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First Automatic Identification of Flying Insects Allows Hi-Tech Bug Zapping

Posted by Unknown on from the detect-and-destroy dept.

KentuckyFC writes "Entomologists have never been able to identify flying insects automatically. But not through lack of trying. The obvious approach is to listen out for the frequency of the wing beat. But acoustic microphones aren't up to the job because sound intensity drops with the square of the distance, so flying insects quickly drop out of range. Now a group of researchers has solved this problem using a laser beam pointing at a photosensitive array. Any insect flying through the beam casts a shadow of its beating wings that can easily be recorded at distances of several meters. Using this new device, the team has created a dataset of millions of wing beat recordings, more than all previous recordings put together. And they've used the dataset to train a Bayesian classifier algorithm to identify flying insects automatically for the first time. That opens the prospect of a new generation of bug zappers that kill only certain insects or just females rather than males. That could have a big impact on human health since mosquitoes and other flying insects kill millions of people each year. It could also help in agriculture where insects threaten billions of dollars worth of crops."

15 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. And the product name? by cold+fjord · · Score: 3, Funny

    The Dalek Bug Death Ray?

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    1. Re:And the product name? by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

      It only takes one male to fertilize countless females. If you want to eliminate a species, you focus your efforts on the females, not the males. We could lose 90% of the human male population tomorrow and our population would be back to normal in a generation or less. If we lost 90% of the human female population, it'd take centuries to get back to our present population. Males simply don't affect population much; kill off a bunch, and the remaining ones have more sex partners.

    2. Re:And the product name? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2

      "It only takes one male to fertilize countless females. If you want to eliminate a species, you focus your efforts on the females, not the males. We could lose 90% of the human male population tomorrow and our population would be back to normal in a generation or less. If we lost 90% of the human female population, it'd take centuries to get back to our present population. Males simply don't affect population much; kill off a bunch, and the remaining ones have more sex partners."

      That's true of humans, not mosquitoes. The reason is the low birth rate of humans. But mosquitoes breed prolifically.

      It is true that males can fertilize many females. But because of their high birth rate, this means that killing off the females does not restrict the population for long. At most a few months.

      But kill off the males -- or better yet, as they have done with both mosquitoes and flies sterilize the males but let them mate -- and they produce no offspring.

      That's why most fly and mosquito eradication programs focus on the males.

  2. Similar to... by somsip · · Score: 2

    http://www.techdirt.com/blog/i... Just for info. Not trying to dispute whether the article refers to a true 'first' or not.

  3. potential evolution experiement by peter303 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It will select against all species members with characteristic audio signature allowing the non-charcteristic to breed. Kind of like the explosion of silent rattlesnakes. Hunters have killed the noisy ones.

  4. Murderers!!! by hodet · · Score: 2

    Now how do I get one for my backyard? :-)

  5. Re:Millions of people. by SJHillman · · Score: 3, Informative

    I think they mean flying insects carry diseases that kill thousands or millions of people. Not necessarily the insects directly kill people like a bad SyFymovie.

  6. Sexist Pig! by Bigbutt · · Score: 2

    That opens the prospect of a new generation of bug zappers that kill only certain insects or just females rather than males.

    Males are the throwaway gender. Need to get the egg bearing females to reduce the population. Then the males will fight over the remaining females until they're also reduced.

    Win-Win!

    [John ]

    --
    Shit better not happen!
  7. Re:What could possibly go wrong? by MightyYar · · Score: 2

    Keep it all in a 2d plane with grates on it, like a bug zapper. I haven't heard of any bug zapper deaths, though I have faith that the crowd here at Slashdot will find an example.

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  8. Re:What could possibly go wrong? by gnick · · Score: 4, Funny

    I haven't heard of any bug zapper deaths, though I have faith that the crowd here at Slashdot will find an example.

    My brother's girlfriend's nephew's cousin swallowed one whole. As soon as he plugged it in, game over.

    --
    He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
  9. Re:Millions of people. by penix1 · · Score: 2

    ...Flying insects kill millions of people each year. ...what? This goes beyond hyperbole.

    Even if it wasn't, our constant struggle to defy nature is astounding. The thing is, nature will always win. Death is inevitable and frankly, things like disease and famine are natures way of population control. Just look at some of the modern day diseases and their resistance to antibiotics for an example of nature getting around the problem. Until humans can face the fact that death is around the corner, the more waste of time and resources we have trying to outwit nature. Just because we can do a thing doesn't mean we should. We have no idea how this technology will upset the balance nature has struck. Wiping out an insect species may very well wipe out others that depend on them for food. Eventually, that can lead right up the food chain to us.

    It will be interesting to see how nature gets around this problem.

    --
    This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
  10. malaria, for instance by Chirs · · Score: 4, Informative

    According to the WHO, malaria (spread by mosquitoes) killed between 473000 and 789000 people in 2012. Add in a few more similar diseases and it could plausibly be "millions of people".

  11. Re:Old Old Old by nospam007 · · Score: 3, Informative

    "In your case, they're just killing anything with wings. The summary makes it pretty clear that the laser is only used to cast a shadow to identify what flying nuisance machine it is."

    The list of insects I would allow entering my house is rather short.

  12. Re:Population Bomb by BenSchuarmer · · Score: 2

    In practice, this isn't true. Insecurity leads to high birth rates. People who aren't sure whether their children will survive compensate by having a lot of kids.

  13. Actually... The Paraguay war proves this is wrong by gwolf · · Score: 2

    In the 1860s, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay allied in a war against Paraguay. This war caused the death of ~60% of the Paraguayan population, including ~90% of its adult males. The social effects are still present today, over 140 years later: The country is the most machist in Latin America (which is not an easy feat!), because it became not only normal but positive for a man to have several women. Of course, it also destroyed Paraguayan economy, and to this day, Paraguay is the poorest country in South America.
    Of course, this says very little of what would happen by killing all mosquito males or females. But since when does a Slashdot discussion need to stay on topic? ;-)