Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Imagine a machine which can shoot mosquitoes out of the sky using a laser. From the Arctic to the tropics, mosquitoes are a major nuisance, and in some cases a lethal threat. The possibility of shooting the nasty little critters out of the sky just edged a little closer, thanks to a study which investigated the most efficient means of delivering a lethal pulse of laser light to our mosquito enemies.
Small, flying insects continue to pose great risks to both human health and agricultural production throughout the world, so there remains a compelling need to develop new vector and pest control approaches. Here, we examined the use of short (<25 ms) laser pulses to kill or disable anesthetized female Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes, which were chosen as a representative species. The mortality of mosquitoes exposed to laser pulses of various wavelength, power, pulse duration, and spot size combinations was assessed 24 hours after exposure. For otherwise comparable conditions, green and far-infrared wavelengths were found to be more effective than near- and mid-infrared wavelengths. Pulses with larger laser spot sizes required lower lethal energy densities, or fluence, but more pulse energy than for smaller spot sizes with greater fluence. Pulse duration had to be reduced by several orders of magnitude to significantly lower the lethal pulse energy or fluence required. These results identified the most promising candidates for the lethal laser component in a system being designed to identify, track, and shoot down flying insects in the wild.
Read more: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep20936
Blowing up sleeping mosquitoes, however satisfying, is obviously not going to to completely solve the issue of how to blast them out of the sky. But one of my favourite TED talk videos, presented by Nathan Myhrvold, demonstrates an experimental device designed to do just that – to target and eliminate flying mosquitoes, under laboratory conditions.
The TED talk is fascinating and inspirational, because Nathan claims they built their mosquito laser defence system out of optical scrap purchased on eBay. Ever since I saw the video, I’ve had a burning urge to try to build my own mosquito laser system. I suspect my version would probably pose more of a danger to the cat, than to flying mosquitoes – but I really want to give it a go.
Because someone, somewhere will make that vital set of breakthroughs required, to take this idea from the laboratory to the shelves of Walmart. My prediction is in 10 – 20 years at most, no backyard BBQ will be complete, without its own laser light show blasting mosquitoes out of the air before they get a chance to bite.
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A few commenters did already mention that several, maybe about 10, years ago this was shown on TV. I believe I saw this demonstrated on the Today Show on NBC. If I remember correctly, this device was built by some laid off engineers who had formerly worked for the defense sector.
It consisted of some sort of digital tracking system, a high speed, fairly low power laser, and other hardware. They developed it on a lark. You just can imagine a bunch of engineers sitting around a BBQ with a few beers at hand saying “Wouldn’t it be great, if we could….”
They had a demonstration at the studio and released a large number of mosquitos inside a plexiglass box and triggered their system. All the mosquitos died within a few seconds. They had rigged a high speed camera to show what happened in slow motion. The system worked far too fast for the human eye. I believe it could kill hundreds of mosquitos per second.
They basically shot the wings off, by far the most sensitive part of the insect and requiring the least power to take them out. A mosquito without wings is no danger to humans. At the time they did mention that based on the different wing beat frequencies between male and female mosquitos they could solely focus on taking out the female mosquitos. I believe a women’s rights organization took offense to that.
In California we have the West Nile virus, dangerous for people above the age of 50. In 2008 I met a former fighter pilot. He had survived three wars unscathed: WW2, the “police action” in Korea, and Vietnam. Sometime before 2008 he got stung by a mosquito carrying the West Nile virus and ended up paralyzed on the left side of his body. WNV can also call blindness or death.
Put the device on a 20 ft or higher pole (mosquitos generally fly below that height) with 360 degree vision and engagement systems and have it shoot downward. If you have the right frequency and technical solution it should be harmless to everything except the targeted species and gender and not bleed outside the perimeter of your backyard.
Hook it up to WiFi and combine it with a smartphone app to give you the stats on kills in full auto mode and give people the ability to engage individual mosquitos and make a game out of it. They can play against their buddies in the backyard or online. You could make millions of Dollars selling that game.
Only female mosquitoes bite. Decommissioning only the females makes things easier, since only one wing beat frequency needs to be considered. The remaining males don’t bite and don’t reproduce.
There is a system available that will shoot down 2000 mozzies per second but they are illegal to use. It is a sort of laser curtain. I have wanted one for years.
