You have to give these scientists credit. They came up with a good idea to solve this problem. I don't know if it will work, but it has the makings of a great idea.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6468381.stm
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ug... Have you read Oryx and Crake yet? This scares me. When you change the genes of something, it's pretty much impossible to tell what's going to happen. So they make these mosquitoes immune to malaria... what happens if this makes them capable of carrying some other disease. Now you have a bug that's more likely to survive and carrying some other dangerous disease. They need a built in kill switch for these things (kind of like Jurassic Park, only one that works). That way, you introduce the mosquitoes into an area, they force out the malaria carrying ones, then you turn on the kill switch and wipe out the mosquitoes. Wait a few months (test for the bug), then move on to the next area. This still scares me.
I'm not worried. I will be dead by then. Good luck guys.
I disagree, we might as well take the chance. I would say that there is an equal likely hood of us creating mosquitoes that wipe us out, as there is of them evolving on their own. I guess I would be more worried about them accidentally causing mosquitoes to go extinct. I believe in the article they said that the trait is passed on to about 70% of the next generation of mosquitoes. I don't know what the mix was as far as genetically altered or normal mosquitoes, but if this new genetic trait has some other vulnerability the mosquito population could be devistated.... hmmmmm actually I hate mosquitoes.... Well anyway I think you get my drift, I think the danger is more to the environment and mosquitoes than directly towards us. I don't think we will need to worry about that until we start altering our own genes. We should consider each case individually though, this should not become a common place thing.
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