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 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.
A Low-Tech Mosquito Deterrent
121–130 of 195 posts
Re: A Low-Tech Mosquito Deterrent
#122Spend 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 cas…
Re: A Low-Tech Mosquito Deterrent
#123Spend 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 cas…
Re: A Low-Tech Mosquito Deterrent
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Re: A Low-Tech Mosquito Deterrent
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Re: A Low-Tech Mosquito Deterrent
#126Re: A Low-Tech Mosquito Deterrent
#127Spend 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 cas…
Re: A Low-Tech Mosquito Deterrent
#128Although 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,…
> 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.
Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health; Volume 48, Issue 1, 1996
Re: A Low-Tech Mosquito Deterrent
#129Re: A Low-Tech Mosquito Deterrent
#130This 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...