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"...if you want to know what your future looks like, don't waste your time on Analog; read Time magazine. We are already saturated in the future. "
- Peter Watts
 |
| Bee Zapper | ||
| A laser-based insect remover. |
| At least the bee zapper was working. For years their hives had been under siege by Africanized swarms, seeking to take over as they had everywhere else in the area... But a few weeks ago Claire had found a net reference by a fellow in Egypt, who'd discovered that the African strain beat their wings faster than the tame European variety. Burrowing into archaic TwenCen military technology, he had adapted sensor-scanning designs from an old defunct project called "Star Wars..."
Like a glittering scarecrow, the cruciform laser system watched over her squat hives. When she had first turned it on, the surrounding fields had come startlingly alight with hundreds of tiny, flaming embers. The next morning, ash smudges were all that remained of the vicious invaders within line of sight... |
| From Earth,
by David Brin. Published by Bantam in 1990 Additional resources -
|
See the references below for examples of real-life bee zappers.
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More Ideas
and Technology from Earth
More Ideas
and Technology by David Brin
Tech news articles related to Earth
Tech news articles related to works by David Brin
Bee Zapper-related
news articles:
- Laser Kills Mosquitoes Like Brin's Bee Zapper
- Laser-Based Mosquito Killer Demonstrated
| TrackingPoint Smart Rifle |
| Navy Shoots Down Drone, With Help From Dr. Benton Quest |
| DARPA's Upward Falling Payload Like Leinster's Wabbler |
| Arafat Poisoned With Polonium? |
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'Then he saw the geek ... leaning against one of the slender stalks of a sunshade-photocell collector...'
How long ago did Robert Heinlein write about skiing on dry alien worlds?
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'A cable, here, from the controller to the interface plug... wires from that to the brain.'
'Everything was ready, awaiting the Overlords' pleasure...'
'Five hundred billion gallons worth of Antarctic iceberg had been towed into Santa Monica Bay.'
