In an experiment with global implications, Australian scientists have successfully wiped out more than 80% of disease-carrying mosquitoes in trial locations across north Queensland.
The experiment, conducted by scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) and James Cook University (JCU), targeted Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which spread deadly diseases such as dengue fever and Zika.
In JCU laboratories, researchers bred almost 20 million mosquitoes, infecting males with bacteria that made them sterile. Then, last summer, they released over three million of them in three towns on the Cassowary Coast.
The sterile male mosquitoes didn't bite or spread disease, but when they mated with wild females, the resulting eggs didn't hatch, and the population crashed.
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Or they chased them to the US.
ReplyDeleteThis is an exciting development. Maybe similar science can be applied to ticks.
ReplyDelete8:49 PM yea exciting when all the bats die because there is nothing to eat. Moron. Everything has consequences.
ReplyDeleteAll they had to do was bolster the bat population. There is no need to be playing god. Just ask the bees.
ReplyDeleteThey do this in Florida already with GMO sterile male mosquitoes.
ReplyDeleteReleased over 3 million mosquitoes....I wonder if they counted them?
ReplyDeleteThis is huge! Best news I've read in awhile.
ReplyDeleteAnd our government will not allow this here until they figure out a way to line their pockets with this.
ReplyDeleteThey did this with the med-fruit glts back in the late 70's. Or it was in California. Now we know what happened to California...
ReplyDelete