Google wants to release 32 million sterile mosquitoes. Our Australian tests offer a valuable lesson | Nigel Beebe for the Conversation
Summary
Google’s parent company Alphabet wants to release 32 million sterilized male mosquitoes in parts of the U.S. to reduce disease-carrying mosquito populations. An Australian project that released similar specially bred male mosquitoes showed this method can greatly lower mosquito numbers without harming people.Key Facts
- Alphabet’s Debug program seeks approval to release millions of sterilized male mosquitoes in California and Florida.
- Male mosquitoes do not bite or spread diseases like dengue or Zika.
- The goal is for these males to mate with females, causing eggs to fail and reducing mosquito populations.
- Australia’s similar project used mosquitoes carrying a natural bacterium called wolbachia to disrupt reproduction.
- Wolbachia causes reproductive incompatibility, so eggs from these matings don’t hatch.
- Over 3 million wolbachia-infected male mosquitoes were released across several Australian towns in 2018.
- The Australian trial worked well partly due to local community support and strict safety checks.
- Verily (Alphabet’s life sciences division) developed technology using machine learning to sort male and female mosquitoes to ensure only males were released.
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