Mosquito Laser

Newai

Wow. Here's a video of the laser system. They need to get these manufactured and shipped out. And they're going to make a killing when they go mainstream!



Here's an article page on it:
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/12...that.html#more

Danger

Those must be some awesome little-bitty radar tracking stations they use for target acquisition...

Redbelly98

The video looks like an animation to me. Is there any real footage of this thing in action?

Topher925

It looks to me like they are just using a basic digital image correlation setup.

russ_watters

Google finds. It: It's a pet project of Bill Gates: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123680870885500701.html

Mech_Engineer

Interesting project, kind of a laser-powered bug zapper. I can imagine how it might be possible to wall off an entire area with laser "nets," but targeting would be subject to an error rate, both misses and false positives. this would mean that mosquitoes would still get through, if only a small percentage. The problem is a small African village isn't going to be able to afford a star wars mosquito laser defence system...

I hate mosquitoes with a vengeance, but I have to say that the possible ideas of creating an infectious bacterial strain that kills all mosquitoes, or replacing the entire mosquito population by introducing malaria-resistant super-mosquitoes does worry me. Killing off all mosquitoes isn't an option because they play an integral part of the food chain, and making "super mosquitoes" that are able to overtake the natural population can easily have unforseen consequences.

It seems to me the safest option is a malaria vaccine and preventative treatment, although we aren't there yet.