Wireless Sensor Networks for Killing Mosquitoes

aaditeshwar writes "It looks like sensor networks have some applications afterall, other than the usual stuff for defense and US military! AmBio has created a wireless mesh network of bugspraying "magnets" that report back data on the temperature, air conditions, and wind directions, and a central controller uses this data to turn ON or OFF the magnets in different areas. They plan to cover entire cities with such wireless meshes, and create an anti-mosquito shield around the city!"

Comments

Fighting malaria

[pieterh]

This would be great in tropical countries. Mosquito-borne malaria is one of those diseases that affects a huge number of people (a majority in many countries), which is non-fatal but debilitating. It makes you sick every few months, and you spend a week or so in a terrible fever. Sometimes it's fatal but mostly it just makes people very weak, unable to concentrate on useful work, and so on.

Of course there are hundreds of other diseases that weigh down people living in tropical countries but malaria is one of the big ones. Keeping mosquitos away from places where people live would be a great thing. I just hope the technology will become cheap enough to work in rural Africa.

Re:Fighting malaria

[kellar]

at the moment, the best defence against malaria in [south] africa seems to be revisiting DDT.

Can the 3rd World afford it?

[MosesJones]

This is a great application, and one which probably has the largest benefits for the 3rd World and developing world. As with drugs however the issue is going to be the cost to those countries of deploying it (and having the reliable power network to support it).

How long before its cheap enough to not just be about making people in Florida feel more comfortable living in a swamp?

Now I just need a really long extension cord...

[jimmyhat3939]

This sounds like it would work great for golf courses and country clubs (one of the sites mentioned in the article).

However... they tout this as being great for third-world countries where malaria is prevalent. I'm sure this is the angle they'll use to get major media, since people ultimately aren't that drawn to devices that make live even easier for the country-club set.

According to the article, you need both a 20-pound tank of propane and access to a nearby power outlet to make the machine work, not to mention wifi for the fancier parts of it. Seems like this could be a bit of a stretch in places like Central America and Africa where they're lucky to have running water and decent sanitation facilities. Maybe a better version of device could use the propane to power the unit, so that you don't need that power cord?

Or else, I suppose they could just use the equivalent of the "Mexican National Extension Cord" to run the things.
--
Free 411! 1-800-411-SAVE

Re:And then

[Indras]

When the bacteria eaten by the mosquitoes begin hurting us, everybody will realize that -after all- they were not just "bad".

Typical biological intervention which reverts against us.

Mosquitoes do not eat bacteria. They are nectar drinkers, with the female ones requiring an additional diet of animal blood.

I'm racking my brain, but I cannot think of a negative reason to remove mosquitoes from cities. Other than reducing spread of West Nile virus and malaria, the only real effect would be a lack of bug bites and a reduced diet for spiders and birds that feed on them.

And the effects on other species?

[Chris Bradshaw]

Great, we'll rid the city of mosquitos... What about natural predation and balance in areas where these systems are deployed? There are species that depend on the these "pests" for survival?

http://www.mosquito-netting.com/predators.html

I know that there are concerns with insect born illness, but that these problems can and in my opinion be solved without wiping out an entire species from an ecosystem, no matter how annoying they are.

Is it just me, or does this seem a little extreme...?

Bats

[Anonymous Coward]

How does this system compare with just attracting bats to the area? Just attach little wooden bat homes near your golf course or whatever. Bats eat a lot of bugs.

Re:Bats

[MichaelSmith]

Bats eat a lot of bugs.

So do fish. When I installed a pond in my front garden the mozzie population exploded overnight. The Mosquito lavae were breeding in the pond.

So I put fish in the pond. The fish got bigger and the mozzies almost disapeared.

Re:Bats

[kellar]

yeah but then what do we do with the .... aw screw it, i'll just use an obligatory simpsons quote:

QUIMBY: For decimating our pigeon population, and making Springfield a less oppressive place to while away our worthless lives, I present you with this scented candle.

Skinner talks to Lisa.

SKINNER: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.

LISA: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?

SKINNER: No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.

LISA: But aren't the snakes even worse?

SKINNER: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.

LISA: But then we're stuck with gorillas!

SKINNER: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

The family head back to the car.

Vapourware?

[martinmcc]

I watched a program about mosqitos recently, and they are actually pretty cool creatures. As mentioned before, it is only the female that drinks blood, and it is used for making babies (mosquito babies I assume, not human), not for everyday sustanance. When they drink your blood, they actually distill it in real time, excreting out what they do not need as they drink.

But anyway, asides from the possible environmental impact it may or may not cause, does this not strick anyone as being highly unrealistic. How much would it cost to put up a city wide net of sensors and magnets, not to mention the power cost, replacing broken components etc. etc. Smells to me like a lot of vapourware.

I think we should just all sit down with mosquitos and have a good long chat, I'm sure we could work out our differences and learn to live together in peace and harmony.

Not all bugs are mozzies

[martinX]

Not all bugs are mozzies. If it kills all bugs, what happens to the critters that live by eating bugs?

I remember reading (somewhere on the innanet, so it must be true...) that the so-called mozzie zappers weren't too discriminatory. ~95% of the bugs caught in them weren't mosquitoes, but were bugs that had been attracted by the zapper's (deliberately attractant) light. This in turn was adversely affecting the local frogs. Less frogs meant more mosquitoes... and so on.

OTOH, my fly catching bottle smells like poo but catches nothing but flies :-)

Re:And then

[temcat]

I'm racking my brain, but I cannot think of a negative reason to remove mosquitoes from cities.

Frogs eat moskitos. You leave frogs without food. Won't anybody please think of the frogs?