article_snippet: The swarms of insects that plague light bulbs at night could be about to become a thing of the past.
article_snippet: The technology could also save lives in the tropical regions of the world, where insects carry a multitude of potentially fatal diseases.
article_snippet: The problem with this is that insects such as mosquitoes, sand flies and ‘kissing bugs’ that fly towards the light, increase the risk of catching vector-borne diseases.
article_snippet: Six million people worldwide, mostly in Latin America, are infected with Chagas disease, which is transmitted by ‘kissing bugs’ that are attracted to lights.
article_snippet: Sand flies infect people with a protozoan parasite responsible for 20,000 deaths annually, while mosquitoes, which are also drawn to the light, carry malaria which kills more than 600,000 people a year.
article_snippet: Here, a vast number of bugs flock towards a floodlight in Australia .
article_snippet: Sand flies infect people with a protozoan parasite responsible for 20,000 deaths annually, while mosquitos, (pictured) which are also drawn to the light, carry malaria which kills more than 600,000 people a year .
article_snippet: In just over a month, they collected 5,579 insects in the traps, it was reported in the journal Philosophical Transactions B.
article_snippet: The order Diptera, which mosquitoes belong to, represented almost seven in every 10 insects caught.
article_snippet: For places in the world where glass windows and screens are uncommon, reducing insect attraction to indoor lights is a big deal.
article_snippet: ‘Future research is needed into the light attraction of individual vector species and with the current configurations in the tropics, but the current results indicate a viable path forward.
highlights_snippet: Could save lives by discouraging bugs carrying disease entering homes .