Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Walking, Biting Mosquitoes

In the quest to combat the spread of dengue fever, scientists from the University of Oxford in England have developed a method to genetically alter male mosquitoes so that when they mate with a female mosquito, the offspring's they produce will have wings that prevent the female from flying. By preventing the female mosquitoes from flying they also reduce the chances of them spreading the infection.

The fight against dengue has gone from swatting, to poison, even sterilizing males and now its genetic engineering to ground females. Is it also possible that evolution would result in a new breed of mosquitoes walking around and biting people from the ground?

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