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Light Barrier Repels Mosquitoes

Posted by samzenpus on from the raise-shields dept.

kodiaktau writes "Dr. Szabolcs Marka has received one of five $1M grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to continue his experiments with using light beams to create mosquito barriers. This is the second grant he has received from the foundation and proves to be a deviation from the previous and more dangerous use of lasers to control mosquitoes. A video of the light barrier in action can be seen here"

4 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Adaptation... by Joce640k · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Won't the mosquitoes just adapt to ignore this 'barrier'?

    I figure this will work for a year or so, tops. The evolutionary rewards for getting past it are huge.

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    1. Re:Adaptation... by Gideon+Wells · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Depends. I built fences for farms for a while. One of the things the older folk told me was that you cannot build a perfect anti-deer fence so they settled for a three to five foot fence normally. They had tails of deer jumping these electrified fences. Once they had a deer jump "through" the individuals wires to get inside.

      Why were these easily bypassed fences used? They weren't to stop deer, but discourage them. One farmer builds a fence, the deer go to his neighbor. His neighbor builds a fence, they move to the next least annoying place to go. May sound harsh, but the deer here were reintroduced from a non-native variety from the Mid-west. Only in the last ten-twenty years have the natural predators began making enough of a comeback to control the population beyond hunting season.

      The mosquitos will likely the same. A few might adapt, but since this isn't killing the non-adpators there won't be any genetic favor towards the adapters. A percentage of mosquitoes is better than the current amount.

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  2. IR = heat by flyingfsck · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Most insects are very heat sensitive and will die quickly when temperatures are elevated. So I suppose the mozzies see the IR light as a dangerous threat and move away.

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  3. IR != heat by subreality · · Score: 3, Interesting

    IR is a very broad spectrum. They don't say what the wavelength is, but I'd expect they're using near-IR, which is cheap, widely-available laser technology. Do you feel warm when you cover the front of an infrared remote? Near IR isn't a strong heat carrier unless you're pushing a LOT of photons... In which case this isn't a safe alternative to the high power bug-zapping lasers used in those wonderful videos.

    Far-IR lasers are expensive, inefficient, finicky machines. They're not the sort of thing you'd deploy to fight malaria.

    In between there's a whole lot of spectrum, but really, I think it's most likely they're using near IR, the mosquitoes see it, and for whatever reason they don't want to cross.