[HN Gopher] Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser
___________________________________________________________________
Raspberry Pi for Kill Mosquitoes by Laser
Author : ColinWright
Score : 189 points
Date : 2021-03-07 15:09 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.preprints.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.preprints.org)
| exporectomy wrote:
| Been worked on before with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
| funding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser
| majkinetor wrote:
| It might be easier to detect mosquito sound, just like humans do.
| Just an idea for folks who want to continue.
|
| Combination of sound, vision, and drones that smell like blue
| cheese might bring fuckers down...
| Yuioup wrote:
| Does it make Pew Pew Pew sounds?
| whiw wrote:
| If you do have to kill something then at least do it humanely.
| Burning them to death is pretty horrible, so is zapping them with
| a high voltage shock.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| I think most people don't believe insects are complex of mind
| to be said to suffer in the same sense as human beings. Even if
| this is not so what is the exchange rate between human
| suffering and mosquito suffering? I would probably horribly
| torture any number of mosquitos to prevent the suffering of
| even one human. Wouldn't you? Can you imagine telling one
| person sorry you need to die I cannot justify torturing so many
| mosquitos?
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| Nathan Myhrvold (of Microsoft fame) tried to build a laser to
| kill mosquitoes, ~11-12 years ago. He even gave a TED talk about
| it [0].
|
| It seems that the project eventually failed to achieve anything
| of sufficient value. [1]
|
| [0]:
| https://www.ted.com/talks/nathan_myhrvold_could_this_laser_z...
|
| [1]: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/laser-shooting-
| mosqu...
| Kliment wrote:
| > (of Microsoft fame)
|
| I believe by now he's more famous for being the world's most
| damaging patent troll
| giantg2 wrote:
| Sounds like a DIY of the Photonic Sentry.
| MobileVet wrote:
| Not automated but one of my all time favorite methods of taking
| out flies and wasps was the Bug-a-Salt. Guy had a fun idea, spent
| a ton to make it a reality and appears to still be making it many
| years on. Kudos to him.
|
| https://www.bugasalt.com/
| the-dude wrote:
| Website redirects me to Google.
| jimmar wrote:
| I have one of these for killing black flies that wander into my
| house. It's not the most efficient way to kill flies I've
| found, but it's definitely the most satisfying.
| MobileVet wrote:
| Exactly. Sometimes fun wins!
| smashah wrote:
| The other day I decided to make use of our garden and work
| outside. Within 20 seconds I was being swarmed by the buggers. I
| thought of using some sort of anti mosquito white noise to repel
| them but no luck (although it did seem to work for some
| commenters).
|
| The war against the mosquito goes on.
| einarfd wrote:
| There is actually a commercial product for killing lice on farmed
| salmon with lasers (https://www.stingray.no/delousing-with-
| laser/?lang=en), but I have to admit that I don't know how well
| it works. So at least there are related products. Probably easier
| to solve the lice on salmon problem though.
| mvanaltvorst wrote:
| This effectiveness of product has been debunked half a year ago
| [1], though the technology is very interesting.
|
| [1]: Bui, S., Geitung, L., Oppedal, F., & Barrett, L. T.
| (2020). Salmon lice survive the straight shooter: A commercial
| scale sea cage trial of laser delousing. Preventive Veterinary
| Medicine, 181, 105063.
| doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2020.105063
| iamleppert wrote:
| I have a simple solution to the mosquito problem.
|
| Nuclear War.
| giantrobot wrote:
| The turn it off and on again approach.
| ridaj wrote:
| Prior art: https://youtu.be/YnSKrzmpKGw
| yayr wrote:
| ...and shooting sparrows with cannons becomes shooting mosquitoes
| with lasers since 2021 ;-) nevertheless, I like the project, much
| dedication was going into this, lot to learn from...
| duncancarroll wrote:
| Very cool. Would love to see results with a night vision camera.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Incidentally, this was first posted to a clone of HN that I run.
| I can't link it here, or in fact even mention the name. But if
| you go to my Twitter profile, it's my pinned tweet.
|
| So if you like reading this sort of thing, perhaps you'd also
| like seeing it 44 days before it premiers on HN. It was certainly
| one of the more interesting submissions.
|
| It was kind of funny, because the author posted it a bunch of
| times. I think maybe they got confused that they were on the real
| HN, and were like "This is awesome! It's been on the front page
| forever!" and posted it more. Wish I knew how to contact him to
| let him know it's been picked up by the mainstream site.
|
| He also posted "Neural network for automatic farm control", their
| previous work:
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339105969_Neural_ne...
|
| They really love using neural networks for farming. Or for
| cannons. Either way, it's a worthy endeavor.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| You can't post if because... it has happened before, and caused
| trouble?
|
| Curious to hear why you're running a clone of HN, and why you
| assert that some cool stuff shows up there before it does on
| HN.
