A Low-Tech Mosquito Deterrent | Hacker News Reader

A Low-Tech Mosquito Deterrent

nytimes.com

334 pointsanonymuse190 comments

Spend a summer up in the Yukon or Alaska if you want to see solid walls of ravenous mosquitoes.

I get bitten while riding my bike, bitten while my arm is out of the car window driving at 30km/h, and bitten through jeans. 100% DEET (you can get it in Alaska) does the trick for about 30 minutes before you have to re-apply - and it's nasty stuff.

This past weekend I was camping at a music festival and slapped my arm casually, and killed 14 mosquitoes with the one slap.....

A fan? That will do nothing.

The mosquitoes will mostly be gone in another month, then it's No CM and black fly season, until it gets below freezing in ~September.

Is No CM a specific choice? I've always used no-see-ums.

I'm an Australian living in Canada.... I'm not good with "local" words and references... I have seen it written both ways though.

Wow, this is not something I knew about Alaska. I did a simple google image search for 'Alaska mosquitoes' and that is plain scary.

Not living North enough ;)

This is mostly a problem further South and West in Alaska. The higher up you go, the colder it is to the point you don't get that many insects at all.

> The higher up you go, the colder it is to the point you don't get that many insects at all.

My experience doesn't completely agree with that.

Everything up to and including the Brooks Range was horrendous for mosquitoes in summer, same over on the Dempster Highway in Canada. Once you get within ~60 miles of the Arctic Ocean the temperature does drop enough to get rid of them, but before that it's a nightmare.

The mosquitoes are pretty rough up on the north slope. They're even worse than the Anchorage area (and bigger, too). Anywhere there's lots of standing fresh water, you'll have mosquitoes in the summer in Alaska.

The wind does make a huge difference though. If it's windy, there's more or less no problem. It's when the wind lies down that they come out in force.

The mosquitoes are bad enough that blood loss due to insect bites is a major contributing factor to caribou calf mortality, believe it or not. The caribou actually seek out drilling pads because they're elevated (~10 feet) enough to catch a breeze and get "out of the swamp", which helps keep the mosquitoes down. Thus the pictures you'll often see (yay, PR spin) of caribou swarming oil production facilities on the north slope.

Anchorage is south.

Yes. That's what I was saying. The mosquitoes can be even worse in the extreme north of Alaska than they are in southeast Alaska.

Ah, gotcha, the wording just made it seem like you were saying : "The north is bad, Anchorage, for example...ect."

sorry.

Or south enough. Bonus is that in south you'll also get denque, yellow fever and malaria from bites.

I only know this from reading Hatchet (which is about Canada, but Alaska is basically the same)

You also get mosquito bitten in the Outer Banks in a 20 mph wind off the ocean. Not sure about this NYT piece.

I remember going to Denali in high school and the mosquitoes you have up there in Alaska shouldn't even considered in the same genus as the mosquitos most people deal with.

In Sweden, they use helicopters to bomb the mosquitoes with the pesticide Vectobac G.

http://www.thelocal.se/40512/20120427/

It is a shame that one of safest and most effective pesticides used to control mosquitoes and other disease-carrying insects, DDT, is no longer permitted in most countries.

why is it banned if it's one of the safest?

From what I recall reading on earlier HN threads mentioning DDT, it was linked to reproductive harm in birds (softer/weaker shells), and insects started building up a resistance anyway.

According to Wikipedia though, DDT only played a minor role in eliminating Malaria from the US:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Use_in_the_1940s_and_1950s

Citations?

I'm absolutely not an expert but I was under the general impression that DDT is no longer permitted because it's not safe.

That's correct, and moreover, DDT is not even banned if used for things like stopping disease-carrying mosquitos. The Stockholm Convention explicitly allows for that use[1].

This is usually brought up as a weird rallying point for people with an ax to grind with Silent Spring, nevermind the very real effects of DDT and nevermind the exemptions explicitly dealing with the objections raised.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Restrictions_on_usage

Long article about the invention of DDT and it'sssubsequent use and misuse. http://www.gladwell.com/2001/2001_07_02_a_ddt.htm

> 100% DEET (you can get it in Alaska) does the trick for about 30 minutes before you have to re-apply

July evening mosquitoes in Western Siberia tundra plains land onto and bite even freshly DEET-ed skin :)

> black fly season

1cm long - nah, 2 cm long - painful, yet usually can't get through clothes, 3 cm long - get you even through clothes like jeans, really painful and blood doesn't clot oozing through a 3mm razor cut.

I agree. I don't think the author has been to India. I lived in Hyderabad, and the mosquito's there were super fast and super aggressive. Fans? Hah.

Before sleeping, I'd close all the windows and doors and spray the toxic anti-mosquito product. After half an hour, I'd go in and find all the fallen mosquito's and squish them, since they weren't actually dead, just stunned. After a while they would just get up and fly away if I didn't do anything. Then, I'd use an electric zapper to find the remaining ones which were unaffected by the spray. Then, before sleeping I'd light a mosquito repellent, and also apply a mosquito repellent to my hands and feet to keep them away.

