobbled together from parts found on eBay, at the annual TED conference in Long Beach, Calif., which features lectures and demonstrations by experts in a wide range of fields, including technology, politics and entertainment. After hundreds of mosquitoes (which were kept in the hotel bathroom until showtime) were released into a glass tank, a laser tracked their movements and slowly shot them down, leaving their carcasses scattered on the bottom of the tank. While the demonstration was slowed down for public viewing, Mr. Myhrvold said that normally the lasers could shoot down anywhere between 50 to 100 mosquitoes per second. Mr. Myhrvold played a slow-motion recorded video that showed what happened to a represesentative mosquito. As the insect flew, a sudden light beam struck it, disintegrating parts of its body into a plume of smoke. It fell, even as its wings continued to beat. Mr. Myhrvold said the software detects the speed and size of the image before deciding whether to shoot. It would reject a butterfly or a human, for example, and more powerful laser blasts could be used for locusts. The lasers could be used to create protective fences around clinics, homes, or even agricultural fields as a substitute for pesticides. The idea was born from a 2008 brainstorming session held on strategies for killing mosquitoes, a particular interest of Mr. Myhrvold’s friend and former boss, Bill Gates, who has made malaria one of priorities of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (to the point, he released mosquitoes into the audience at last year’s conference). The idea of lasers — a miniature “Star Wars” weapons system — was thrown into the mix. “Everyone was like, ‘C’mon, be serious,’” Mr. Myhrvold said in an interview after the demonstration. After doing a little bit of research, he said, his team concluded that “this is feasible. We can actually do it. So we did.” The breakthrough relied on understanding how the technology that guides the precision of laser printing could be combined with the image-detecting CCDs used in digital cameras and powerful image processing software. Mr. Myhrvold thinks there is particular potential in the Blu-ray laser technology, because blue lasers are more powerful than red ones and there are a lot of them being made cheaply now. He estimates that the devices could potentially cost as little $50, depending on the volume of demand. However, his company would not manufacture them. Rather, it built the technology mostly as a proof of concept. (Among other things, his company is also working on cooking technology.) Other companies would have to take the laser technologies to market, so the timeline for seeing the lasers in common use is uncertain. The laser detection is so precise that it can specify the species, and even the gender, of the mosquito being targeted. “The women are bigger. They beat at a lower frequencies,” Mr. Myhrvold said. Since it is only the female mosquitoes who bite humans, for the sake of efficiency, his system would leave the males alone. See video here: http://intellectualventureslab.com/
Bill Gates obsession with mosquitoes. He even released some at TED a year or so ago. He really wants to fight malaria. Lasers are cool though.
That must be like the death star to mosquitoes. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/NFPI54fOWoo&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/NFPI54fOWoo&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
Seriously, how awesome is this. http://intellectualventureslab.com/wp-content/videos/Mosquito_Shootdown_Sequence
Sounds like a cool idea. The only thing I'm wondering is what are the power requirements of this system and how hardy is it. While it could be assembled from common parts that are available to us in the First World those might not be so common in the Third World or the power requirements and the device might not survive the rigor of tropical climates.
Leave it to the former lead geek at Microsoft to come up with something like this. :grin: Seriously, though, Myhrvold is probably one of the most brilliant humans walking the face of the earth. The guy's interests are all over the map and he excels at dang-near all of them.
The most interesting thing to me is that they use over-the-counter parts from eBay, so it isn't like some billion dollar air force boondoggle. Apparently the system is made for pocket change with readily available parts. The Boat Tailed Grackle is actually kind of rare in that it is limited to marshy areas. It has a very limited range very close to the sea along the Gulf and Atlantic Coast. If you nuked them, the Crows would just move in to replace it and they are much more generic, common, and relatively uninteresting. The Grackles are sexually dimorphic. As far as crow-type birds go, I think that the brown female Grackles are actually kind of interesting to watch. The birds we should lase to vapor throughout Texas are the European Starlings, who basically run off all the native woodpeckers and cardinals by stealing their nests and killing their eggs. European Starlings are flying Norway Rats, or the animal kingdom's answer to Kudzu.
