Rocket Scientists Shoot Down Mosquitoes With Lasers

[ENugent]

Article

A quarter-century ago, American rocket scientists proposed the “Star Wars” defense system to knock Soviet missiles from the skies with laser beams. Some of the same scientists are now aiming their lasers at another airborne threat: the mosquito.

In a lab in this Seattle suburb, researchers in long white coats recently stood watching a small glass box of bugs. Every few seconds, a contraption 100 feet away shot a beam that hit the buzzing mosquitoes, one by one, with a spot of red light.

The insects survived this particular test, which used a non-lethal laser. But if these researchers have their way, the Cold War missile-defense strategy will be reborn as a WMD: Weapon of Mosquito Destruction.

My husband is shown in photo #6 - he figures out mosquito dosing parameters (he’s not named in the article). He also took photos 1, 7, and 8.

[mhendo]

Neat. They need to make them in palm size, for home use.

[Khadaji]

Pretty cool. I’d buy one so I could sit on my back porch at night. It might provide a pretty light show too.

[dogbutler]

@mhendo

Neat. They need to make them in palm size, for home use.

I would buy this.

[Montgomery0]

Oh man, I so had this idea 15 years ago! And SDI haircutters! Too bad I know next to nothing about lasers.

[Robot_Arm]

There’s nothing more dangerous than a wounded mosquito.

[Sunspace]

Given the number of things out there that eat mosquitoes, it might cause problems for them if combined with an attractant. An ideal installation might have an outer zone of mosquito repellent and then inside that zone, Total Laser-Based Mosquito Destruction.

@dogbutler

I would buy this.

Me too. It needs a knob on the side though for target selection (at appropriate power): gnat, mosquito, housefly, deerfly…

…cockroach, mouse, squirrel, chihuahua…

[Robot_Arm]

@Sunspace

It needs a knob on the side though for target selection (at appropriate power): gnat, mosquito, housefly, deerfly…

…cockroach, mouse, squirrel, chihuahua…

Big trouble for mouse and squirrel.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

@Robot_Arm

Big trouble for mouse and squirrel.

Da, Fearless Leader!

[Yllaria]

Hey, watch it with that thing! Somebody will put an eye out.

[Boyo_Jim]

@Sunspace

Given the number of things out there that eat mosquitoes, it might cause problems for them if combined with an attractant. An ideal installation might have an outer zone of mosquito repellent and then inside that zone, Total Laser-Based Mosquito Destruction.Me too. It needs a knob on the side though for target selection (at appropriate power): gnat, mosquito, housefly, deerfly…

…cockroach, mouse, squirrel, chihuahua…

noisy kids, repo men,…

[Siam_Sam]

I wants me one.

[DMark]

Cool…when does the ant and the pigeon versions come out?

[Siam_Sam]

@DMark

Cool…when does the ant and the pigeon versions come out?

Ants okay, but not OUR pigeons you don’t! :eek:

[Death_of_Rats]

Getting paid to shoot mosquitoes with a laser? I totally picked the wrong profession.

[Chefguy]

I’ll wait for the version that’s chair-mounted on a gyro and has laser cannons like on the Millenium Falcon and a tracking grid heads-up display. :: pantpantpant::

[Sunspace]

@Chefguy

I’ll wait for the version that’s chair-mounted on a gyro and has laser cannons like on the Millenium Falcon and a tracking grid heads-up display. :: pantpantpant::

…coyotes, bison, door-to-door salesmen, door-to-door proselytizers…