Only the above regimen worked. Skipping any of the above meant I'd be slapping away angry buzzing mosquito's the rest of the night.

Fans wouldn't do jack to slow them down. The only other thing which was semi-effective was cooling down the room with an AC. They seemed to get a bit slow then.

Seconded. From Pakistan. Fans mean nothing to these mosquitoes. The only thing that works is physically zapping them.

You just need a bigger fan. Downside would be noise of the fan and wind of a constant mini-hurricane :)

> A fan? That will do nothing.

Have you tried it though? Seems like you're dismissing it out of hand.

edit: and having read the rest of the comments it seems like fans are widely used in India in Vietnam to combat mosquitoes.

Although it isn't common knowledge, the recommended best practice for avoiding ticks and other bugs is soaking your clothes in Permethrin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3sGvZE3rh4

It isn't very well absorbed through the skin so it has an extremely low toxicity when used in this way, as long as you don't breathe it in or let it get on your skin while it's still wet. It's much more effective and less toxic than DEET, and the CDC recommends it to prevent tick infections. Also don't ever mix it with DEET, because the combination is neurotoxic.

The military actually pretreats all of their combat uniforms in this stuff to prevent malaria and other diseases.

> Also don't ever mix it with DEET, because the combination is neurotoxic.

Holy crap. I must know 100 people who regularly wear Permethrin-treated clothes and then spray on DEET repellent. I had no idea it was dangerous.

(FWIW, I avoid them both due to general conservatism when it comes to toxic chemicals, especially when the stakes are low -- i.e., the worst-case is itching and not malaria.)

I started doing it only because I've already gotten bitten by two ticks this year and have found another half dozen on me. I'm only outside a few hours a week collecting mushrooms though, I'm not lying with it pressed against my skin for ten hours straight in a hunting blind or doing anything that would cause me to sweat excessively. But yeah, at least in the Northeast it's gotten to the point where going out into the woods wearing shorts is probably far more dangerous than having unprotected sex with random people, at least as far as we can tell based on the limited tick infection statistics.

The tick problem in the Northeast USA seems to vary wildly every year. I've lived here my whole life (31 years, in the southern New Hampshire area) and I've seen tick populations fluctuate drastically from one year to the next.

A few years ago it was particularly bad: I went camping on my dad's land in northern New Hampshire one weekend and we had literally a dozen ticks crawling up our legs within five minutes of arriving. When I awoke in my tent the next morning, the outside of the tent had dozens of ticks clinging to the outside netting, trying to get in. It was impossible to walk anywhere without getting several ticks on you. None of us, including my dad who has lived here 60+ years, has seen it that bad.

In contrast, we were up at the same area a few weekends ago and we spent three days walking through the woods, camping out, and wearing shorts the whole time. The three of us had a total of 2 ticks the entire weekend.

I'm very curious to know what's influencing their numbers.

It could be caused by this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_density_dependence

“Lyme disease is the only infection I know of where we have a safe and effective vaccine, but it’s not available to the public,” says Dr. Allen Steere, the physician who uncovered the disease:

http://www.wbur.org/2012/06/27/lyme-vaccine

The worst case of a tick bite is far more serious than itching.

Yep. at least in Europe and Russia the worst case for a tick bite is death (from TBE). I am not sure what the worst case is in North America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-borne_disease

EDIT: Seems like some North American ticks can kill you with their neurotoxins.

The most common "bad case" scenario in North America is lyme disease. It's easy to treat if caught early, but is disabling in the late stages (possible outcomes include psychosis).

I don't think it is common for it to get bad, but catching it at all is relatively common if you spend much time in nature around the northeast corridor.

When it does get bad it can be mistaken for ALS. That's pretty fucking bad.

If you live close to tiger mosquitoes, they can spread disease.

Many genera of mosquitoes _can_ spread disease: anopheles, aedes, culex, culiseta. Your risk depends on where you are, how often you're bitten, the prevalence of infection among mosquitoes, etc etc.

> Also don't ever mix [permethrin] with DEET, because the combination is neurotoxic.

Do you have a citation for that? It's well known that permethrin is a neurotoxin to fish and cats, but I've never heard of this DEET+permethrin combination.

Not beyond the studies that come up when you Google it.

NEUROTOXICITY RESULTING FROM COEXPOSURE TO PYRIDOSTIGMINE BROMIDE, DEET, AND PERMETHRIN: IMPLICATIONS OF GULF WAR CHEMICAL EXPOSURES

Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health; Volume 48, Issue 1, 1996

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/009841096161456

Thank you :)

When I travel in areas at-risk for malaria or dengue, I treat my clothes with Permethrin as well.

I also opt for Picaridan over DEET. Doesn't feel as nasty on your skin.

