LinkyPost - Mosquitoes

[guppiecat]

I hate mosquitoes. You hate mosquitoes. We all hate mosquitoes.

But, do you hate mosquitoes enough to build a laser-based eradication system?

Personally, I'd rather just bring in a few hundred dragonflies... but maybe that's just me.

Comments

[davidschroth.livejournal.com]

Obvious question - are dragonflies native/prolific in the areas where this system is intended for deployment (i.e., areas where malaria is endemic)?

I don't know the answer to this obvious question.

Otherwise, I'm happy that Jordin gets paid to develop cool stuff...

[guppiecat]

I guess I just assumed that dragonflies were everywhere that mosquitoes are. They are of a similar type, and the latter is the primary food of the former.

I checked around the net, and while I cannot find a range map for dragonflies, I did see references to dragonflies in most cultures in most parts of the world. So, until anyone can show me otherwise, I'm assuming that dragonflies are just as prevalent as mosquitoes.

[hrrunka]

I suspect the usual sustainable predator:prey ratio comes into play. If the dragonflies were sufficiently numerous they'd run out of food and then die off...

[otherbill.livejournal.com]

I'm expecting this year's mosquito season to be particularly bad, given the number of vacant foreclosed homes with unmaintained swimming pools.

Besides, dragonflies are cool. Anywhere we can buy them in bulk?

[guppiecat]

Yep.

(and here)

Just be sure to get a kind that already exists where you are. You don't want to be driving out the dragonflies you already have.

[hrrunka]

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to see Jordin Kare's name in that report. ;)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Actually, I thought of it about ten years ago, and have been trying ever since to figure out how to build one.

Unlike Myhrvold, though, I never took the easy step of building a system that could zap captive mosquitoes contained in a glass tank conveniently backed by a reflective background upon which an optical tracker can detect their shadows. That seems a bit too much like dynamiting fish in a barrel. It's a mere engineering problem.
What I wanted to do was to come up with a system capable of tracking and targeting free-flying mosquitoes in open air against random backgrounds, and able to detect when a human was in the line of fire and hold its fire. I so far haven't ever come up with a solution to that problem, and until I do, I don't consider it worth building one. I suspect it would begin with using ultrasonic acoustic sensors to detect and acquire targets, but it's narrowing that down and acquiring a sufficiently precise target lock on a free-flying mosquito against an unknown background to achieve a laser kill without collateral damage that's the real problem. About the only thing I can think of that might be both workable and eye-safe is phased-array millimeter-wave radar, and that has its own drawbacks for use around people or animals.

[guppiecat]

I have similar complaints as you do. And similar concerns. Specifically around the fact that mosquitoes like to buzz around the face, which is probably where you don't want to be zapping lasers.

However, just a thought, it might be easy to make nano-robots that use the bidirectional microphone technique to zoom in on the mosquito's sound and pursue them. If caught, they can just grab them and bring them down. If not caught, they drive them away from you, which is sorta the point anyway.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Rather than a big stationary system, it seems like a hat-mounted laser is the right approach. So it'll be shooting away from you, and generally downwards. It would still need to be somewhat careful about other people, and for that matter about your own extremities.

Although robots that just chase them down and eat them would be neat too.

[pameladean]

A friend of mine tells me that when he was growing up in northern Canada, mosquito control people would release whole airplanes full of dragonflies, and they would descend in a glittering cloud.

I don't really want to upset ecological balances; a lot of extremely fine species eat mosquitoes. What I'd like is a very effective repellent that isn't toxic to humans and that bypasses the problem with present repellents, which, as far as I can see, is that the mosquito thinks, "oo, carbon dioxide, food, whee!" and zooms in, and then thinks, "Yuck, not food. But carbon dioxide, food! But it's not food! But it's food!" So they mostly don't bite, but they won't LEAVE.

P.

[guppiecat]

A friend of mine here uses the Mosquito Magnet and it works really well.

There are similar and cheaper options as well.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

If I ever do come into possession of a scroll of genocide (ala Hack) in the real world, mosquitos will be the first species to go.

[guppiecat]

Just make sure it's not blessed. There are some insects out there that are worth keeping around.

[shadowcat48li.livejournal.com]

a suggestion was made on the bureau-13 rpg list that the anti mosquito laser was designed to stop an infestation of these
http://www.worth1000.com/emailthis.asp?image=24555

[lizzibabe.livejournal.com]

dude. Rule 37.