Wi-Fi Mosquito Killer

Wi-Fi mosquito killer coming to a porch near you
By Stefanie Olsen

A biotechnology company with a specialty in killing mosquitoes is turning to wireless technology and computers to make a killing for itself.

American Biophysics, a small private company based in North Kingstown, R.I., runs a healthy business selling the "Mosquito Magnet," a system to rid American backyards of biting insects, according to its new CEO Devin Hosea.

Simply described, the magnet emits a humanlike scent that includes carbon dioxide and moisture to attract bloodsucking insects. When the bugs flutter past, they're sucked into and suffocated by a vacuumlike device.

Now AmBio, as the company is commonly called, is upping the ante with a "smart" mosquito net, or computerized defense system, to serve the corporate and public health sectors. By the first quarter of 2006, AmBio executives hope to have finalized sophisticated software to control a network of magnets--forming a kind of wide-scale fence--which will be able to communicate with a central network through wireless 802.11b technology.

That way, the system will be able to efficiently ward off bugs from golf courses and resorts, or even help mitigate cases of malaria in third world countries, according to Hosea.

But will it work?

Gilbert Waldbauer, professor emeritus of entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and author of "Insights From Insects: What Bad Bugs Can Teach Us," said that despite advances in bait-traps like the Mosquito Magnet, attempts to control adult mosquitoes have largely been futile.

Mosquitoes breed in stagnant water like golf-course ponds or within swampy regions. One pond can produce enough adult mosquitoes to scatter over five square miles during breeding time, Waldbauer said.

"The way to control mosquitoes is to go to these ponds and float a harmless oil," that will suffocate the larvae when they come up for air, he said. "It seems like an awful lot of trouble and expense to do otherwise."

"Think of this as a war, and the enemy has a really good cannon," Waldbauer said. "You have to attack where they're loading artillery."