That setup kept me bite-free for three months in Southeast Asia and India.

My low-tech deterrent? A lifetime of avoiding deterrents. My body seems to have developed a natural resistance to them.

I grew up in New Hampshire, not exactly as extreme as Alaska but a place where there are certainly plenty of mosquitos in the summer. I went camping a few weekends ago in the White Mountains and had 10 mosquitos biting my arm as soon as I stopped moving.

So what's my deterrent? My body. It seems to have developed a natural resistance to mosquitos, or at least to what they inject into me.

When mosquitos bite me, I genuinely don't get itchy or have "bug bites". If I remember correctly, the itchy welts that most people get are caused by the body's response to something the mosquito injects into your skin to prevent the blood from clotting. My body seems to have adapted in such a way that it doesn't react anymore.

I haven't always been this way. When I was little, I got mosquito bites just like everybody else. The difference was, I always refused bug spray (I hate chemicals on my skin). I don't care how bad the bugs are. If it's 100F outside, I'll wear a long-sleeve shirt and long pants to cover my skin (and yes, they still bite through, so heavy clothes help).

EDIT: Also relevant: my grandmother discovered that dryer sheets--those scented things that people throw in the dryer with their laundry--work as an excellent mosquito deterrent. I didn't believe her until I tried it. Hang one out of your hat or on your shirt collar and watch how few mosquitos come near your head!

I was a summer camp counselor and every week we'd have a 'staff hunt' where we'd basically play hide-and-seek with the staff all hiding out in the woods at night and then the kids coming through in flashlight-laden packs to find us. I chose a small little nook in the ground surrounded by bushes as my hiding spot.

When the horn sounded for the beginning of the game, I started to feel a slight itching sensation on my back (I was wearing a tshirt) and was unsure of what it was. I had to be still and quiet, but I managed to swat the lower half of my back (and only the lower half). The itch began to grow, but I couldn't do anything else risk being caught. After 12 minutes the horn sounded again and I was able to get up and out of the nook. I made my way to the buildings and found a mirror, and saw that 70% of my upper back was swollen with mosquito bites. There were so many that they simply globbed together in to masses of bite.

After about 20 minutes I checked again and they all had disappeared. Now, whenever I get bitten, I will notice it, but within 20 minutes the bite will be gone.

Natural immunity is neat.

That response to the bite sounds exactly like my progression from normal response to near-immunity. As I mentioned above, it's not like I've always been immune and there wasn't one day when suddenly I became immune. Its been a long multi-decade process (I'm 31 now). In my early twenties, I would itch and welt from a mosquito bite for maybe 10 minutes. Now, I don't welt or itch. When I was in my early teens, it was probably more like an hour of welt + itch.

I'm fascinated by bugs. I've always let them bite me for a while (even when I knew they would itch later). The joy of observing them always outweighed the itch for me. I think it's only because I've always let them bite me that I was able to get a sense of how the itching and welting changed over time.

In retrospect, I wish I had kept detailed records of the timing change.

Its not always that simple though and depending on how the immunity develops you might end up becoming allergic to mosquitos instead of immune to them. This is specially prone to happening if you are only exposed to them every once in a while when you go on a trip.

Technically it's the opposite of immunity - your immune system has stopped reacting to mosquito bites. Neat adaptation though!

Mosquitos are terrible in Texas (the humid part) and would bite me all the time (grew up there). Now I'm in NYC the last few months, and I don't think I've been bitten even once. Or, I am being bitten, but I don't notice because my immune system doesn't react to the bites at all.

I find this very interesting. Does anyone have thoughts on this? FWIW I never used insect repellants growing up.

I lived in NYC for just under 8 years, and I don't think I noticed being bitten by a mosquito even once. There just aren't that many mosquitos in NYC.

When I go back home to Minnesota, I notice being bitten when I'm out in the wilderness, even though I no longer have an immune reaction to the bites.

Though, I suppose it's possible that NYC has some species of mosquito that is less attracted to the head and doesn't buzz in the ears so much, and bites more subtly than the mosquitos in Minnesota or Texas.

Yes. Dryer sheets are a cheap low-tech mosquito mitigation technique. We used to put them in our pockets when we were in the field. (non-issue items are not allowed outside one's uniform)

I grew up in Minnesota, with a swampy riverbank full of mosquitos in my back yard. I also used to react to mosquito bites, until I took the wilderness survival merit badge class at Tomahawk Scout Reservation in Wisconsin. Sleeping outside in mosquito infested woods, without shelter, also made me resistant to mosquito bites.

I feel the bite itself, but I don't swell up or itch at all. I also no longer wear repellant, except when I'm at an elevated risk for getting wood ticks or deer ticks.

This has been fairly common knowledge, at least here in India, where mosquito menace is common. Another really popular product is what is known as mosquito bats (swatters) like here: http://www.hunterbat.com/mosquito-swatters.html#rechargeable...

