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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."
What I didn't understand is why not release both males and females that were sterile.
The other thing is that you don't want the sterile males mating with sterile females - that's a waste of a sterile male. If you release large numbers of both sterile males and females, the chances of a sterile male mating with a sterile female are much higher, so the number of fertile females mating with sterile males will be much lower, which will make the whole process far less effective.