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| I don't know why it cannot be shared here. Given the open
| source nature of PG's Arc and the fact that it's main repo
| comes with a HN clone, I'd be surprised if there was an
| impetus not to share forks of HN on here.
|
| But maybe the hesitancy to link the site has more to do with
| this statement on it's Welcome page:
|
| _The initial impetus behind the site is a desire to try to
| recapture the early spirit of Hacker News. HN currently has
| about 5 million visitors a month. It 's different than it was
| back in the day when it was a much smaller group of people._
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| I don't know either. I just wanted to build something
| interesting. /place, for example, is a clone of Reddit's
| old /r/place experiment, which was pretty hard to get Arc
| to do. https://i.imgur.com/0KZSel7.png
|
| But, I feel physically ill any time I mention it here, due
| to the risk. So I don't expect to talk about it again.
|
| It does kind of suck though. Arguably the only reason that
| this story is on HN right now is because it was posted
| there first, and subsequently discovered. But I'm just
| happy to contribute back to HN in some small way, since HN
| added a lot to my life.
|
| I wanted to thank you privately for your comment, but
| there's no contact info. So, thanks - truly. It meant a
| lot. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
| wishinghand wrote:
| Self-promotion wrapped up in FOMO.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Well ... I think the person you replied to has a very
| troubled history with the staff of HN.
| [deleted]
| njacobs5074 wrote:
| I would gladly don protective eyewear before going to bed if it
| meant having a mosquito free night. I absolutely hate the little
| fuckers with a passion.
| nsomaru wrote:
| I find that the slight breeze created by a house fan is enough
| to throw the mosquitos in my room off. They find it extremely
| hard to fly in "turbulence."
| the-dude wrote:
| Do not look into laser with remaining eye!
| Moeg wrote:
| Why not use sonar like the other such project which if memory
| serves is backed by Bill Gates.
| dclaw wrote:
| I thought that was vaporware
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| The system designed and built by Intellectual Ventures uses
| lasers for ranging and discrimination.
|
| https://photonicsentry.com/
|
| https://www.wired.com/2010/02/death-star-laser-zaps-mosqitoe...
| justaj wrote:
| IIRC Intellectual Ventures was / is also a notorious patent
| troll. AFAIK this was the main barrier that companies that
| wanted to head into similar spaces had to face. So I'm glad
| something open source is being developed.
| xmpir wrote:
| I wonder if adding spatial audio would improve detection
| vinni2 wrote:
| Typo in the title of the paper makes me not want to read it.
| ColinWright wrote:
| It's a pre-print, made available early, and English is not the
| author's first language.
|
| I think you're being a bit harsh.
| vinni2 wrote:
| How am I supposed to know the author is non-English speaker?
|
| Unfortunately it is true with at least academic articles
| typos and grammatical errors are it will be perceived as low
| quality article.
| ColinWright wrote:
| The academics I know ... and I know quite a few ... are
| understanding about people writing in languages other than
| their native language.
|
| Perhaps you should just go with your original thought and
| not read anything if you find any kind of grammatical
| error.
| jonsen wrote:
| One click on the authors name gave:
|
| "Mr. Ildar Rakhmatulin South Ural State University"
| Symbiote wrote:
| Would you have preferred the researcher to publish in Russian?
| vinni2 wrote:
| No but I am sure he has English speaking friends who could
| proofread it.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| A bit of a arrogant anglocentristic point of view?
|
| Why do you assume everyone in the world has native english
| speakers as friends, willing to do free proofreading?
| barbecue_sauce wrote:
| It gives it a "Borat-esque" quality.
| vinni2 wrote:
| How am supposed to know it's a phrase? Shouldn't it be in
| quotes?
