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Comments: 428 + - Science: Directed Energy Weapon Downs Mosquitos on Friday February 12 2010, @04:36PM
Posted
by
samzenpus
on Friday February 12 2010, @04:36PM
from the two-pound-hammer-and-ten-penny-nail dept.
from the two-pound-hammer-and-ten-penny-nail dept.
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technology
wisebabo writes "Nathan Myhrvol demonstrated at TED a laser, built from parts scrounged from eBay, capable of shooting down not one but 50 to 100 mosquitos a second. The system is 'so precise that it can specify the species, and even the gender, of the mosquito being targeted.' Currently, for the sake of efficiency, it leaves the males alone because only females are bloodsuckers. Best of all the system could cost as little as $50. Maybe that's too expensive for use in preventing malaria in Africa but I'd buy one in a second!" We ran a story about this last year. It looks like the company has added a bit more polish, and burning mosquito footage to their marketing.
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Nice (Score:5, Funny)
Well, to hell with the green movement... get me another 250 amp breaker box to my house! It's go time, you little bastards. I'm going to put some energy executive's nephew through college!
Re:Nice (Score:5, Funny)
P.S. this is the only sexist technology that I fully endorse. Just want that clear.
Parent
Re:Nice (Score:5, Informative)
*Technically speaking, the mosquitoes will not be fried in the final product. In addition to potential danger to other occupants of this system's effective bubble, it is planned for deployment to very poor areas of the world where electricity will likely be at a premium. As a result, they are also experimenting with the minimum amount of energy a laser strike must possess to render the mosquito infertile, because that interrupts the cycle necessary for Malaria transmission between humans.
Cheers,
Makr
Parent
Re:Darwin says... (Score:5, Funny)
So then we update the targeting software with the new effective frequencies.
Booyah! Take that, Science!
Intelligent design triumphs over evolution once again!
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Re:Nice (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, that's a good point, but the counterpoint is that the spayed female mosquito is going to keep attracting males and may keep those males busy enough that, given the short reproductive lifetimes, they miss the chance at fertilizing the eggs of a fertile female. If you sterilize 90% of the females, that may cause the same effect as if you killed 98% of them (similar to a vaccination herd effect). So, not so good to protect you locally but better in the long run. If you have to place the devices where humans can't be because they could accidentally cause blindness, then they're not very useful for direct protection but more useful for limiting reproduction.
That said, I think somebody else put their finger on how it will fail - selection pressure will change the common beat frequency for the female anopheles mosquito. It's probably related to size, and this will therefore select for a different size of female by letting them survive. Hopefully a production version of this thing can take a firmware upgrade that changes the targeted frequency range.
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Re:Nice (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Nice (Score:4, Funny)
Right. Put rows of these things on K-Street. Take care of those human dressing roaches and leeches too.
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pshaw! You think _you_ have big mosquitoes? (Score:5, Funny)
Here in the interior of Alaska we have to plant trees close together in our campgrounds. That keeps the mosquitos with the larger wingspans from getting through. Heck, some of them have their own landing strip at the airport. Our mosquitoes are big -- scary big.
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Uh oh (Score:5, Funny)
Woe be to the man who walks past wearing his fishing vest.
"Burning Mosquito Footage?" YES. (Score:4, Funny)
Add a techno soundtrack... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Add a techno soundtrack... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Add a techno soundtrack... (Score:5, Funny)
Heck, mount it on the roomba to patrol.
That would be pure awesome.
Somebody do this and post on youtube, now!
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Re:Add a techno soundtrack... (Score:4, Funny)
Careful. You're one voice synthesizer away from a Dalek.
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Evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Then they'll target both genders equally. Then the mosquitos will get a little tougher, perhaps reflective in the appropriate frequency, and learn to play dead and fall to the ground when hit with a laser that doesn't quite kill them.
Where they are promptly eaten by a frog. Sometimes, change and predation happens so fast that evolution is not a fast enough process to prevent extinction. Sometimes the change is insurmountable.
Adios passenger pidgeon.