I would say this has been common knowledge for at least a generation or two in India. It also helps to remove sweat and the salt residue from the skin, i.e take a bath in the evening and stay cool.

Wow, really love that electronic mosquito bat! My girlfriend is a human version of a (mosquito-killing) HK-Aerial, and this seems like a good way to avoid some of the handprints-on-mirrors and bloodsplats-on-the-walls that can at times plague our pint-sized apartment.

I have a feeling she'd have a blast with this weapon. Thanks!

I used to look at those as if they were some kind of joke, but they are no joke. They will make you the annoying-insect-executioner.

The electric swatters are the bee's knees! They work great. Popular in Puerto Rico.

Is the electric thing a gimmick, or is there science behind it? I sometimes dispose of annoying houseflies using a racquetball racket. No electricity, but fast moving nylon strings take care of the flies nicely.

They're great fun. I live in Austin, TX and we have several in the house. They obliterate mosquitoes with a satisfying "POP" noise. The mosquitoes literally explode into tiny pieces when you hit them with the bat. It's awesome (especially when you are like me--I can get 20+ bites on a single night while wearing insect repellent, where everyone else around me is fine, and I use the bats as revenge. :)

I view these with suspicion. Do I really want tiny pieces of mosquitoes flying everywhere?

It's pretty high on the satisfaction scale though....

Would you prefer squashed splatters of blood and bits of bug on the walls instead? :p

This has been used for at least 25 years in Paris Island, SC chowhalls.

The doors to the chowhall stay open throughout the meal as recruits stand in formation and slowly make their way through to the actual foodlines. As a recruit making your way through, there's a period where you are the meal for lots of no-see-ums. Then there's the divine fan period (I was there during the dead of summer, and it was flippin' hot!). Then there's the "see and smell the food" period. Ah, the memories...

Estate design in the colonial and antebellum Southeast, where malaria was a huge problem until the 20th century, was arguably designed to maximize breezes and drafts: be on hilltops, surrounded by mostly open lawns without much shade, with tall, open windows.

Maximizing breeze was actually more about keeping cool than getting rid of mosquitos. Besides, sometimes the breeze would die down and you've got the same old problem. Mosquito nets were available back then :

http://www.nottoway.com/html/nottoway-plantation-history.htm

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4i3101.html

There is a guy on Youtube [1] that builds large DIY Mosquito fan traps. Well worth a watch if this is an issue for you.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU2kbghz85I

7:58: "I don't know why you'd want to collect mosquito legs, but if you ever enter a contest, you'll win"

I purchased one of these devices that clips onto a box fan and traps the mosquitos. It works ok, but the best results are from having the fan blow away from you, which isn't all that cooling: http://skeeterbag.com/

This thing works amazingly well. It's basically just adding a net to the box fan. I seriously think that it could fight malaria around the world.

http://skeeterbag.com/

I bought a mosquito magnet that cost hundreds of dollars, and it basically did nothing. The skeeterbag started catching mosquitos in minutes.

I am not a shill, and have no affiliation with that company.

This is pretty good - I especially like the page where they explain how mosquitoes move; once you know that placing a few fans strategically should be pretty simple.

My wife figured this out, though both of us should have known. We visited my in-laws in rural Georgia and our 17-month old son was covered in gnats and mosquitos when we went outside so we limited his time. When we went to the beach, there were no insects and my wife said, "must be the breeze. We should get a fan for our porch when we get home" Luckily she is smart or my son would suffer a lot!

I learned this on a trip to Nepal many years ago. Turn on the overhead fan in your room and the mosquitos never get a chance to land. Of course you wake up with cotton mouth and eyes, but it was worth it.

I wonder what the impact of completely eliminating mosquitoes from the ecosystem would be.

If we could quantify that, and the outcome was enticing, we could release a bunch of genetically modified sterile mosquitoes that would quickly erase whole populations.

I wonder what the impact of completely eliminating mosquitoes from the ecosystem would be.

A scientist has considered that issue, and the conclusion is that we could all live quite happily without any mosquitoes in the world.

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html

Janet Fang is an intern in Nature's Washington DC office.

That is an incomplete summary of her credentials...

Hello! I’m a freelance science journalist living in New York with my ball python, Agamemnon Fang. I spent the last few years as a marine geochemist by day, contributing editor for CBS SmartPlanet at night. Before that, I was a news intern for Nature in Washington, D.C., an editorial intern at Discover in New York, and a reporter for the infamous Point Reyes Light in West Marin, California.

