Jul-12-12 By IdeaConnection
There’s no getting away from them; insects are deeply woven into the fabric of our lives. On the plus side they pollinate our food crops, enrich the ecosystem when their bodies decompose, and some of the substances they produce are used for numerous applications. But there are many foes lurking in the insect world that cause disease and devastate crops.
An enormous amount of effort has gone into coming up with ways of eradicating insects but many of these tend to be blanket efforts that kill off the good guys as well as the bad.
Eamonn Keogh's lab at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering hopes to change that with devices that can more accurately count and classify bugs, but they need help to make them better.