Re:Evolution (Score:4, Insightful)
Most likely the evolution will be a breed of them that don't fly near people. Net win for us.
I hope so. It also made me wonder about Poison Ivy. That plant is damned lucky that it is hardy, because I can't think of a worse thing to happen (evolutionarily speaking) than to develop a defense which is exceptionally annoying to a sentient creature with access to landscaping equipment.
I'm sure it worked great as a defense for creatures whose only real option was to 'Avoid that greasy trefoil', but once you add a machete and herbicides into the mix it's amazing how fast a true advantage is turned into a significant disadvantage. I hate that plant so much that I'll cut it off at the roots if I'm just walking through the forest and happen to see it.
Odd considering that other plants (and domesticated animals ancestors) won the genetic lottery simply by having a useful feature which humanity exploited.
Parent
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
Nevermind the fact that the ecosystems which we *rely on to survive* involve many species, in symbiotic relationships... You can call them cuddly or ugly or whatever, but you can NOT call them meaningless. Your existential rant was beautiful up until the part where you were a completely arrogant ass.
The "great cost and labor" actually goes INTO their extinction as we destroy natural habitats in search of food, oil, gold, etc.
Ready for the "big finish"? Hint: this isn't sarcasm...
If there is another mass extinction, it will INCLUDE US.
Parent
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Informative)
Female mosquitoes that can sense the lasers at range and randomly avoid them come to dominate the species.
Who modded this up as interesting?
Nothing can sense a laser before it has hit.
Hence the warning "do not look into laser with remaining eye"
Parent
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe he means some females will hear the scream of their brethren after their wings are fried and they're tumbling to the ground and thus avoid that area.
Parent
Mosquitoes don't surf (Score:4, Funny)
PETA ... (Score:5, Funny)
... is going to throw a fit. A pissy hissy little fit. Good.
Re:PETA ... (Score:5, Funny)
Don't worry, an anti-PETA laser is already in works, to be brought to you by US DoD!
Parent
Re:PETA ... (Score:5, Funny)
It works by targetting the buzzing noise they make when they chant their slogans; it also selectively targets females, which will make males think "wtf, why are there no chicks here? I'm leaving".
Parent
Evolution (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Evolution (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Well, there's only one thing needed now... (Score:4, Interesting)
...and that's a cute robot doll [wikipedia.org] to shoot the laser at the mosquitos!
Future Charity Commerical (Score:5, Funny)
"Your donation of only $2 a day could help this African village purchase a mosquito defense laser . . . "
Re:Future Charity Commerical (Score:4, Funny)
I already sent several checks to a Nigerian prince. What the hell else do they want now?
Parent
I want ONE! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I want ONE! (Score:5, Funny)
Hire yourself out for parties. For $5/hour you could sit 10m away from the crowd and draw the mosquito's to you. You'd have your $50 in no time! You'd also have malaria, which is a bit of a downside.
Parent
Old 1980's Technology, with One Problem (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Old 1980's Technology, with One Problem (Score:5, Interesting)
True, but skeeters are usually active at dusk and after. Two possibilities.
1. If it can recognize shapes, have it shut down whenever a larger animal is within 10-15 degrees of the beam. I mean, this thing is already accurately identifying specific species of mosquito, right? How hard would it be to put a "don't fire if something bigger than a housefly is emitting heat in the range of fire" system in?
2. Put it on a timer or switch, and only turn it on when everyone is inside, and put it away from windows (this would only work, of course, if you live like me - in the woods with no neighbors).
Parent
Re:Old 1980's Technology, with One Problem (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
It's friendly (Score:3, Insightful)
A product of Intellectual Ventures (Score:4, Informative)
This came out of Intellectual Ventures, which Slashdot often derides as a patent troll [slashdot.org] that brainstorms ideas, patents them, then lives off of the licensing revenue without actually contributing real products to the world or even prototyping their vaguely defined ideas.
This shows that IV is quite capable of producing actual, useful products. Its business model is not limited to patent licensing revenue, which makes it more like, say, IBM, than a typical patent holding company.