In 2008, I graduated from the Earth & Environmental Science and Journalism dual-master’s program at Columbia University. I conducted my Earth Science master’s research on, broadly speaking, Climate Change and Human Evolution at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, where I used geochemical analyses to understand paleoclimatic changes in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean. And for my Journalism master’s project — “Salamander Eggs and Hyena Phalluses” — I narrated the discoveries of two novel life histories (or biological oddities). At the University of California, Berkeley, I studied Integrative Biology (evolution and natural history) and English literature (19th-20th century novel and experimental fiction). I spent a couple years at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology as a georeferencer, a curatorial/field/research/lab assistant, and I skinned and stuffed birds and rodents. (You can also find my immortalized birds at the American Museum of Natural History, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, and Yale Peabody Museum.)

http://janetfang.wordpress.com/about/

Rather than summarize her credentials, I was attempting to point out that perhaps an intern writer at Nature.com is not someone we can refer to as "a scientist" and reference as such.

Yes, she has a degree and experience. No, I'm not prepared to accept interns 2 years out of college as authoritative experts when it comes to planetwide ecological policy.

If you just say "intern" the inference is high school or college student. So it is an indirect attack on her credibility. She may not be an authority, but by quoting more of her bio, it at least gives better perspective.

How do you know I wasn't referring to one of the scientists she interviewed for the article, more than one of whom suggested that we could live without mosquitoes?

Why would releasing sterile mosquitoes help erase the population? Do they eat each other or something?

Sterilize & release programs for feral cats work; the sterilized cats compete for the same resources as unsterilized ones, but are more effective and longer-lived because they don't have to support reproduction. This not only means that the sterilized cats won't reproduce, but the unsterilized ones will have a harder time, and reproduce less.

It works better than trapping & killing.

Very interesting. That's what we're also doing to human populations.

it has to be said - if non-sterile mosquitos are having a hard time surviving because sterile mosquitos drank up all the blood - we're probably going to suffer more than they will

Only female mosquitos drink blood.

And only when they need to make eggs, as the article says. What most people don't know is that mosquitoes mostly survive on flower pollen.

It seems likely that capturing cats, sterilizing them, and releasing them would have a larger impact than simply releasing a large number of sterile cats. It's also much easier to do in appreciable numbers, relative to the wild population, and it doesn't actually lead to extinction, just some additional population control. I don't think it is a good fit for mosquitos.

I once heard a modified version of the plan, where you release male mosquitos with a "driving Y chromisome" - that is, a Y chromisome with a mutation that leads to male offspring. Supposedly this should spread in a population even when but eventually leads to extinction.

But presumably the female mosquitos will eventually learn to avoid the males with the modified Y chromosome?

I think I recall there being some argument as to why this was unlikely, but I'm not able to produce it. Certainly, every female mosquito has two X chromosomes that have avoided being driven out by the Y, and choice of mate would factor into that, and so in the population of female mosquitoes I would tentatively expect there to be evolutionary pressure there...

There is obviously the question of whether it would be sufficient, in time - the figures around time-frame were surprisingly short - but that's not a solid guarantee. Even if it just produced a substantial collapse for a couple years, it might help substantially in fighting malaria, though.

How would a GM but sterile mosquito help? It can't pass its unique trait to offspring.

The sterile males compete with the rest of the population, which drops off the population as mating produces no offspring. This has been attempted with good results in several cases:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14422440 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_insect_technique

Ok, that's how I thought it would work (though "genetically modified" might be the wrong term here, as in those cases sterility comes from direct processes like radiation). I'm astonished that it would be considered feasible given the magnitude of the mosquito population (I'm assuming at least trillions). To cut the mosquito population in half for a generation, you'd need to replace half of the males on the planet, would you not? Or at least make half of the females choose to mate with the modified males.

Then rinse and repeat.

It would take quite the concerted effort over a long period of time. Mosquito eggs can lay dormant for 10-15 years.

Hate those buggers so much, I'd have no problem with this even if we'd also go extinct.

Hawaii didn't have mosquitoes until they were brought with ships. The ecosystem did just fine without them.

Mosquitoes in the US used to be mostly Aedes, but now there are a lot of Culex, which fly twice as fast (120cm/s, or about 2.7 mph) and are better hunters. The Aedes come into a room, find a wall, and eventually eat, while Culex go straight for the bite. Both of them tend to fly upwind toward meals. I wonder whether fans blow the close mosquitoes away but draw lots more to the area, in search of that good human-food smell the fan disperses.

As a Yukon resident, I can safely say the only way to avoid the mosquitos is to hole up in your house, and utilize your arctic entrance as an airlock for when you need to refill your groceries.

This is a guide to entering your house with the airlock system:

Step 0: Open outside door to arctic entrance

Step 1: Run inside with your groceries/supplies

Step 2: Close outside entrance

Step 3: Nuke the arctic entrance, RAID Wasp Killer is the recommended chemical

Step 4: Open inside door and walk the through ``Magic Mesh''[1] to reduce amount of nuke-immune mosquitos entering your house.

Step 5: Go take a shower to ensure your skin won't corrode

I've been using this system for 8 years now, and love it.

Another method I see my neighbours employ, is beekeeping suits laced with uranium. This method is great, because the mosquitos that attempt to land on the suit become fertile 8 out of 10 times. The suits can be purchased for around $10 outside the local Canadian Tire.