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| Borat is a caricature of a Central Asian man and the author
| is also from Central Asia. Hmm
| mrtweetyhack wrote:
| HAHA. I think everyone's thought of this!
| sinuhe69 wrote:
| Exactly my idea for a pet project for a long time. The only
| difference was my intention to use (ultra-)sound tracking as
| well.
| undecisive wrote:
| Haha, I've had this idea rattling about my brain for some time
| too (though mine went a bit further in scope instead - all
| sorts of crop pest control for small-scale farming situations,
| such as greenfly, caterpillars, etc, with training to avoid
| positive visitors such a bees)
|
| Early on, I dismissed ultrasound - unless some kind of funky
| triangulation went on, I think the resolution would be far too
| low and risk of false positives too high - but I'd be
| interested to hear any thoughts you had on how that might work.
| That said, recognising the flight noises of certain bugs would
| make sense to me - only as a way to trigger a stop-and-sweep
| cycle though.
|
| But as much as the idea excites me, "real" exploration of the
| space will only happen when I get lots of time and a fair bit
| of money - and maybe some land! Alas, I'm nowhere near that
| point yet.
| tyingq wrote:
| Good for a bit of mosquito schadenfreude...an experiment to
| create exploding mosquitos:
|
| https://entomologytoday.org/2020/03/19/when-a-mosquito-cant-...
| k_sze wrote:
| Oh, wow. A few years ago I actually posted a question about
| that on Biology.SE:
| https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/3263/do-mosquito...
| yholio wrote:
| So instead of having a mosquito bite, you now have a zombie
| mosquito attached to you continuing to suck and spill a large
| multiple of normal volume.
| souprock wrote:
| The conclusion is wrong.
|
| I personally witnessed a mosquito being made to pop by tensing
| a muscle. Note that I'm not claiming any specific mechanism of
| action, or that this is a common human ability, or that more
| than one species is vulnerable. I've seen it once.
|
| The case I witnessed was 31 to 35 years ago, in camp with a
| bunch of boys. To help you guess at the species, I can narrow
| down the location to one of three places. In summer of 1985 or
| 1986, it could have been in Oklahoma or northern Texas. In
| summer of 1987 or 1988, it could have been in southern New
| Hampshire. The boy had very well defined muscles and minimal
| fat. He got the mosquito to land right in the middle of his
| biceps. He saved his strength, waiting until the mosquito was
| almost full before tensing his muscle. The mosquito did not
| immediately explode; it took a good long time.
|
| Anybody else witnessed it? Anybody able to do it reliably? If
| so, can you describe the type of mosquito or where it lives or
| anything else that might identify it?
| samwestdev wrote:
| Gross
| momirlan wrote:
| Using hand grenades would improve results
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| This work (I think) worked with the mosquitos 30cm away with a
| servo scanning Pi Camera (1080p) and a 1W laser.
|
| To work in the real world - cover a whole room or terrace -
| presumably a much higher resolution camera (or much faster
| scanning system) would be required. Even a 1W laser is dangerous
| to eyesight, if it was being fired at targets mingling with
| people.
|
| The system could be mounted on small drones that would patrol
| larger areas - but the idea of robotic drones armed with lasers
| roaming around is beginning to sound worse than the mosquitos.
| kumarvvr wrote:
| One solution would be to lure mosquitos to a container or
| location and then zap them.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| > the idea of robotic drones armed with lasers roaming around
| is beginning to sound worse than the mosquitos.
|
| I don't really mind mosquitos outdoors, what I really hate is
| when I'm trying to sleep and there is a mosquito in the room.
| This means I have to turn the light bright on and spend time
| hunting them down or fill the room wit a toxic insecticide gas.
|
| I would rather leave the room (or stay there with my eyes
| covered - to serve as a bait for the mosquitos), activate the
| robot and come back when it's done.
| thombat wrote:
| Now imagine trying to sleep in a room that has a multi-rotor
| drone hunting mosquitos...
| hutzlibu wrote:
| When I am in high spirits, I am able to catch them in the
| dark by their sound. But failing to succed in that for a
| couple of times, makes my high spirit go away very fast and
| wanting a auto laser turret, too.
| tartoran wrote:
| I think lamps surrounded by charged coils do decent job of
| passively zapping mosquitoes since they zap themselves
| practically.
| adrianN wrote:
| Mosquitos are not particularly attracted to light, they use
| CO2 and body odour to find their prey.
| jasonlenik wrote:
| I agree, there needs to be multiple orders of magnitude
| improvements in HW&SW, as well as domain specific dataset
| development for this to work at all. I can imagine using a very
| accurate image segmentation algo to analyze the background and
| thereby prevent shooting lasers at vulnerable targets, but it's
| still hard to see how this is a good idea.
|
| A 1W laser is even more dangerous than you say. It is powerful
| enough to start wood fires.
