Technical Thinking By Mark Jones
Technical thinking: Backyard laser weaponry I’m a bit surprised this didn’t get more press. We’ve crossed a long-promised threshold. For the first time, laser weapons were successfully deployed in combat to down drones. Laser weapons are finally doing what science fiction promised. But it was a laser weapon for deployment closer to home that caught my attention. Imagine a mosquito-free evening thanks to an AI-guided laser system — the Photon Matrix. Living in Michigan is like existing in a swamp. This time of year, crop dusters crisscross my property spraying Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis, Bti, a soil bacterium that's become the biological weapon of choice for mosquito control. It isn’t enough. Mosquitoes make being outside at dusk (or anytime later) unbearable. Sometimes the days are unbearable too. The county mosquito control resorts to insecticides. Fogging trucks come through after dusk because it’s prime time for mosquitoes and when pollinators are done for the day. The insecticides sprayed are indiscriminate. They are quite toxic to all insects, freshwater and estuarine fish, invertebrates, and sediment organisms. Pollinators are a worry, too. The flowering trees in our yard used to be buzzing this time of year. They are silent now, consistent with the more than 60% drop in pollinators observed in Michigan over the past 15 years. Mosquito Control was at an event I attended, and I’ve got a bit of a bone to pick. They were almost bragging about using an insecticide based on chrysanthemum flowers. That is a stretch. They aren’t using a manufactured copy of natural pyrethrins, the compounds found in chrysanthemums. They are
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using permethrin — a synthetic pyrethroid that, while it has some structural similarities to natural pyrethroids, is multiply chlorinated to make it more toxic and longer lasting. Nothing in nature makes that structure. It gets worse. Ticks are now a growing concern, and 2026 is predicted to be a record tick year. Treating property against ticks and mosquitoes is a growth business. I asked a couple of local services what they sprayed. In all cases, chrysanthemums were mentioned. Again disingenuously. The insecticides were multiply fluorinated to be more potent and longer lasting. They were PFAS. No chrysanthemums make PFAS. And it is applied in daylight, when beneficial insects are more likely to be exposed. I don’t like a nightly bloodletting, but I don’t like adding to environmental PFAS either. I’ve tried various types of technology. We had one device that emitted CO2 to attract mosquitoes and vacuumed them up. Were it not for the collected corpses, we couldn’t tell it was functioning. The thought of a laser system shooting mosquitoes out of the sky is strangely appealing. The units aren’t available for purchase. The Photon Matrix touts a high-precision infrared laser system, invisible and silent. Mosquitoes are detected by LiDAR and millimeter-wave radar. Depending on the model, a 3- or 6-meter radius is cleared of mosquitoes at an impressive 30 per second. Given some estimates of mosquitoes at up to 20,000 per acre, mosquito control demands this kind of firepower. The unit is smart enough not to aim at people.
These are all claimed performance, as the Indiegogo campaign hasn’t produced a product yet. No independent testing. No safety certifications. There is reason for optimism. It is a new approach, one that, with luck, will generate a satisfying poof for every vaporized mosquito. It would avoid pesticides with their drawbacks. It may well be able to avoid zapping pollinators and other beneficial insects. Ticks, however, aren’t going to be impacted. Luckily students developed TickBot, a semi-autonomous robot for tick control. A denim cloth treated with permethrin is dragged by the robot following a guide wire encased in tubing that emits CO2 to attract ticks. TickBot created a virtually tick-free environment within as little as an hour following its deployment. Not pesticidefree, but a very controlled application. A satisfying poof for every dispatched tick would be an improvement. DW
JULY 2026
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