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Google wants to release millions of mosquitoes
Google wants to spread millions of ‘good’ mosquitoes, which do not occur naturally, in Florida to prevent the spread of disease as part of a research program. FOX 13’s Carla Bayron reports.
TAMPA, Fla. - Tech giant Google has a research program that's trying to fight mosquitoes in Florida with... more mosquitoes.
Florida mosquito-control experiment
What we know:
The program wants to release millions of "good mosquitoes" as a way to prevent the spread of disease.
The Debug Project, which is made up of scientists and engineers, recently applied for an experimental use permit with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — or EPA — to release up to 32 million mosquitoes across California and Florida.
Courtesy: UF/IFAS
"It seems like a lot of mosquitoes, but it's actually not, and it's a necessary number to suppress the mosquitoes like they're intending to," Dr. Eric Caragata, an assistant professor at the University of Florida’s Medical Entomological Laboratory, said.
How the system works
Dig deeper:
Caragata says the project uses a mosquito-rearing and sex-separation machine.
It produces only male mosquitoes of a particular species, which can't bite, and are treated with a bacteria called Wolbachia.
After the sterile males are released into the wild and mate with female mosquitoes, the eggs won't hatch — stopping bad mosquitoes that spread diseases like dengue and Zika.
"If they do this on a large enough scale, we see a collapse of that local mosquito population over the course of weeks or months — so that's the goal of the intervention. It's to use Wolbachia and the mating incompatibility it causes in infected mosquitoes to reduce mosquito numbers," Caragata said.
Safety and global track record
Big picture view:
Wolbachia can't spread to other insects, so there should be no impact on food chains or the ecosystem.
Caragata says this is a proven technology with 10 years of use in the mosquito control world. This approach has already seen success in several different countries, including Singapore and Mexico.
With mosquitoes being the deadliest animals on the planet, Caragata says these kinds of next-generation control tools will help save lives.
Courtesy: UF/IFAS
"It's an ever-present threat in our lives in Florida, and we should be considering all the tools at our disposal in order to mitigate the threat," Caragata said.
EPA decision timeline
What we don't know:
It's unclear when the EPA will make a decision on the Debug Project's request.
The Source: This article was written with information from the Debug Project, and an interview with Dr. Eric Caragata, an assistant professor at the University of Florida's Florida Medical Entomological Laboratory.