| avian wrote:
| 1 W laser is in the "a diffuse reflection can do damage"
| safety class. It's the kind of laser where you lock doors to
| the optics lab to prevent people without eye protection
| accidentally entering when the laser is in operation.
|
| Having a computer point-and-shoot one at random directions in
| free air is just madness. There is zero discussion of human
| safety of such a system in the paper.
| dheera wrote:
| If you are assuming a drone, I feel like it would be more far,
| far more effective to just fly the drone into the mosquitoes
| and chop them up, than to have the drones individually pinpoint
| 1 mosquito at a time with a laser.
| tpmx wrote:
| I started thinking about something similar last summer to deal
| with aggressive flies from a nearby farm.
|
| Perhaps it's possible to make something that's kinda safe for
| eyesight if you make it track and light up the fly/mosquito for
| e.g. 50 seconds instead of 0.5 seconds.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Did you try a fly trap jar yet?
|
| You hang it out behind a shed or garage, the lid has a little
| maze that they crawl into and then they can't find their way
| out.
|
| My parents always used https://www.bigstinkyflytrap.com/ . It
| definitely caught a lot of flies, which can be different than
| catching enough flies of course.
| tpmx wrote:
| I'm in Sweden. That one doesn't seem to be sold in the EU.
| Interesting...
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Also, a mason jar with about a half inch of sugar water as
| bait and a sheet of letter size paper rolled into a cone
| with the small aperture in the jar works pretty well.
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| We had a small but persistent issue with flies hanging out
| by our garbage cans so I purchased one of these fly traps
| with bait.
|
| It worked far too well.
|
| Within a day it had attracted flies from a large
| surrounding area. The nearly filled jar of flies had a
| presence I can only describe as "Stephen King-esque" just
| buzzing with raw malevolence. If you think one large black
| fly can make quite the noise I invite you to listen to a
| 1000+ angry flies in a jar.
|
| And while many were certainly capture - an equally
| abhorrent number were all over the cans and the side of the
| house. So a mixed experience.
| tpmx wrote:
| Ugh.
|
| The method I devised to get rid of these large black
| flies from indoors:
|
| Open a door and simply herd/walk them out by making
| yourself big. It's surprisingly easy - so much easier
| than trying to swat them. They seem to instinctively
| avoid things moving towards them, and because of that
| they're pretty easy to herd.
| dTal wrote:
| Relatedly - if you need to get a light-seeking insect
| (such as a moth) out of a room, you can just turn off all
| the lights and open the window. In general, people look
| at you like a wizard when you exploit the behavior of a
| creepy-crawly to get it to do what you want. For example
| you can catch a spider quite easily by placing a drinking
| glass in front of it and nudging its behind. It will
| panic-run forward into the glass.
| tpmx wrote:
| I'm sure there's a fantastic book published in like 1878
| containing these tips and lots more we haven't thought of
| yet.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Target "shooting" with a canister vacuum provides a
| decent fun:efficiency ratio.
| tpmx wrote:
| That's a fun idea - I'll try it this this upcoming
| summer.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Just make sure to block their exit when you put the
| vacuum away.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| Or shoot only horizontally at 1 cm from the ceiling. Sooner
| or later the mosquito/fly will be there as well
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| Or shoot only horizontally at 1 cm from the ceiling. Sooner or
| later the mosquito/fly will be there as wellOr shoot only
| horizontally at 1 cm from the ceiling. Sooner or later the
| mosquito/fly will be there as well
| k_sze wrote:
| I can think of an alternative, not sure whether that would be
| practical, but it's possibly safer than laser: instead of
| shooting laser, make a turret that shoots (biodegradable,
| edible) soap water at the mosquitoes, in the smallest dose
| necessary to make the mosquito's wings stick. It would require
| some fluid-aerodynamics and projectile motion calculation,
| however.
| minhazm wrote:
| It would probably be too slow (or you'd need crazy high
| pressure). The mosquito would have plenty of time tom ove out
| of the way, especially since it will probably make a sound
| when shooting the liquid. The advantage of using a laser is
| that it's basically instant and quiet.
| plutonorm wrote:
| You think a mosquito can dodge a speeding blob of water? It
| can barely dodge stationary objects. It's basically a
| homing missle for co2
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Depends on the mosquito I would say. I used to train
| martial art skills by catching mosquitos midflight.
|
| Most are indeed very lethargic, but there are some much
| more agile variants out there.
| trulyme wrote:
| I assume you used sticks, karate kid style? :)
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Salt also works.
