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The Anti-Malarial Bug Zapper

Readers of SuperFreakonomics will be familiar with Nathan Myhrvold‘s Intellectual Ventures, an invention company researching fixes for, inter alia, global warming and malaria. The book touches briefly on one of the firm’s malaria projects, a mosquito-assassinating laser: “The disease is spread only by a certain species of female mosquito, so the laser’s tracking system identifies the females by wing-beat frequency – they flap more slowly than males because they are heavier – and zaps them.” Now, over at TED, you can watch Myhrvold talk through the idea and show a demo of the laser. [%comments]


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