Technical advances over the past 50 years have hugely benefitted our quality of life, but what changes can we expect to assist us ...
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I'm sometimes a little disappointed by the lack of technical progress that's been made in my lifetime. Sure, we now have computers, DVD players, wall-to-wall plasma-screen TVs, and mobile phones that can make calls, send and receive e-mail, take pictures, play video games, record music, open jars, and even resuscitate heart attack victims.
Having watched the Jetsons in the past, I still want to know where my flying car is. And though I love my house in the UK, it would be so much cooler if it was located on the surface of the moon.
Though there's still a long wait for those big-ticket items, there are some great innovations coming to the pest management profession.
A new breed of electronic mouse trap has started to appear on the market, which automatically sends out an alert when it is activated by a mouse. This enables pest control officers to immediately know when one of their traps has been triggered without even having left the office.
The trap is activated by the slightest touch on a pressure pad. This seals the mouse in the unit and releases carbon dioxide to humanely kill the trapped mouse. At the same time, the device contains a low-power radio transmitter, which sends a message to a hub within the same building, which subsequently alerts your server indicating that a mouse has been caught.
Statistics can be produced, providing constant feedback on your pest control program.
A robot developed for exterminating ticks is in development in the US. The robot scours gardens and fields for ticks and then nabs them with a pesticide-laden denim skirt. A recent trial of the robot picked up 72 out of 75 ticks in eight hours when it was let loose in a field.
The size of a large toy truck, the robot rolls around on four wheels using magnetic sensors to guide itself. Carbon dioxide is emitted to attract the ticks and the permethrin-soaked denim skirt picks up the insects. Versatile in design, the robot can be modified to be used against mosquitoes and other pests simply by changing the active ingredient applied.
At around £300 a pop, it is not expected to sell to consumers, but pest control companies could charge a fee for running the robot based on a "per acre" charge.
Researchers in Australia have found that tiger poo may effectively repel pest wildlife. Scientists on the three-year project have been investigating into whether or not small animals are scared of the predators' excrement.
The results have been pretty conclusive – tiger poo placed near the feeding troughs of goats kept the animals away for three days. Regardless of the fact they were hungry, they refused to go anywhere near it.
Believed to be most effective when used in conjunction with current pest management methods, the use of predator excrement (or a synthetic equivalent) looks to achieve results for a number of pests, including rabbits, hares and deer.
Article provided by Dynamic Pest Control