| momirlan wrote:
| Use a garden hose, cover the whole area
| clort wrote:
| I think the problem with that would be, that there would be
| a huge damp patch on the ground where a million mosquitoes
| would lay their eggs..
| momirlan wrote:
| Omg, people take these comments seriously ?
| ben_w wrote:
| On Hacker News? Someone has probably already _tried_ it.
| Possibly even more than one person -- I mean, the linked
| paper isn't even the first time I've seen research into
| the idea of anti-mosquito lasers, so anti-mosquito water
| cannons have probably been tried too.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Guilty as charged.
| OneLeggedCat wrote:
| Even better, a fire hose. It's the only way to be sure.
| Bartkusa wrote:
| This kind of firehose, right?
|
| https://www.boringcompany.com/not-a-flamethrower
| joedevon wrote:
| problem solved! whew
| unloco wrote:
| Since we've got a firehose, might as well light it up
| first.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| not a bad idea... something manually controlled but otherwise
| similar already exists, the "bug-a-salt" gun.
| https://www.bugasalt.com
| spoonjim wrote:
| Where are you supposed to use this? Indoors it will corrode
| your plumbing and outdoors it will kill your plants.
| oops wrote:
| Well that's where the Roomba carrying a tray of
| margaritas comes in.
| kube-system wrote:
| A few grams of sodium chloride is not going to destroy
| your plumbing or your landscaping. Your plumbing is in
| daily contact with sodium chloride from the food we eat,
| the sodium chloride that is in municipal water supplies,
| and it is a common substance to be found outdoors as
| well, including soil.
|
| You don't want to put kilograms of it in your garden, but
| this device is not consuming anywhere close to that
| amount of salt. It holds about the quantity of a salt
| shaker of salt, and can be fired 80 times from that
| amount.
| dkubb wrote:
| If one could be made to shoot fine sand, it could be used
| outside I bet.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| I share your concern, but mosquitoes do currently kill an awful
| lot of people.
| janoc wrote:
| Good luck detecting a mosquito optically from a distance of
| several meters using a cheap camera and Raspberry Pi. Oh and
| you want to do from a moving drone. That will certainly make it
| work!
|
| Just look at the images in the article - the guy's best result
| was detecting a black speck appearing on a nearby white wall
| with some 60-70% reliability (based on his own numbers). So you
| would be missing a lot of mosquitoes - but will be happy firing
| the laser at random shadows and what not. And that was in a
| completely stationary setup and controlled lab conditions, i.e.
| not at all something resembling a typical poorly lit room!
|
| This article is BS. Preprints are not peer reviewed (i.e.
| nobody has checked anything in it - so could even be a complete
| hoax), it is a pretty typical gadgetry style paper (we do it
| because we can, not because it makes sense) you do at when you
| need to fill up your resume with research papers (e.g. for
| keeping/obtaining a job reasons).
|
| The "save the world" (mosquito control, diseases, etc.)
| justification is also par for the course for this type of
| crappy paper. Anyone who seriously thinks that one could
| control mosquito problem by shooting them one by one by a laser
| is delusional.
|
| But neural networks and "AI" are being used, so it has to be
| cutting edge groundbreaking stuff, right?
|
| BTW, this nonsense idea has been floated as a publicity stunt a
| few years ago (including a slow motion video of a laser burning
| off wing of a mosquito in flight) and it seems that some
| Russian PhD student from a fairly obscure uni either didn't do
| their research or has reinvented the wheel (or just plain
| copied the thing without attribution). The list of irrelevant
| or only very tangentially relevant (it is about mosquitoes, so
| in scope, right?) references is a dead giveaway there (paper on
| mosquitoes spreading zika? seriously?).
|
| Here, it was even on National Geographic in 2010(!):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKm8FolQ7jw
|
| Oh and that was supposed to be a handheld device to boot. With
| the same "save the world from malaria" spiel too. I wonder what
| are the owners of the company that was pushing this concept to
| investors back then trying to sell today ...
|
| There are actually multiple videos on Youtube showing products
| from different companies that were attempting to push this as
| some sort of viable concept.
| craftinator wrote:
| > Good luck detecting a mosquito optically from a distance of
| several meters using a cheap camera and Raspberry Pi.
|
| Same thought as well. They must not have done the math on the
| optics... You'd have a much better chance using an acoustic
| array (mosquitoes put out a very distinctive sonic
| frequency), or even better an array of radar modules. There
| is simply too much noise and data in the visible spectrum to
| catch something that small without expensive optics and an
| expensive processor to process all of those pixels.
