A News Sonnet A Day for April 2010: 3

I've set myself a goal for National Poetry Month this year: Compose a sonnet based on a science-themed news story each day.

Today's installment takes its cue from "Hunting mosquitoes from space" by Jonathan Amos.

Cryosat-2, Orbital Mosquito Hunter

Malaria exacts a horrid price,
Eight hundred thousand global deaths a year.
But Cryosat, designed to measure ice,
Can find the sites mosquito eggs appear.

The satellite's main focus is the poles.
But Africa, positioned in-between,
Ranks top among its secondary goals.
Inventive Spanish scientists convene

To map, with radar and altimeter,
Those ponds and puddles where mosquitoes breed,
And where concerted spraying can occur
To kill the bugs before they start to feed.

From orbit, tracking where they can infest,
The ESA* helps hunt a deadly pest.


* European Space Agency


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