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

Re:DDT

[scheme]

DDT was highly effective at killing mosquitos, the incidence rate of malaria dropped amazingly after it was put in use. However, someone had the idea that saving a few Peregrine Falcons was more important than tens of thousands of human lives. Too bad.

DDT resistant mosquitos appeared in 1960 and have spread pretty much everywhere. Using more DDT doesn't work since the mosquitos become more and more resistant due to overexpression of cytochrome P450. Meanwhile, things like fish, birds and people who happen to eat those fish or birds get increasing concentrations of DDT and eventually get poisoned or start seeing birth defects.

Unfortunately, we don't go through a few generations every few months and can't quickly develop DDT resistance like mosquitos. The falcons were just an indicator and continuing would have increased the incidence of birth defects in people.