| trulyme wrote:
| This. Acoustic array sounds like a great solution for
| finding that pesky mosquitto that is hiding somewhere in
| the room. Anyone know how difficult it would be to make
| this?
| walrus01 wrote:
| > using a cheap camera
|
| even if you had a RED Komodo feeding uncompressed 4K DCI
| 60fps video to a pci-express bus capture card, the sensor
| resolution and tiny size of mosquitoes means that unless the
| lighting conditions are just right, and the mosquito is
| somehow highlighted against a background, it's going to be
| very hard to pick them out at distances of 2 or more meters.
|
| and that's before you get into the software problem of
| processing the fire hose of data that is 4096x2160 at 60fps
| raw. and the hardware cost of a very serious workstation
| class PC capable of taking the capture at 1:1 realtime.
|
| possibly a lidar based sensor or something might be more
| suitable to locating the x/y/z position of mosquitoes in a
| few meter area.
| swayvil wrote:
| Would targeting the distinctive mosquito whine be feasible?
|
| You could have several bluetooth mikes scattered around the
| room for good triangulation
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| >> This article is BS. Preprints are not peer reviewed (i.e.
| nobody has checked anything in it - so could even be a
| complete hoax), it is a pretty typical gadgetry style paper
| (we do it because we can, not because it makes sense) you do
| at when you need to fill up your resume with research papers
| (e.g. for keeping/obtaining a job reasons).
|
| That describes about 80% of the field of machine learning
| today: that's how most new work in machine learning is
| presented to the community, through preprints on arxiv that
| never get published, therefore peer-reviewed; and most of it
| is of the "we did it because we can, not because it makes
| sense" type. The same goes for much of AI research in the
| past. Here's John McCarthy:
|
| _1. Much work in AI has the ``look ma, no hands '' disease.
| Someone programs a computer to do something no computer has
| done before and writes a paper pointing out that the computer
| did it. The paper is not directed to the identification and
| study of intellectual mechanisms and often contains no
| coherent account of how the program works at all._
|
| http://www-
| formal.stanford.edu/jmc/reviews/lighthill/lighthi...
|
| (Take note that the above was written in 1973)
|
| I'm prepared to bet that the exact same work could be
| published by a respectable research team (you know, with good
| English) and it would get many adulatory comments in social
| media (though I hope you would retain your skepticism).
| [deleted]
| cma wrote:
| > BTW, this nonsense idea has been floated as a publicity
| stunt a few years ago [...] Here, it was even on National
| Geographic in 2010(!)
|
| The paper cites even earlier stuff:
|
| > For the first time, the idea of using a laser to protect
| against insects was expressed in the early 1980s by American
| astrophysicist Lowell Wood.
| Animats wrote:
| Yes, at 300mm range, it's just a toy, and mounting a 1W laser
| with a targeting system on a drone is a _terrible_ idea. I
| can see ways to make this work, though.
|
| You need a good way to tell that you're on target. The way to
| do that is to use the vision system only as a search radar,
| to find that there's something to shoot at and approximately
| where it is. Then point the laser near the target, at low
| power, and start scanning around the target. Modulate the
| outgoing beam, so you can see when it's illuminating
| something. Get range from time of flight. When you find
| something worth shooting, go to high power and take it out.
|
| This is roughly how radar-controlled anti-aircraft gun
| systems work.
|
| An ordinary UV lamp with bug zapper will probably be more
| effective.
| Jedd wrote:
| > An ordinary UV lamp with bug zapper will probably be more
| effective.
|
| Alas, as I discovered recently when looking at those nifty,
| cheap, USB-powered UV + fan mosquito killers -- mosquitoes
| aren't attracted to UV.
|
| Evidently they are attracted to CO2 and warmth, which are a
| bit harder to generate at 5V, sadly.
| klipt wrote:
| There are some blog posts about building mosquito traps
| that generate CO2, I think they use yeast to do it and
| can be pretty effective!
| pmontra wrote:
| I saw those videos. The problem is the maintenance,
| adding yeast and cleaning the trap. Imagine scaling to
| multiple traps in a house or the garden.
|
| On the other side, burning methane generates CO2: CH4 + 2
| O2 - CO2 + 2 H2O. Methane is distributed nearly
| everywhere in my country for cooking and heating. That at
| least solves the problem of refilling.
