Need a Logo or a Website? Compare 8 Free Bids Today. Over 50,000 Designers Worldwide. DesignQuote.net

DQ News: Fighting Mosquitoes With Smelly Socks

What do you use if you want to trap and kill mosquitoes? If you’re Fredros Okumu, all you need is the smell of some old, sweaty socks.

An African inventor recently discovered an interesting fact. While humans may find the scent of sweaty socks repulsive, mosquitoes are attracted to the smell. So, he has devised a way to use the scent and create a trap for the disease-carrying pests, reports The Gazette.

The trap uses chemicals that mimic human foot odour to draw mosquitoes inside a shuttered box, about the size of a garbage can. Once inside, the mosquitoes are poisoned by a powerful insecticide.

“We use a synthetic attractant to mimic a real human being,” Okumu told Postmedia News from Tanzania. “Mosquitoes go in thinking it’s a human being, but they don’t find any blood. Instead they get contaminated and die.”

Okumu’s research found that mosquitoes are drawn to humans by the scent of ammonia, lactic acid, carbon dioxide and other substances released by skin, sweat and breath.

The synthetic attractant, Okumu’s research has found, attracts four times more mosquitoes than real humans.The trap kills between 74 and 95 per cent of mosquitoes that enter it.

Before developing a synthetic compound to lure mosquitoes, Okumu baited his traps with dirty old socks collected from locals in Isakara, in Southeast Tanzania.

Photo by How can I recycle this

Need a Logo for your new company? Compare 8 Free Bids Today. Over 50,000 Designers Worldwide. DesignQuote.net

Love Bug Protection For Cars

No, we’re not talking about the proverbial love bug bite that makes people fall in love or childhood cooties. The Love Bug Solution is a car cleaner that helps protect vehicles from the actual fly. Also known as March Fly, Honeymoon Fly, Telephone B

Airdrop Harvests Moisture Directly From Air

Edward Linacre, a student at Melbourne, Australia’s Swinburne University. has won this year’s James Dyson Award, with his “Airdrop Irrigation” system. The system harvest water from the air and delivers it directly to the roots of p

Jacket Keeps Wearer Warm or Cool

Most people would look crazy wearing a jacket in the middle of summer, but Kranthi Kiran Vistakula’s jacket is very different. The wearer can set the temperature of the jacket to keep him warm on cold nights or cool off the body during the hottest m

Missing Remote Inspires Teen

Lily McCauley could never find the remote in her home. Sick of looking, she created a way to track it and entered it into the Bendigo Inventor Awards, reports Bendigo Advertiser.

Pix N’ Tray: Not Your Ordinary Lazy Susan

The lazy susan has been around for years. Most people will recognize it for its swiveling plate for serving food. However, Carmen Molina has taken the basic idea behind this device and turned it into a completely new product called the Pix N’ Tray.

Wine Bottle Carrier Dream Come True

Darrell Grant knew exactly what his dream meant. He credits it with the invention of his wine bottle carrier. The carrier, called the Wine Bearer, makes it easier to travel with wine without breaking the bottles, reports LaMesa Patch. Grant, who works for

Catching A PowerNap

According to Ubergizmo, the power of a quick nap is quite underrated. Short periods of sleep during the day can help refresh the mind and body. It can even help reverse information overload. An entrepreneur is trying to market that concept by offering a p

Moose Defense: An Instantly Inflatable Moose

Guardian: When a big bear approaches, some people choose to quietly stroll away. To give them an extra measure of safety, Anthony Victor Saunders and Adam Warwick Bell invented what they call a “pop-up device for deterring an attacking animal”