CitizenBBN
05-03-2017, 11:25 PM
A lab in Kentucky, working with UK, has created male mosquitoes that are sterile having been fed a naturally occurring bacteria. Since males don't bite they are released and then when they mate with a female those eggs never hatch.
Interesting to me they're being tested at Stock Island, which is the key just above Key West. A mosquito control agent there was quoted as saying no one would live there if not for the mosquito controls, and she's right. Key West is actually urban enough it would likely survive, but large stretches of the keys in the old days were so sparsely inhabited in part b/c of things like the mosquitoes. In fact there's a great story about a guy trying to launch one of the earliest resorts there and failing b/c he couldn't get rid of them. He had imported bats, which did a great job but they wouldn't stay in that location so it failed.
Anyway, back to this story:
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2017/05/03/zika-fight-bacteria-laden-mosquitoes-unleashed-in-florida-to-combat-virus.html
Interesting to me they're being tested at Stock Island, which is the key just above Key West. A mosquito control agent there was quoted as saying no one would live there if not for the mosquito controls, and she's right. Key West is actually urban enough it would likely survive, but large stretches of the keys in the old days were so sparsely inhabited in part b/c of things like the mosquitoes. In fact there's a great story about a guy trying to launch one of the earliest resorts there and failing b/c he couldn't get rid of them. He had imported bats, which did a great job but they wouldn't stay in that location so it failed.
Anyway, back to this story:
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2017/05/03/zika-fight-bacteria-laden-mosquitoes-unleashed-in-florida-to-combat-virus.html