Mosquito Laser

topic posted Sat, April 4, 2009 - 8:26 AM by  Tom
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Yay, less chemicals!
Yikes, in the wrong hands... (sarcasm).
This just looks too weird & interesting not to share. The link below has the full story.

The current implementation uses a Dell computer as the "brains" of the mosquito killer. It uses Maglite flashlights to illuminate mosquitoes, creating silhouettes on a backdrop. A camera spots these silhouettes and blasts the mosquitoes with the laser. Colonies of anopheles stephensi, one species of mosquito that transmits malaria, are cultivated as test victims of the new weapon.

In recent testing, the device scored a number of hits, killing mosquitoes with deadly efficacy, leaving only smoldering carcasses littering the ground. The laser even distinguished, based on wing beat, blood sucking female mosquitoes and relatively innocuous male mosquitoes which feed off of sugary nectar (in the lab they're fed sweet raisins). While the females met death by laser, the males were left blissfully untouched, albeit without female companionship. Mr. Myhrvold describes, "If you really were a purist, you could only kill the females, not the males."

However, he adds that ultimately humans will probably "just slay them all."

www.dailytech.com/Death+by+...e14591.htm
posted by:
Tom
offline Tom
Sacramento
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