

Scientists Build Anti-Mosquito Laser - shykes
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123680870885500701.html

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pcof
Is it only me or the whole article reads, smells and looks like an hoax?
Consider the evidence: a) "... are tuning the strength of the laser so that it
kills mosquitoes without harming other insects or, especially, people." Laser
barriers capable of killing people, directly out of the movies. b)"Each time
the laser strikes a mosquito, the computer makes a gunshot sound. When the
mosquito is hit, it bursts into flame and falls to the ground, and a thin
plume of smoke rises." Go to Kongregate and you will find dozens of flash
mini-games doing exactly that. c) "Other ideas include devices that disrupt
the mosquitoes' senses of sight, smell, and heat; feeding them poisoned blood;
infecting them with a genetically altered bacterium; and creating a malaria-
free mutant to overtake the natural mosquitoes." I like "poisoned blood" most,
because it can kill vampires too. But "Mutant mosquito from the outer space X
bacteria controlled mosquitoes from hell" would be a blockbuster...

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patio11
As long as we're talking science fiction solutions, I'd like to propose a
chemical weapon. It would have to be so safe to humans that you could mix
powders of it in your drinking water, in quantities sufficient to create iced
tea, without any ill effects. It would have to be simple enough that an
illiterate peasant could deploy it using technology routinely available in the
early 1900s. It would have to be dirt cheap enough to spray into every home in
an at-risk region in Africa. It would have to be patent unencumbered, so that
anyone could produce it. It would have to be stupidly easy to synthesize in
quantity. It would have to have decades of research put into finding a
fumigation protocol to defeat those crafty mosquito's pesky tendency to
develop immunities. And it would have to be guaranteed to work, for example,
by being successfully used to totally eliminate malaria in every continent
inhabited primarily by white people.

If only such a magic chemical existed, we wouldn't have to waste time thinking
up ways to swat mosquitoes singly with radar-guided laser weaponry. We'd just
hire a bunch of folks to go around and spray a bit inside of dwellings, and
bam, malaria cases would decrease by 90% within the first season of treatment,
saving thousands of lives and removing an enormous economic loadstone from
Africa's collective neck.

I know, I know, it sounds like a sucky sci-fi book because if the chemical is
so perfect then where is the conflict? Aha, you see, that's where we bring in
a group of religious fundamentalists who view it as a totemic embodiment of
the devil, and will oppose it automatically, no matter the costs, from the
luxury of their malaria-free gardens.

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ghshephard
An LD50 of 113 mg/kg isn't exactly what you would call "Safe" - it's about as
dangerous as caffeine (192 mg/kg)

But, point (very) well made (if somewhat subtle for a significant portion of
the audience...)

Edit: Actually, knowing this audience, perhaps not that subtle. :-)

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mr_luc
Isn't that ... Intellectual Ventures Patent Troll Nathan Myhrvold?

He'd BETTER wipe out malaria. It'd do his massively guilty conscience some
good.

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neilc
I doubt very much that Myhrvold has a guilty conscience. There is no reason
for him to have one, anyway: he's just exploiting the current nature of the
patent system. That is called "acting rationally" (assuming that his venture
works out, which isn't at all clear).

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JulianMorrison
And the mosquito is exploiting your exposed blood supply and acting
rationally. So?

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jac_no_k
Could this be adapted into a crowd sourced game? Take turns at the helm of
micro laser canon to stop Imperial Mosquitoes from taking the blood and lives
of the Rebel forces.

Save some money on the AI. Pay to play the game. Prizes, badges, and
acheivements. :)

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mdemare
Isn't detecting mosquitos much harder than killing them? How do they solve
that? Echolocation? I'd love to win the war against malaria with robats!

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fnid
From two years ago: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSIWpFPkYrk>

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JCThoughtscream
Would've loved, say, a dozen of these lasers every time I visit relatives back
in Taiwan.

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TriinT
Wouldn't it be better to invest in vaccines, instead? A laser powerful enough
to kill a mosquito seems to be powerful enough to cause retinal damage. Am I
missing anything obvious?

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Devilboy
This thing can selectively kill them by gender which is pretty cool. Vaccines
only help against the individual diseases spread by mosquitos, targeting the
mosquitos directly is useful too.

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TriinT
I can see that, but note that there are always budget constraints, and it
would not be unreasonable to ask whether there are other more cost-efficient
ways of killing mosquitos or fighting malaria.

How many malaria-carrying mosquitos are there? Billions? Trillions? What would
be the cost of burning them all with lasers? Given that biotech has made quite
some progress, a more efficient solution would be perhaps to infect male
mosquitos with some disease that does only kills female mosquitos, and when
they f*ck the females, they would pass on the disease and remove malaria-
carrying bugs from the face of the Earth.

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mrfish
Maybe we should attach lasers to the head of other mosquitos and start a civil
war!

