W.M.D.

Weapon of Mosquito Destruction.

“A quarter-century ago, American rocket scientists proposed the ‘Star Wars’ defense system to knock Soviet missiles from the skies with laser beams,”The Wall Street Journal reported. “Some of the same scientists are now aiming their lasers at another airborne threat: the mosquito.”

Researchers in long white coats recently stood watching a small glass box of bugs. Every few seconds, a contraption 100 feet away shot a beam that hit the buzzing mosquitoes, one by one, with a spot of red light.

The insects survived this particular test, which used a non-lethal laser. But if these researchers have their way, the Cold War missile-defense strategy will be reborn as a W.M.D.: Weapon of Mosquito Destruction.

The system is sensitive enough to identify the sex of an individual mosquito by the speed of the insect’s wing-beats.