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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"

13 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 Sqr(twg) · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You could make evolution work for you by putting death traps behind light barriers at mosquito breeding grounds.

    2. Re:Adaptation... by Solandri · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If people were the main source of nourishment for mosquitoes, then yes. But they're not. If you use this to discourage mosquitoes from biting humans, they will happily get blood from other animals, resulting in no evolutionary pressure to pass light barriers.

    3. 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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    4. Re:Adaptation... by Muad'Dave · · Score: 3, Funny

      They had tails of deer jumping these electrified fences.

      You built fences that would rip the tails off of deer that attempted to jump over them? How cruel!

      Oh, you meant tales. Nevermind.

      --
      Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
    5. Re:Adaptation... by N0Man74 · · Score: 2

      You're on Slashdot. You should realize by now that reproductive activities aren't required for survival (for the individual member of a species).

    6. Re:Adaptation... by Bowling+Moses · · Score: 2

      "If people were the main source of nourishment for mosquitoes, then yes. But they're not."

      That depends on the mosquito species. Anopheles gambiae is the major carrier of the malaria pathogen and has a very strong preference for humans: if given the choice between livestock and humans, they pick humans 90% of the time. Aedes aegypti is the vector for yellow fever, dengue, and chickungunya, and also prefers humans. It appears that humans secrete comparatively elevated levels of L-lactic acid which for some species of mosquito is an attractant. For others L-lactic acid can have no effect or even be a repellant. There are many species (and over 40 genera according to some classifications!) so there are many different chemical cues that can affect mosquito host preferences and many different ecological niches for the different mosquito species to inhabit.

  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. And In Other News... by hyades1 · · Score: 2

    Several Winnipeg mosquitoes demonstrated their opinion of the "Light Wall" under a large banner that read, "Prototypes welcome, Einstein. Why do you think megafauna are extinct."

    Some wore sunglasses and lounged on what appeared to be small beach towels. Others sported t-shirts reading "I gotcher emitter right here".

    The dessicated remains of a grizzly bear had been propped up nearby, its dead paws holding a crudely-lettered piece of cardboard that read, "I never shoulda said "Suck This" .

    Further developments are expected next spring with the hatching of a new generation of the worst bloodsucking parasites to be found outside Parliament.

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  4. Re:how about low-tech by otie · · Score: 2

    Er, Bill & Melinda Gates are "longtime partners" of Nothing But Nets: http://www.nothingbutnets.net/blogs/a-buzz-worthy-week-at-the-malaria-forum.html

  5. Light Barrier Repels Mosquitoes by clickclickdrone · · Score: 2

    I read the title as there being some breed of supra-light mozzies who were being upset by the speed of light limitation. Still, if that CERN work on possible FTL particles pans out, they'll be all happy again.

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  6. 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.

  7. Re:how about low-tech by JoeMerchant · · Score: 2

    1M from the Gates Foundation could probably buy enough mosquito nets to cover the whole of Africa.

    Mosquito nets are well known and have been widely available for 50+ years. If $1M in nets would wipe out malaria in Africa, it would have happened by now.

    I think you're glossing the inefficiencies involved in distributing anything to "the whole of Africa" - the administrative costs alone in distributing something as simple as a "LiveStrong" armband to every person in Africa (or even just those who are at risk of malaria from mosquito bites) would exceed $1M.