|
| I guess we should burn a very small amount of methane to
| lure mosquitoes into those traps. But how about climate
| change etc.?
| jacquesm wrote:
| The way to do this is to attract the mosquitoes by slowly
| letting out a bunch of CO2, that way you need to search a
| much smaller area.
| worik wrote:
| All you say is so true...
|
| That would make you a spoil sport, burst my bubble... I am
| going to have a little cry in the corner now.
|
| I really wanted a AI powered, laser equipped, mosquito
| hunting drone for my house. After all, what could possibly go
| wrong?
| Covzire wrote:
| Shrug, add a nice zoom lens to make it's effective range
| several meters instead. Of course it would be far sighted
| but maybe you know most mosquitos will be several meters
| away anyway. Or have 3 cameras, one for the cm, one for the
| m and one able to zoom many meters to look at known problem
| spots like puddles or a bird bath.
| onion2k wrote:
| An alternative solution would be to genetically engineer
| bigger mosquitoes.
|
| This is why I should not be in charge of anything.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Or use a better method than a cheap camera. Like a radar
| and microphone like the other more famous project does.
| Because mosquitos have a distinct frequency of flapping
| their wings. Meaning you can then actually target the
| biting type. Because .. 95% of the mosquitos around
| actually do not sting humans(number from the back of my
| head from a friends paper some years ago). And killing
| them all has a quite negative impact on biological
| diversity.
| cma wrote:
| Is there a wavelength that could blind mosquitos and not
| humans? Mosquitos aren't party to any blinding laser weapons
| convention, and while it wouldn't kill them they might not
| survive too long after being blinded.
| thombat wrote:
| They don't use their eyes to hunt, just to detect potential
| attackers.
| ravenstine wrote:
| This is something I imagined as a kid. So cool to know others
| have this idea and that it can be a reality! (even if the results
| aren't perfect)
| jacquesm wrote:
| This is a nice little firestarter.
|
| I've had this idea many years ago and my solution to that problem
| was to use two or more lasers of lower power that all shoot at
| the same point in 3 dimensional space. If you guess wrong then at
| least you won't set your house on fire (or blind someone).
| x86ARMsRace wrote:
| The FAA might take objection too. Some places won't let you
| have lasers within a certain range of an airport. Also, what
| happens if the mosquito turret mistakes a 747 for a mosquito?
| Sounds like an effective way to blind pilots. Cool idea though,
| might be fun indoors if your house is fireproofed.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| > Sounds like an effective way to blind pilots.
|
| Don't pilots have protective windows?
| jacquesm wrote:
| No, they don't, and in helicopters they even have windows
| in the floor.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Protected against weather and sunlights but not against
| dumb kids with eBay lasers yet
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Then why don't terrorists and angry people use this?
| numpad0 wrote:
| Because there had never been actual deaths to it?
| Freestyler_3 wrote:
| I thought this was for indoors, outdoors mosquito is food for
| other animals. Also gotta be a sick 747 flying upside down.
| dotancohen wrote:
| The Boeing 707 famously did a barrel roll on its first
| public flight.
| beervirus wrote:
| Even 1/4 watt is not something you want shined in your eye.
| jacquesm wrote:
| True, but 1 W to damage a mosquito is likely overkill.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > More than 700 thousand human deaths
|
| I don't think I've ever in my 40 and nine years on the planet
| seen numbers of this scale written in mixed numeric and textual
| form.
|
| It's not like 700 kilometers, where you could at least argue this
| is the case vs the SI unit, but where a kilometer is a useful
| unit for communication anyway. The natural unit here is a human
| life, not a thousand human lives.
|
| There are a several other quality issues in the abstract making
| me wonder if this is a serious effort or a Markov-generated
| abstract. ("We developed a program for mosquito tracking in
| real.")
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Every now and then I read "has left-wing inclusion/diversity
| has gone too far?"
|
| And then I see comments that basically amount to: "haha, dumb
| foreigners can't speak english LOL"
| ColinWright wrote:
| >> More than 700 thousand human deaths
|
| > I don't think I've ever in my 40 and nine years on the planet
| seen numbers of this scale written in mixed numeric and textual
| form.
|
| In my 50 and nine years on this planet, I have.
|
| > There are a several other quality issues in the abstract ...
|
| It's a pre-print, and the author's first language is not
| English. Some people struggle with a second language, and I
| think it's commendable that someone is willing to make their
| results available.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Writing numbers that way is common in various languages. For
| example, every day on the Polish news the number of newly
| detected COVID cases is written in the format "13 tys. 574",
| where "tys." is the abbreviation for "thousand".
