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'Star Wars' Scientists Take Aim at Mosquitoes

Anti-malaria Weapons of Mosquito Destruction can zap bugs 100ft away with lasers

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Mar 14, 2009 4:06 AM CDT

(Newser) – Rocket scientists who worked on ways to beat Soviet missiles a generation ago are now using their lasers to zap mosquitoes, the Wall Street Journal reports. Researchers looking for ways to combat malaria have rejigged "Star Wars" technology to create a contraption that can pick off individual mosquitoes from 100 feet away. They believe the technology could someday protect entire villages.

Malaria kills a million people a year, but efforts to eradicate it were lagging until researchers recently got a fresh injection of cash from big donors like Bill Gates. Now the scientists who tried to help end the Cold War are “just trying to make a dent in a war that's actually gone on a lot longer and claimed a lot more lives,” says one astrophysicist.

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New anti-malaria projects are finding novel ways to combat mosquitoes, including lasers, poisoned blood, and weapons that disrupt the senses mosquitoes use to find their human prey. (AP Photo/USDA)

A malaria victim is buried near dozens of others in the eastern Congo, November 18, 2008. The mosquito-borne disease kills an estimated 1 million people worldwide every year. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)

An undated photo provided by the Northwest Mosquito Abatement District in Wheeling, Ill., shows two varieites of mosquitoes. At the left is Culex pipiens, also known as the northern house mosquito. It... (AP Photo/Northwest Mosquito Abatement District)

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We'd be delighted if we destabilize the human-mosquito balance of power. - Jordin Kare, an astrophysicist who once worked on weapons technology at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

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'Star Wars' Scientists Take Aim at Mosquitoes