__________

[1] http://img.hisupplier.com/var/userImages/2012-03/23/16422286...

Good lord.

Personally I'd love to have an auto-aiming laser that detects and fries any nearby mosquito.

The poor critters wouldn't stand a chance.

I've thought about that, but mosquito's are small and hard to detect. You'd need quite a high resolution camera (or realistically two, to compensate for the parallax between the camera and the laser) combined with some serious software to spot mosquitos at the other end of the room.

IV did develop this... http://intellectualventureslab.com/?page_id=563

MAKE did an article on this as well: http://makezine.com/2010/08/30/make-23-how-to-shoot-mosquito...

Yes, but apparently by limiting the detection area to a rectangular segment of a plane (or a photonic fence, as they call it). Don't get me wrong, what they did is pretty cool and I could imagine placing something like that near a window, but it's still less useful than a system that has a 360 degree field of view.

Ultrasound sonar should work, since many animals efficiently detect insects at range that way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser

Oddly enough, Intellectual Ventures invented this.

Somebody tell Nathan Myhrvold so he can come in and sue everybody in this thread for reading about his intellectual property.

I've emailed three times, and have called leaving numerous voicemails asking to license this technology. Not once have I ever been called or emailed back.

#PatentTrolls

You emailed? Well, I'm afraid that's just a form of backing up a text file over the internet, so you're already infringing their portfolio.

EDIT: You may want to watch it - leaving a voicemail is a form of podcasting. You're really opening yourself up to liability here.

Dare I say we need a patent super hero, like Captain Patent.

They actually invented something? I thought all they did was sue people.

Does it count as "invented" if they don't bring an actual product to market at all? If anything, that sounds like they anti-invented it - no one else can create one without their permission.

They invented a demo, thus ensuring that nobody will ever be able to produce a product.

The video of the killing is strangely satisfying http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYXPqrXZ1eU

I had to get too tree huggy but mosquitos are a pretty key food source for others. So a fan is great in that it works well and doesn't do too much harm to the food chain.

Actually, there would be little to no downside to eradicating mosquitoes:

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html

I know, but does that really feel right? Sort of the height of arrogance to me. "Let's take something super prevalent and remove it entirely and I'm sure we'll have a zero sum gain" Maybe it's true though.

What's the purpose of being human, if not to believe your species is morally superior to all others? ;-)

On a serious note, though, I would like to see the human race reach the level of modeling and engineering sophistication to be able to eradicate mosquitoes with no harm to ourselves or the species we depend on. We've basically eradicated numerous microscopic species, and accidentally driven some very large species to extinction; we might as well do it to mosquitoes. Think of how great it would be to eliminate malaria and all other mosquito-borne illnesses.

Species were going extinct long before humans. The biosphere adapted just fine.

Humans aren't magically bad, and what we do isn't automatically terrible for everything. It's possible for us to understand what we're doing.

I would love it too. I spent some time working on one, ten or so years ago. I have forgotten the actual power measurements but I came to the conclusion that a laser powerful enough to kill a mosquito in the ~10 ms my tracking system was able to locate it would be too dangerous to leave running with people around, because even if my "never shoot when there might be a human in the background" algorithm worked perfectly (ha!), even just a stray reflection off a nearby shiny surface would be enough to potentially cause permanent eye damage.

Microcontrollers have improved dramatically since then, so perhaps it would be possible to track mosquito flight instead of just scanning for mosquitos and blasting away whenever one shows up in your crosshairs, but unfortunately we'll never see any commercial applications now that Intellectual Ventures has stuck their toe in. Might be fun to try it again as an open source hack project, though...

This is the principle of the air curtain†. The local Whole Foods Market operates air curtains as invisible exterior doors. When you walk through, you feel a strong down-rushing air current. Flying insects can't negotiate it.

†http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_door

The Vietnamese figured this out long ago. Here all the cafes and outdoor restaurants have fans. They help with the heat too, of course, but also cut down on the bites.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good outdoor fan - something you could leave out on your deck and that would be weather resistant? Does such a thing exist?

Never knew this is a "method" worthy of an article. Every one in India[AFAIK] knows this.

heh, you bet ! When I read the article, I was like FFS ! You've got to be kidding me ! Is this really on the NY-effing-times ! ...but then I read the comments ...ah well, first world ignorance of ^low-tech^ solutions. Next thing you know somebody would be 'discovering' water is good to fight dehydration ! :)

Well, clearly we know what's next, then: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8897662/...

I thought it was strangely higher-tech than the suggested alternatives.

This is the standard procedure in Sri Lanka as well, when people aren't lighting those poison coils (because some people still don't have indoor fans) or putting on the mosquito net when sleeping.