If illegal then where are the DIY videos and instructions for modified versions? I mean it must be a little easier than the online H-bomb assembly.
Can we turn this into a real video game for the kids? Something like asteroids, “Mosq-Zapper 5” type thing. This whole idea is just so cool in the geek techy sense.
Use Deet, let the bats, birds and fish eat the mosquitoes. And yes, there are still mosquito repellents containing Deet – at least that is what is on the label of the bottle in my fishing gear.
Using references from a disgraced “encyclopedia” like Wikipeadia should be used with caution or NOT at all. It has ZERO credibility..
As someone who used to shoot laser pulses into the sky (to track satellites and targets on the moon), and from airplanes to the ground (to create 3-D maps of the world), I assure you—you need to be aware of where the energy goes and what it’s power level is for the eye. It’s certainly possible to build such a defense, but the system needs to be engineered to be eye safe.
Not that I have a problem with the laser idea, but the Zika pandemic hysteria seems to be outrunning the actual evidence. I refer you to this article from early February that suggests a potential problem with the reporting of the issue:
http://noticias.uol.com.br/ultimas-noticias/agencia-estado/2016/02/02/pais-tem-404-casos-confirmados-de-microcefalia.htm
From the article:
By end of Jan this year, 4,783 suspected cases of microcephaly were reported in Brazil
3,670 of those are under investigation
in 404 of those, microcephaly or other central nervous alterations* have been confirmed
and finally a total of 17 of those confirmed microcephaly cases had any connection at all with the Zika virus
*(and that’s another issue, that it’s microcephaly “and other stuff”, as it were, but Zika is not suspected of causing the latter, so the connection between the virus and microcephaly seems even shakier)
Brazilian researcher are also reporting their doubts on the Zika-microcephaly connection, calling it circumstantial and not yet proven scientifically (as does the WHO) and pointing out in particular that there is so far no knowledge of how and when exactly in utero the virus would hinder brain development, given that this particular family of viruses has not been shown to have an effect on fetal brain development.
At least until now. Sadly, I do know from personal experience that the absence of evidence of something affecting fetal development is not, in fact, evidence of absence, and finding yourself in such circumstances can turn a very personal disaster into a medical case study demonstrating newfound evidence, but I thought that’s worth pointing out anyway.
An evidence-based approach to medicine would classify the current goings-on as unfounded hysteria, especially given that microcephaly does occur regularly elsewhere without any connection to Zika. It is indeed rare, but the US for instance has 2500 reported cases per year out of 4 million births and in this article
http://www.sfgate.com/news/medical/article/Brazil-270-of-4-120-suspected-microcephaly-cases-6787928.php (dated earlier, hence the small difference in numbers),
US researchers actually question whether the reported sudden rise of microcephaly cases is not in fact an artifact of the recent change in data collection. The article suggests that 150 cases out of about 3 million births in Brazil in 2014 seems artificially low, and that the changes in reporting and registering cases may be responsible for the increase in numbers.
You can draw your own conclusions about the wisdom of the WHO freaking out thousands of pregnant women and scaring thousands more off becoming pregnant, given that they have acknowledge that they there’s not even any proof of a weak link between Zika and microcephaly, but only a circumstantial one based on no evidence (as yet).
Just found a paper that says 25,000 cases of microcephaly in infants are diagnosed each year in the US. That rather contradicts the 2,500 I quoted from the second article above and casts even more doubt on Brazil’s claim of only 150 cases in 2014.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19752457 (free)
Best comment on this post . . . funny how so many GW skeptics turn into true believers of government science when the subject is something other than climate.
imagine a machine that can shoot low concentration mists of DDT at mosquitoes
The insectocutor principle would be safer. If a means can be found to attract the mosquitoes into a given place, zap them there under a shield. Pheremones?
Or, a simulated human with a thin insulating layer on the surface and 10,000v underneath. Make the punishment fit the crime.
I think this device was described in David Brin’s 1990 novel “Earth”.
How about just putting retro-fitted standard bug zappers in the woods that have no UV light but DO have a small tank that emits a steady stream of CO2, which attracts them even in the dark? Oh I forgot, CO2 is a poison worse than DDT, worse than Hitler.
Lasers might zap mozzies nicely but they are problematic.
They damage people’s eyes.
Thus criminal sociopaths shoot then at jet liners’ pilots.
A better anti-mosquito technology might be an acoustic wave that would take them out.