Sex-Switched Mosquitoes May Help In Fight Against Diseases

Posted by samzenpus on Monday May 25, 2015 @10:03AM from the no-girls-allowed dept.

cstacy writes: Only the female mosquitoes bite and transmit viral diseases such as Dengue Fever. Scientists have finally discovered the elusive genetic switch called Nix, that determines the sex of these blood sucking insects, and hope to selectively eliminate females to control the spread of diseases. "Nix provides us with exciting opportunities to harness mosquito sex in the fight against infectious diseases because maleness is the ultimate disease-refractory trait," explained Zhijian Jake Tu, an affiliate of the Fralin Life Science Institute and a biochemistry professor from Virginia Tech's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

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Re:Why not just kill them all? by aliquis · 2015-05-25 10:43 · Score: 1, Troll

Can't that be said for everything?
Tigers doesn't either. Humans can eat their pray?
Small snakes can be replaced with .. owls?
And so on.
So why bother.
Same could be said about Christians, Muslims, Americans, French people, vacuum cleaner sellers, McD personal, .. too. Just kill them and let other humans replace them. Why not?
Guess it doesn't matter that all the extinct animals died because obviously the world carries on anyway.
Just destroy everything. WTF. Something else will replace it eventually. And really our existance is pretty useless anyway and the Earth will be destroyed and all life on it eventually anyway so why bother?