Can a bold new plan to stop mosquitoes catch on?
Can a bold new plan to stop mosquitoes catch on?
Tags: Genetic biocontrol, Genetically modified mosquitoes, Mosquitoes, OxitecL. J. Young, Popular Science, 2022.
In the northwestern outskirts of Visalia in Tulare County, California, Bryan Ruiz drives down a familiar dirt road that cuts through farmland. He comes up to an irrigation pipe that’s created a “pretty nasty” situation—a small patch of vegetation and algae-covered water baking under the early June sun. As his shadow looms over the pool, a wormlike critter less than half an inch long quickly tries to submerge out of sight, but before it can, Ruiz scoops it up with a long metal dipper. He squints at his catch: a larva of Culex, a genus that includes common house mosquitoes.