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Laser-wielding device is like an anti-aircraft system for mosquitoes
While we may still not have flying cars, robot butlers or food replicators actually in our possession, you can now order something else you may have long dreamt of. It's called the Photon Matrix, and it uses lasers to track and kill airborne mosquitoes.
Currently the subject of an Indiegogo campaign, the Chinese-designed device is claimed to be capable of detecting a mosquito and gauging its distance, orientation and body size within just 3 milliseconds. The concept of a laser-based mosquito defence system took off back in 2007, when astrophysicist Lowell Wood (one of the architects of the USA's famous Reagan-era "Star Wars" missile defence initiative) raised the idea of a smaller, mosquito-targeting laser system at a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation brainstorming session on eliminating malaria. Editor's note: This piece was amended on July 3, 2025, to include information about earlier work between 2007-2017, to address safety and compliance concerns, and to point out that this is the team's first Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign.
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