Mosquitoes | featured news

These mosquitoes are genetically engineered to kill — their own children. Researchers on Sunday reported initial signs of success from the first release into the environment of mosquitoes engineered to pass a lethal gene to their offspring, killing them before they reach adulthood.

Finding that disease-bearing mosquitoes are drawn to foot odor, researchers in Africa, which accounts for 90% of malaria deaths worldwide, are planning to use the smell from sweaty socks in traps.

Chemicals which interfere with a mosquito's ability to sniff out humans have been developed by researchers in the US.

Scientists working on malaria have found a way of genetically manipulating large populations of mosquitoes that could eventually dramatically reduce the spread of the deadly disease.

The foreclosure crisis has emptied neighborhoods with once-gleaming pools, now sitting caked with algae, infested with mosquitoes. The problem has grown so dire, environmental health specialists in Western states have turned to mosquitofish to police the stagnant waters; for the little silvery creatures a batch of larvae is like a prime-rib buffet.

"Bill Gates just released mosquitos into the audience at TED and said, 'Not only poor people should experience this.'" That was the post by Facebook's Senior Platform Manager Dave Morin on social networking site Twitter.