Maybe, just maybe, IV is not the evil parasite that many on Slashdot made it out to be. In fact, it seems to be in the business of shooting evil parasites with lasers, which is pretty cool.
Sign me up for 10 (Score:4, Insightful)
Knowing this can be done, I bet this would be pretty easy to make.
You'd take a pan and tilt servo controlled laser, and put sound sensors around the laser. Move the laser towards the loudest noise, fire when the noise is equal on the sensors. Bingo, dead mosquito. Just like a sun tracker!
Everything else is software, like knowing what frequency to listen to mosquitos on.
Does anyone know:
1. How much laser power do you need to kill a mosquito?
2. What frequency noise do you target?
3. Is it shark-mountable?
An improvement suggestion (Score:5, Informative)
An improvement in both safety and efficiency would be to use two lasers, each about 60% as strong as the currently used single one.
The targeting computer would aim both lasers at the target frying it even faster than now. But, should one of the "canons" miss, or should an unintended target come into one of the beams, the "collateral damage" will be much smaller, because the other laser will not be aimed at the same spot.
I think, the military lasers should use the similar technique — use multiple weak lasers frying the same target from dispersed locations. An unintended object (such as a civilian airplane) flying into any one of the beams will be safe, and taking out the entire installation will be much harder for the enemy. The set can have a cumulative power twice (or more) than is required to destroy one target, while each individual beam is still (relatively) harmless.
When "healthy", such a setup will be able to destroy multiple targets at a time, and the enemy will only be able to reduce its capacity gradually, rather than all at once.
Re:Pardon my skepticism (Score:5, Informative)
The laser describes a perfectly straight line; no windage is needed. You therefore do not need to track the mosquito in three dimensions, but only two--no fine determination of range is required.
Parent
Re:Pardon my skepticism (Score:5, Funny)
Man, if you're the kind of person who says "wow, a laser that shoots down mosquitoes, how cool. Lets dangle my balls in front of it", then you don't deserve to reproduce :)
Parent
You only have to track two dimensions (Score:3, Insightful)
Travel time is instantaneous for all practical purposes. If you think you need the distance to know what to shoot and what not to shoot, that's only half the problem. The real problem is what about the parts of the laser beam that aren't intercepted by the mosquito? I realize lasers do gradually expand, but not enough to avoid zapping the people nearby.
Re:You only have to track two dimensions (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Pardon my skepticism (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, why doesn't DARPA fund this then
Because it already exists and works?
Parent
Re:I'm from Minnesota (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm from Maine and I live in the woods near some marshland. If this thing works 1/4 as well as advertised I'd happily pay $200 for one if they wanted to use something similar to the "OLPC" model.
At a manufacturing cost of $50, that's one for me to enjoy my backyard, two for third-world countries fighting malaria, and $50 profit for the manufacturer.
Parent
Re:Safety of the device? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Future's so bright... I wear my sunglasses at night.
Parent
Re:Can I Give One to my Programmers? (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, even at best it can only do 50 to 100 bugs per second. You'd need a lot of them.
Parent
Re:So much for the food chain (Score:5, Interesting)
First, mosquitoes are only one thing at their level of the food chain. Flies, noseeums, and plenty of other non-biting insects live at the same level.
Second, this is actually better than most current solutions. Mosquito magnets and skeeter deleters and other things attract all manner of insects, not just mosquitoes. Don't get me started on spray permethrin and other insecticides.
Third, mosquito populations are WAY up in my area because bats are being wiped out by that nose fungus infection. I haven't seen a bat in my area in a couple of years, unfortunately, and they used to be common.
Fourth, these units would only work in the immediate vicinity of houses. In my area, that means there's still a few hundred acres behind my house that remain prime mosquito real estate. I only want my yard, they can have the marsh.
And, finally, I don't care. I am, in fact, that self-centered.
Parent
Re:So much for the food chain (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, how self-centered are we?
God damnit this is /. how dare you come in here and try and spread your silly idea's about mosquitoes being important blah blah blah. What the hell man? THIS IS A GOD DAMN LASER WEAPON FOR KILLING BUGS! You don't get this? pewpewpew? no? FUCK! {throws chair}
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