There are thousands of species of mosquitoes all over the world but there are only a handful that carry serious and life-threatening diseases such as Malaria and Zika. However, the challenge is always about finding out where and when these species can be found, but a team of researchers from Stanford University has just found a way.
A biology professor from Stanford who created the 60p paper microscope, as well as the 16p medical centrifuge now has a new project that will help detect malaria-carrying mosquitoes with the use of a phone's microphones, Wired reported. Manu Prakhash has just launched Abuzz, a crowdsourced surveillance project that has the ability to track and identify the disease-carrying mosquitos real time by recording their "buzz".
The sound of a particular's species' buzz is unique that is how they have made it possible to identify it using machine learning. Prakhash said that they have discovered that a regular phone, even the flip phone that costs $5 to $10 can capture recordings of mosquitos' buzzing sound, according to Fast Company. As to how they have done it, they collected the wing-beats' sound frequencies to figure out the location of up to 30 species of mosquitos which carry human pathogens, and then a software will analyze the frequency and will detect the location of the mosquitos that carry the disease.
Prakhash said that because of this, anyone in the world will now have the ability to identify mosquitos based on their sound and can contribute to the global effort of eliminating diseases caused by mosquitos. In a TED conference in Vancouver where he discussed the launching of his new project, he encouraged the audience to pull out their mobile phones and "fight the deadliest animal in the world".
