Hundreds of millions of Franken-mosquitos will soon be released in Florida.
Deliberately.
The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District plans to release 750 million genetically engineered mosquitos, in the hopes of reducing another kind of mosquito.
Aedes aegypti carries yellow fever, Zika, dengue, chikungunya, and other deadly diseases.
According to Gizmodo, they’re the reason for the current outbreak of dengue fever in the Upper Keys, which has infected nearly 50 people.
The genetically engineered mosquitos will be unable to produce female larvae that hatch and live long enough to spread disease.
However, there are fears the scheme could simply produce mosquitoes more resistant to insecticide.
Also, the impact of introducing hundreds of millions of tweaked mosquitoes into the ecosystem is unknown--and could be devastating.