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 the 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 collaboration with the local Consolidated Mosquito Abatement (CMAD) of Fresno County. The test, starting from now, aims to test methods for reducing the population of mosquito Aedes aegypti, which carries diseases such as Zika, dengue fever 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 in Fresno. Insects have undergone “processing” with Wolbachia, a naturally occurring bacterium that inhibits egg production in males and prevents females from developing and hatching.
Male Wolbachia-infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were first released into the country in 2016 due to the efforts of CMAD and MosquitoMate, but Verily reports that with thecase of automated mosquito production, due to the algorithms and software he developed, he managed to increase the volume of male mosquitoes by 25 times more than before.
According to company the "automated mass rearing and sexing procedures" developed make it possible to release one million insects per 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 population of adult and the hatching of eggs in the test 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.
See the project's video presentation