I've known this trick for years. Whenever I visit India, especially during the monsoon season, you always turn on the overhead fan (especially when you sleep). That's it - no more trouble from mosquitoes! It also keeps you cool because sometimes the nights can be warm.

Here in Florida Mosquitos are a huge issue. We had a few cases of dengue fever last year. There has been a movement to breed genetically sterile Mosquitos to basically wipe out huge portions of the population. http://keysmosquito.org/modified-mosquito-release/

I was expecting something that could be used in the developing world. It seems that solar power fans could be provided reasonably cheaply, maybe even made locally (apart from the solar cells) from "recycled" (dumped) materials from the west.

Would it have any useful benefit over bed nets?

Years ago my buddy took a tour of the Amazon. His guide took them to a tree, ripped the bark off, exposing a den of termites. The guide instructed everyone to grab a handful of termites, smash them up, and wipe the resulting guts on their exposed arms and faces.

To stop other insects? Did people get bitten by the termites?

Not that he mentioned. He just reached in there, grabbed some termites, and squashed them up.

I always thought using fans to repel mosquitoes was common knowledge, but thinking back it was a trip to China where I learned about it. In fact, it was the same trip where I discovered the plug-in hormone packs AND the electric fly swatters. The rest of the world, where mosquitoes carry disease and there aren't spraying programs, seems to have figured out how to repel the bugs better than we have, and for lower cost.

I'm lucky enough to have an air conditioner that points right at my bed. While the main purpose is to keep cool, I haven't been bitten in bed this summer (unlike in the spring when the aircon was off).

Greetings from Borneo rainforest, 23% Icaridin did the trick, no bites. Except on the areas that weren't sufficiently protected. Yes, this is also nasty stuff, it burns ons skin when you apply it, even if it's on top of sunscreen. Icaridin doesn't melt plastics like DEET does. I was surprised how well it protected me, even if I was sweating like a monkey. Btw, we were only ones on that hiking trip who used this stuff, most used citronella, because they didn't like these chemicals. Also some areas ban these chemicals for environmental reasons.

When I lived in Africa for 2 years we always had a oscillating fan going near our beds. Sometimes I would wake up and hear no fan. I knew the power had gone out and sure enough the mosquitoes would come attack.

Sounds like the makings of a mild horror film for those who mosquitoes target!

Now you know why, when entering certain stores, you get that insane burst of wind from above the door (Hairstyle killer) That's their way of keeping bugs out of their store.

Didn't someone come up with a blend of things (poison and flower scents) that claimed to eradicate every mosquito in a X mile radius? Whatever happened of that? Why haven't we been able to make something that'll attract large amounts of them and kill them?

Because mosquitos have one of the most powerful cabals of blood sucker lobbyists in Washington. They tend to just swarm anyone left out in the open and drain them of any resolve.

It was fruit juice and boric acid.. not sure what came of it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/health/27mosquito.html

Yep, that's the one! Hmm, I might give it a shot.

This article in MotherEarthNews had a commenter who stated that this trap also attracted other insects, including bees (which the boric acid is also fatal to). So, even if it is effective, unfortunately it seems that it's too indiscriminate.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/homemade-mosquito-trap-zm...

I found 95% concentrations of DEET effective during multiple trips paddling in northern Canada. The alternative was to come back with inflamed skin easy an inch thick.

Buy the 05% DEET in the USA as Canada no longer allows concentrations over 30%.

I learned about this a couple of years ago visiting a friend of mine who lives in the Tigre Delta. It's sort of like a suburban version of Venice, except with a jungle, and lots and lots of enormous black mosquitoes. After a while sitting in her living room talking to her, I wondered aloud why we weren't getting bitten by mosquitoes, and she pointed out the electric fan overhead and explained it discouraged the mosquitoes. Very useful!

And despite the danger of fan death when it gets hot enough, I think fans are more certain not to have long-term toxic effects than mosquito spirals or DEET.

I hope you're joking about fan death

Nope! http://askakorean.blogspot.com.ar/2009/01/fan-death-is-real....

That's a neat blog, thanks for the link!

I've just used vanilla extract before.. it doesn't take much, treat it like cologne. It smells much better than bug sprays and you don't have any weird residue.

I wonder if it's the vanilla or the alcohol suspension agent they don't like?

I always assumed mosquitoes are going by the IR/heat emissions, but apparently they follow smell. They also have very rudimentary olfactory system, which is easy to confuse by filling the area with a smell "override". It could be a bug spray or a citrus smell (citronella, etc) or it could be a smell that humans don't even pick up. Latter is weird, but it works really well - it's a small plastic dispenser bottle with a wick and heater element on top, just like an oil-based air freshener, but it has no smell whatsoever.

what is "Latter?" in your post above? not being pedantic - trying to work out what this thing is to see if i can buy it...

