Beautiful and deadly

InaTrap electronic insect trap
$89.95 at Amazon.com

It’s mosquito season, and I’m open to anything that’ll keep the little bloodsuckers at bay. So I couldn’t resist this spacey-looking gadget from Taiwan, which uses a combination of electronics and chemistry to defeat flying insects.

Like other bug-zappers, the InaTrap features a softly glowing lamp that attracts the bugs. But this lamp is supposedly coated with a chemical that when heated gives off a gentle flow of carbon dioxide gas, the same kind you exhale with every breath. The idea is that mosquitoes and other pests are attracted to the gas, which they associate with tasty human flesh. So they fly toward the gas source, only to be captured by a built-in fan that sucks the bugs into a trap. The insects aren’t fried with electric shocks; merely captured. You can turn them loose if you please, or sentence them to a slow, lingering demise. Your call.

I have no idea whether the carbon dioxide gimmick really works, but the bug trap certainly does. After a couple of nights’ use, the receptacle was home to a host of moths, mosquitoes and other six-legged guests. Add in the fact that the InaTrap is almost totally silent, and utterly gorgeous as well, and it clearly sets a new standard of cool in pest-control gadgetry.