Glowing Mosquitos Aid Malaria Battle

kfz.versicherung writes "The glowing mosquitos were created by attaching a gene for fluorescence found in jellyfish to a gene expressed only in a male mosquito's sexual organs. Even if this sounds funny, this technique is used to collect all males which are then sterilized and released in areas plagued by malaria flies. While sterile female mosquito can still transmit malaria, the sterile males will mate with the females but produce no offspring, so the insect population drops. An automated machine, capable of sorting 18,000 larvae per hour, detects fluorescence inside the larvae and a puff of air will divert the males into a separate area."

Comments

Kill em all!

[billcopc]

Why bother with this elaborate scheme to sterilize males and release them back into the wild ? These things are a serious threat to our health, why can't we just kill them all and be done with it ?

Though I wish the same logic could be applied to certain human continents :P