Laser Printer Technology Solving Mosquito Problems

Nathan Myhrvoid, the former chief technology officer of Microsoft, the scientific brains of that company for 14 years and current owner of Intellectual Ventures, is proposing employing laser printer technology to track not only the gender of airborne mosquitoes but also shoot them down.

It’s possible to use lasers and digital image processing techniques to not only find mosquitoes – determine what’s a mosquito and what’s a fly or a butterfly or something else - but also to determine the gender of the mosquito. Only females are targeted as they require proteins in the blood to lay eggs. Myhrvoid states that research shows mosquitoes sustain themselves on nectar flowers.

”Basically what we do is we look for the bug using a digital imaging processing. Then we shine the laser on it and measure the wing beat frequency and the size and a couple of other parameters. And then we decide if this guy is a mosquito and if it is a female. The reason to let the males live is just energy. You know it takes energy to kill them and if the mosquitoes aren't going to bite anyone, you don’t have to shoot them.”

source