WASHINGTON, Mar 24: Scientists have created a sensor that can classify the insects that fly past it and could be used as a cheap strategy to zero in on malaria-carrying female mosquitoes that bite and spread disease.
The device offers a powerful and inexpensive new strategy for quickly identifying infestations that threaten agriculture and human health, researchers said.
Every year, insects kill millions of people by transmitting diseases, and they destroy more than USD 40 billion of food crops, they said.
In an attempt to create automated insect detectors, Eamonn Keogh, a computer scientist at the University of California, Riverside, turned to a classic James Bond-style spy trick.
When a person standing near a glass window speaks, he explained, the glass vibrates. If you want to eavesdrop, you can shine a light on that glass and use the vibrating reflections to interpret what is being said.
Like a spy detector, the new bug-sensing device shines a laser-thin line of light against a board that converts light fluctuations into sounds. These sounds get recorded as MP3 files, which can then be analysed by a computer programme.
In the recordings, the programme can listen for the frequency of wing-beats, which varies from species to species and even between males and females of some species, Keogh said.
Using frequency alone, the programme can classify an insect with about 80 per cent accuracy, ‘Discovery News’ reported.
To make the system even more precise, the algorithm can also be programmed to factor in temperature, humidity and other environmental clues as well as behavioural quirks of various insects, like the time of day they are usually active and the height at which they like to bite.
The sensors have wide-ranging applications. In the wild, they could track bees to help scientists figure out how colony collapse disorder might be spreading.
In the fight against disease, sensors could be used to identify which of the 3,528 species of mosquitoes just flew through the door of a home so that scientists might know whether the kind that spread malaria are around, researchers said. (PTI)
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