If you want to figure out how to trap a mosquito, apparently you really have to get inside its head. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by DuPont. We’re listening to the sound of a single cell in the mouth of a mosquito, as it reacts to the smell of human skin.
“This is where we hook the mosquitoes up for sound.”
It may sound like a comic strip version of a mad scientist’s laboratory, but Bruce Wigton’s company really does have mosquitoes wired for sound. That’s how they developed the Mosquito Magnet, a new type of insect trap. Mosquitoes are attracted to carbon dioxide, which people emit in our breath and from the pores of our skin. The Mosquito Magnet sends out a plume of carbon dioxide, and then it uses a fan to suck the bugs up into the trap, where they die. Apparently, mosquitoes will only respond to just the right amount of carbon dioxide. So the scientists had to test different levels of CO2 on the mouth cells of a mosquito.
“This is designed so that we have electrodes that probe one of the cells of a mosquito, and when we probe the single cell, you do know that this particular compound stimulated that neuron.”
By testing different chemicals, the inventors learned that mosquitoes are also attracted to a substance that’s in cow’s breath and mushrooms, so they’ve added the essence of oxen breath and mushrooms to the carbon dioxide in their trap. And that’s not all that they learned about mosquitoes.
“When we started developing this device, we didn’t really realize that mosquitoes don’t like to enter plumes of carbon dioxide, they travel edges. And we really had to utilize their own behaviors against them. When they approach the trap, we make sure that they don’t have to fly through a plume of concentrated attractant.
Pulse of the Planet is presented by DuPont, bringing you the miracles of science, with additional support provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.
Mosquito Magnet - Neuron
If you want to trap a mosquito, you have to get inside its head -- in more ways than one.
Air Date:07/26/2000
Scientist:
Transcript:
ambience: Mosquito neuron sound
If you want to figure out how to trap a mosquito, apparently you really have to get inside its head. I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by DuPont. We're listening to the sound of a single cell in the mouth of a mosquito, as it reacts to the smell of human skin.
"This is where we hook the mosquitoes up for sound."
It may sound like a comic strip version of a mad scientist's laboratory, but Bruce Wigton's company really does have mosquitoes wired for sound. That's how they developed the Mosquito Magnet, a new type of insect trap. Mosquitoes are attracted to carbon dioxide, which people emit in our breath and from the pores of our skin. The Mosquito Magnet sends out a plume of carbon dioxide, and then it uses a fan to suck the bugs up into the trap, where they die. Apparently, mosquitoes will only respond to just the right amount of carbon dioxide. So the scientists had to test different levels of CO2 on the mouth cells of a mosquito.
"This is designed so that we have electrodes that probe one of the cells of a mosquito, and when we probe the single cell, you do know that this particular compound stimulated that neuron."
By testing different chemicals, the inventors learned that mosquitoes are also attracted to a substance that's in cow's breath and mushrooms, so they've added the essence of oxen breath and mushrooms to the carbon dioxide in their trap. And that's not all that they learned about mosquitoes.
"When we started developing this device, we didn't really realize that mosquitoes don't like to enter plumes of carbon dioxide, they travel edges. And we really had to utilize their own behaviors against them. When they approach the trap, we make sure that they don't have to fly through a plume of concentrated attractant.
Pulse of the Planet is presented by DuPont, bringing you the miracles of science, with additional support provided by the National Science Foundation. I'm Jim Metzner.