This is a godsend, and so blatant an alternative. It will be nice to not spend the rest of the summer duking it out with these buggers for control of the porch.

awesome stuff NY TImes. You just wrote an article about something every 4 year old in India (and every other tropical country) is well aware of

4 year olds from India are not the target audience of the New York Times. It's a good thing when something known to one culture is shared with another.

yeah.. but I'd expect a publication of such reputation to dig deeper than that. The ideas mentioned don't even scratch the surface. Hence the reference to "4 year olds".

deeper where? comparison of fan types? a study into which species are the weakest flyers?

I'm in Alabama, and I didn't know this despite the huge summer mosquito problem we have in the deep south. But I'm also lucky enough to have A+ blood.

Whatever this American science have proved, we Indians use it for ages. A slow `Fan` to get of mosquitoes. It's in public domain here :P

Here in Thailand people here have been using fans to deter mosquitoes probably ever since fans were invented.

If you sleep in a non-aircon room with the windows open, your options are a fan, or a mosquito net. Both work really well.

For outdoors I have a big industrial 18" fan that works pretty well too. It all depends what time of the season it is and how many mosquitoes there are.

My barely-finished-high-school friend figured this out a few years back. He'll enjoy showing me up. Thanks NYT :P

I have 2 windows in my room... and i open them both which makes some wind.

The mosquito's don't get up.

I seriously hope, when you try something in Alaska, it helps to, otherwhise you'll have a big problem :P

(PS. We don't have a mosquito problem here, i have seen thee the last month... It was worse last year)

>The mosquito's don't get up.

I've noticed when in the trampoline that the safety net seems to block the overwhelming majority of insects from getting in -- you can lay on the trampoline enjoying the stars without harassment. Of course the top is completely open, but most insects don't seem to make the choice to fly up (perhaps because of the curving walls) and never discover that.

My friend never gets mosquito bites, ever. His secret? _Be incredibly hairy_

that doesn't work for me. they love my blood too much to stop at the hair!

When I was in college dorm (in China), I used to put a table lamp on the floor, turned toward my feet and legs, which was fairly effective. Mosquitoes don't like lights.

Mosquitoes in China must be different to mosquitoes in northern canada, because they certainly are attracted to light here.

We, in Indian subcontinent, have been using fans to disperse mosquitoes as long as I can remember. I have never tried it outdoors but it works like a charm for indoors.

Fan doesn't work everywhere. In my hikes, I've found the most effective "safe" (aka DEET free) repellent is Repel Lemon Eucalyptus Pump-Spray.

Talk about cultural contrasts, I was astonished to read this "news". I'd assume such a simple thing was common knowledge everywhere.

Isn't it common knowledge that mosquitos don't like wind? They make it sound like some great discovery.

Or put a dryer sheet in your pocket. Have it hang half-way out. Skeeters hate the stuff. And you smell good.

I've tried this and it didn't work for me at all. Mosquitos love my wife, so she rubbed the dryer sheet on her exposed skin. Result: completely covered in mosquito bites.

That's nice; get back to me when you find something portable, ie something good for hiking.

Locally most of the nature trails are built thru swamps (aka eco warriors holy wetlands). They're economically worthless, so they make nice parks and trails.

The point of the article is they can't fly faster than 2 mph or so. Simply move faster than 2 MPH. I've ridden my bicycle thru swamps and not gotten bit.

I also hike and between walking and a bit of wind there is not much problem as long as I don't stop.

A bug in the eye still hurts... wear sunglasses.

Got any solutions for horse flies? Those things are brutal.

Run!

http://www.deerflypatches.com/

I haven't tried them.

http://bugasalt.com

I staple a blue plastic cup to the top of a walking staff and coat the cup with a layer of tanglefoot. It's like a fly magnet. In the thick of the season I might catch 75 in an outing. This guy had it figured out years ago, http://nfrec.ifas.ufl.edu/MizellRF/deer-fly-testimonial.htm

What about anti-beastie head nets and jackets?

http://www.purpleturtle.co.uk/acatalog/Protective_Clothing.h...

Only hike into a head wind.

Camp at the end until the wind turns?

Avon Skin So Soft. The oil. Works so well that they turned it into bug spray. Never tried the bug spray, but I swear by the oil.

As used in Scotland for midges. I was wondering if it would work for mosquitoes too.

Midges in the Scottish Highlands are so sensitive to wind that the act of hiking itself creates enough of a breeze to prevent them from biting.

As I found out first-hand this week: just keep walking.

[Additional: Avon Skin-so-Soft seems to prevent midges from surviving a landing, but I didn't find anything to beat larger clegs/horseflies except a good slapping - they will bite through clothing]

Interesting and cool, but burning cow crap is still lower-tech than an electric fan.

oh no fan does nothing. Back when I was in india, We used used sit only under a large ceiling fan that goes at full speed. Still mosquitoes will bite.

This is not news to anyone living in SE Asia.

Texas mosquitoes laugh at your feeble attempts. Might work on sissy New York mosquitoes though.

bill gates needs to know about this, those to be blowing around african villages.

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