Mosquitoes!
You good for nothing buzzy creatures, you totally suck!
Nearly half of the world’s population is at risk of malaria, more than a million people die every year from mosquito borne diseases – the human cost of mosquito bites is so massive that scientists have been itching to find a permanent solution to end these blood sucking, highly annoying, disease-spreading, flying jerks from decades.
And now like a sequel of a bad sci-fi film, scientists have created genetically modified mutant mosquitoes to wipe off the deadly disease forever.
The plan is kinda scary. Scientists will get a bunch of genetically modified mutant mosquitoes and release them in Florida Keys as a test. The plan is that the mutants will kill the resident mosquitoes and thus wipe off the disease!
Sounds too sci-fi to be true? It probably is.
The big questions: If the mutants take over the regular mosquitoes, what kind of an effect will it have on the eco system? What are the new diseases the mutants could carry? Who is to say what will work and what won’t?
Here’s demystifying this complex technique: