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For several decades there have been various incarnations of the idea of using lasers to zap flying insects, particularly mosquitoes. One of the systems in active development is the Photonic Fence from Intellectual Ventures Laboratory. Researchers from the laboratory recently published their findings on determining the optimal dosage to kill mosquitoes using the least amount of energy. One of the criticisms of their system has been that the areas in greatest need for mosquito eradication provide unreliable power, so their system would most likely need to operate by providing its own power.
Their research found that the optimal pulse duration for the lasers they are considering in their design is 25 ms. A significant difference between this research and their previous work is that this study was conducted on in-flight mosquitoes as opposed to previous work that used anesthetized specimens, which demonstrated their vision-based track and targeting system. An added bonus is the four slow-motion videos provided in the Supplemental Information section showing mosquitoes being zapped.
Keller, M.D., Norton, B.J., Farrar, D.J. et al. Optical tracking and laser-induced mortality of insects during flight, Sci Rep 10, 14795 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-71824-y
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday September 21 2020, @01:41PM (1 child)
The people who study mosquito lifecycles are pretty well able to predict these population blooms based on rainfall history and to a lesser extent temperature.
We owned some riverfront forest land for a couple of decades, what we found while we were out there was: 90 days of 100 there were basically no mosquitoes, 9 of the remaining days there were just a few - like: swat the first two or three and you're done, there just aren't any more around to find you. Those remaining 3.6 days of the year: forget it, don't get out of the car no matter what. Imagine dark black mosquitoes the size of golf balls swarming the vehicle trying to get to you through the glass, stuff of nightmares.
Another thing we found on that land was: not just mosquitoes but also fire ants and other noxious bugs tended to proliferate in disturbed areas - like the (artificially enhanced) drainage from the cow pasture across the road, or where we cleared a road and the contractor shallow buried vegetation under the soil. I used a (big) weed eater to take down a bunch of growth along the drainage one day and as the green fell down there was a black shadow that hovered in its absence: thousands of mosquitoes that had been perched under the leaves slowly diffused after I cut away their shelter - strangely, none of those tried to bite me - though I didn't stick around long to find out how long that would last. Places in the woods that had not been manipulated by people in decades did not have these kinds of plagues of biblical proportion.
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(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2020, @05:08PM
Male mosquitoes don't bite. They suck plant juices. So it's not surprising that you're going to find them lurking around foliage and they're not going to be keen on biting you. Assuming they are mosquitoes. There are plenty of other same/size/type non biting flies that also breed in mass quantities.
Some mosquitoes varieties are only active during the day. Others only active at night, while others yet can be active any time. I remember a fly in fishing trip where there was not one mosquito to be found all day long as long as the sun was up. But the minute sunset hit you better be behind screens or indoors because no amount of repellent was going to cut it.