|
| As native-English-speaking academics have become a minority of
| those publishing in international journals (and fewer journals
| are doing serious copyediting anyway), there seems to be more
| and more toleration in science of different ways of writing
| things based on the author's own native language.
| maxmcd wrote:
| I've always wanted something like to be commercialized. Some
| context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser
| wcchandler wrote:
| Looks like a fun project but the results did not look promising.
| Out of 100 mosquitos the best algorithm would've taken out less
| than 10.
| garciasn wrote:
| In a laboratory environment with contrasting background--
| something they admit isn't ideal, I assume for real world
| conditions.
|
| Let's say the laboratory conditions are real world. To your
| point, killing ~10% of mosquitos is hardly ideal, but using
| lasers and computers to do it is cool.
|
| 6/10. Want to try.
| Proven wrote:
| Cluster of 12 Pi's?
| aequitas wrote:
| Never thought I would even see the "Starwars Musquito Defense
| System" being actually developed :)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSIWpFPkYrk
| acidburnNSA wrote:
| Fun fact: the same people who ran Reagan's Star Wars were
| behind the Intellectual Ventures photonic fence for mosquitoes.
| markvdb wrote:
| What about a triple beam setup? The individual beams would be
| only half or a third as powerful, making them safer to human
| eyes. Only where they cross they would carry enough power to zap
| the mosquito...
| Kliment wrote:
| A 300mW beam is far more than enough to ruin your eyes.
| willyt wrote:
| Not all species of mosquitos are bad, e.g. there is only one out
| of 3500 that spreads malaria, some feed on nectars and are very
| important pollinators. Can this tell the difference between the
| different kinds? Or will the drones buzz around the garden
| lasering anything vaguely mosquito shaped?
| jccooper wrote:
| A previous "mosquito fence" claimed to be able to recognize not
| only species, but also specifically female mosquitos, by wing
| beat characteristics. So it should be possible.
| ziptrees wrote:
| I just moved to a property near a pond that is severely infested
| with midge flies and mosquitos. The water is supposed to be
| treated by the HOA but they've neglected it for a while I guess.
| A solution like this wouldn't work due to the sheer volume of
| insects in the air at any given time (millions gathering around
| my block). I rigged up a door reed switch that turns on high
| power fans for 30 seconds when opened that helps keep them out of
| my house, but I'm trying to figure out a better solution to
| actually kill them around the clock. Thinking of controlling an
| electric pressurized washer with a pi and spraying swarms with a
| solution of water, soap and neem oil.
| Salgat wrote:
| A fan that blows them into a metal mesh filter is sufficient.
| The fan keeps them stuck against the filter until they
| dehydrate and die. Propane is often used to attract them to the
| fan but that may not be necessary in your case.
| slacka wrote:
| There is a pond in my neighborhood that's not treated. The
| years I've used Mosquito Bits and Dunks, the mosquito
| population has crashed to tolerable levels. Bti is proven to
| work and totally safe for then environment. It's a small price
| to pay to be able to enjoy my backyard. If I ever move, my
| neighbors are going to miss my contribution.
| freeqaz wrote:
| Are you able to put some fish in the pond? They will eat the
| larva!
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| One thing that helps is doing whatever you can to attract
| dragonflies. Planting bullrush is one way, I'm sure there are
| others.
| namdnay wrote:
| Throw a block of chlorine into the pond?
| lazide wrote:
| Mosquitos and many other aquatic based insects can be killed
| by a cup or so of vegetable oil on the water too
| numpad0 wrote:
| copper coins as well
| guantanamo_bob wrote:
| Wow I didn't know about this, but it looks like more than
| just an old wives tale. Is there a connection between
| killing mosquito larva and why we like to throw coins in
| a fountain for 'good luck'?
| jasonlenik wrote:
| An interesting future application for computer vision, but until
| both hardware and software increase in speed and precision by
| several orders of magnitude, this is not feasible. Current neural
| object detection just isn't there yet. Not to mention the dangers
| of shooting a powerful 1W laser out in the open...
| lenardson wrote:
| > Page 11: Ethical Approval: Not required.
|
| Just a general question, what are the criteria for living
| organisms that _do_ requires ethical approval? Is the threshold
| by organism size?
| ljosa wrote:
| Vertebrates, typically.
| limbicsystem wrote:
| In the UK, vertebrates + octopuses.
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