Please watch this video from Intellectual Ventures Lab. This group is working on ways of combating malaria in developing countries. Every 43 seconds a child dies of malaria in Africa and while spraying and nets are somewhat effective a lot still needs to be done to protect people. One of their ideas is to install mosquito defense systems around villages and clinics that would use lasers to shoot down malaria carrying mosquitoes as soon as they came in to a certain range.

DID YOU HEAR WHAT I SAID? Use lasers to shoot down mosquitoes!

As you can see by the video they already have a working model. The most amazing thing about this is that they made this, they did not invent it. They purchased all of the components for this device off of ebay. Think about that. All of the components to make a FRICKIN LASER ARMED MOSQUITO DEFENSE SYSTEM are OFF THE SHELF! From the blue laser taken out of a Blu-Ray player to a fast moving mirror from a laser printer. Also, computing power has become so cheap and abundant that the system could be made so that it would measure the wingbeat frequency and size of the flying object before deciding to shoot it down. This way the system would shoot only the disease ridden mosquitoes and avoid any friendly fire situations like shooting down a local honey bee on its way to pollinate some flowers.

Now, a lot of you will read this and say that this is pretty cool and then forget about it. As a society, we have become indoctrinated to expect and accept the wondrous as almost mundane. The idea of a mosquito laser defense system is an idea right out of science fiction. An idea that would be far fetched to even the most forward thinking sci-fi writers from 30 years ago. Yet, not only does it really exist now, but there is so much abundant technology out there that nothing new even had to be invented for it to work. Someone just needed to take existing tech and put it together in a novel way.

Our technology is becoming pervasive and invisible to most people. So many of you out there, right now, have no real concept that the device they carry around and use everyday to send texts and pictures and check reservation and movie times on, which they laughably call a phone, is actually a miniature computer with a million times more computing power than the lunar lander, Eagle, the first vehicle to land on another world. Most people don't know and they don't care. All they care about is that their stupid "phone" doesn't have enough bars for them to talk with their friend 600 miles away while checking their flight schedule to see if there are any delays ... "No bars! This thing sucks!" The wondrous has become commonplace.

I will give you an example. If people woke up tomorrow and saw a news story about scientists successfully cloning a herd of woolly mammoths that would soon be heading to their local zoos they would not even bat an eye. Cloned, prehistoric creatures. Are you kidding me? This is a classic sci-fi concept. Except, now it's not. Now it is just a concept, because people know that not only is cloning prehistoric wooly mammoths feasible, they fully expect that it is inevitable.

Even as they ignore the technology around them people have come to fully expect the amazing revelations that science will bring them. "Oh, we received radio contact from an alien civilization at Tau Ceti? Well, it's about time. We have been waiting for that one for years." There really isn't very much out there that could surprise a person living in our society. Things that would astonish and dumbfound people 50 years ago have become what a lot of people feel they are entitled to and are pissed off that it is taking so long for them to get, i.e. The Flying Car. "C'mon people! It's 2010! What is taking so long? I want my flying car!"

So, the next time you go to text your friend or check your exact geographic location on your "phone" take a second and smell the wonder. Reflect on the miracle that is in your hand and remember that old beat up calculator that was once used to pilot a ship to another world.

From the recent TED Conference;

Originally uploaded by jlmoyni at 11 Dec '08, 1.41pm EST PST.

I love our new President-Elect. Obama has announced Steven Chu as his pick for Energy Secretary. Dr. Chu is a nobel prize winning physicist who currently runs Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory.

Chu is a believer in Science (note the capital S), which means that he understands that scientific results are not subject to change based upon either politics or whether certain powerful lobbyist groups (ahem, oil industry) happen to agree with certain findings.

Another reason to be excited about Chu is that he accepts that climate change is real and he is already focused on finding viable solutions. If anyone is going to come up with workable ways for us as a nation to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, it's this guy.