pesticide
Latest
ICYMI: Improving pesticide's sticking abilities
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: MIT researchers created a kind of pesticide that is much more likely to stick on plant leaves because its additives are made of negatively and positively charged polymers that bond together. This means far less pesticide needs to be used for the same effect, and fewer pollutants are likely to get into the water system. If you're interested in watching the full dominoes video (and why wouldn't you be, that stuff is mesmerizing) you can find it here. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
MIT gives pesticides an electric charge to improve stickiness
There are plenty of problems with pesticides -- making bees dumb, anyone? -- but the biggest is probably how much is wasted while it's being sprayed onto crops. Because of how certain leaves naturally repel water, it means that hardly any anti-bug treatments actually, you know, stick to them. In fact, only two percent of the spray stays in place, according to MIT News. So, to change that, a team of researchers have devised a way to increase the amount of liquid a leaf's surface retains.
The Air Force will give you $150,000 to blast its weeds with a laser
With the holiday season just around the corner, the Air Force has been busy compiling its yuletide wish list, and it's got some pretty strange requests. Included on its latest call for small business innovations is a curious proposal for a project called "Floral Disruptor – Directed Energy Weed Abatement and Prevention Tool." According to Air Force documents, this project calls for "a device that uses directed energy technology to prevent and abate unwanted plants (weeds) in areas that require control or defoliation." Translation: a ray gun to blast weeds. Turns out, the Air Force spends a handsome chunk of cash each year on weed control -- so much so, in fact, that it's willing to pay $150,000 in grant money to anyone whose device can "deter, disrupt, deny, or degrade the desired objective." Private companies have already begun testing devices that annihilate weeds with lasers, microwave radiation and even sound, which is why the Air Force feels confident that the approach can bear fruit. But before you start entertaining fantasies of mass botanical killings, keep in mind that the government will only accept solutions that don't "target personnel or wildlife." As a Force rep explained to Wired, the idea is to develop an eagle-eyed contraption that lessens its dependence upon costly chemicals and pesticides. Besides, have you seen the Army's front lawn? It's immaculate.
EPA fines IOGEAR $208,000 for making unverified claims about germ-resistant mice
Okay, raise your hands if the first thing you thought when you heard about IOGEAR's Germ Free Wireless Laser Mouse was "That probably uses an unregistered pesticide that warrants government involvement." Yeah, that's what we thought -- but it appears some freak concerned citizen had your best interests in mind, because the EPA just fined IOGEAR $208,000 based on a tip that the company's Germ Free keyboard and mice peripherals were violating the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act. Apparently no one ever verified that the titanium dioxide and silver nanoparticle compound on the mice is actually effective at killing nasties, and even if it is, it's illegal to sell pesticides without Uncle Sam's blessing. IOGEAR's stopped claiming that the products kill germs and forked over the cash, but it's not clear if the products still have the coating on them. Either way, you should probably start washing your hands more, Mr. Filthy.[Via Nanotech Project]
