Researchers have spent three decades trying to solve the riddle of HIV, an endeavor that infectious disease expert David Margolis calls “as difficult as inventing a warp drive to travel to other stars.” A total AIDS cure is still not quite here, but researchers are getting remarkably close—and the quest has upended our understanding of the immune system and laid the groundwork for solutions to hundreds of other diseases. This process repeats again and again: Cures rarely happen with a flash of brilliance and cries of eureka, but their methodical unfolding fuels the dreams and enterprise of science. In this way, the world’s endless supply of problems becomes a valuable resource.

The list of ailments ripe for better treatments stretches far beyond AIDS, even far beyond medicine: traffic jams, radioactive fallout, and unsolved murders, to name a few. We all have someone or something we would like to cure, and big universities aren’t the only ones leading the charge. These days a growing do-it-yourself movement seeks solutions in garages and community labs. The only thing really needed to solve problems is tenacity. “When a scientist gets an idea in his head, he won’t stop until it’s tested,” says Robert Sabin, one of the leading DIYers. 
“Scientists are possessed by their ideas.”

Aliment: Mosquitos
Cure: Chemical Invisibility Cloak

Since the 1940s the leading defense against mosquitoes has been the chemical 
repellent DEET, but unless you remember to spritz yourself with it every few hours, you will eventually get chomped. Entomologist Anandasankar Ray and colleagues at the University of California, Riverside, aim to do better with bug sprays intended for bugs, not people. They are developing a set of chemicals that disrupt the mosquito’s sense of smell, effectively blinding the insects to humans.

Ray started with 50 compounds thought to disrupt the ability of mosquito olfactory sensors to detect carbon dioxide, the telltale sign of a living, breathing blood meal. He then turned the tables and jabbed the mosquitoes, inserting tiny electrodes into their sensors. One chemical, 2-butanone, acted as a carbon dioxide imitator, which could be exploited to lure the bloodsuckers. Another, butanal, prevented the co2 sensors from working, while 2,3-butanedione functioned as a blinder, flooding mosquitoes’ sensors with signals, thereby rendering them useless.

Ray has since teamed up with a group of investors to found OlFactor Labs, based in Southern California, to develop commercial mosquito deterrents...