Yes, you read that well: Google's mosquitoes are built to try to reduce the population and stop any insect-borne diseases.
Although it sounds like a hoax story, it's a reality. Its biotechnology section A (Verily), formerly known as Google Life Sciences, said last week that Debug, an initiative to reduce the volume of mosquitoes carrying diseases around the world, is now ready for testing.
His field of testing Debug Fresno, will be held in California, in cooperation with the local Consolidated Mosquito Abatement(CMAD) of Fresno County. The trial, starting now, aims to test methods to reduce the population of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which carries diseases such as Zika, dengue and chikungunya.
The aggressive mosquito species appeared for the first time in Fresno, 2013, but no cases of the aforementioned diseases have yet been reported.
To address the issue, Verily will release at least one million sterile male mosquitoes each week at Fresno. Insects have been "treated" with Wolbachia, a natural bacterium that prevents the production of eggs in males and females to grow and hatch.
Male Aldes aegypti mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia were first released in the country by 2016 due to the efforts of CMAD and MosquitoMate, but Verily says that by adding the automated mosquito production, due to the algorithms and software it developed, to increase the volume of male mosquitoes by 25 times more than before.
According to the company, the "automated mass breeding and sex selection processes" developed make it possible to release one million insects a week.
In addition, ground release devices allow mosquitoes to be released in a "uniform and targeted manner" during the breeding season.
Once the release is complete, the Verily team will compare the adult population and egg hatching in testing areas with neighboring areas.
As for the residents who are worried about a sudden increase of mosquitoes during the tests, it is worth noting that the males do not "bite" and do not transmit diseases to humans.
Watch this video his presentation project
