
This seems extremely dangerous: University of Arizona scientists have successfully introduced a gene into mosquitoes that blocks the growth of the malaria parasite. The idea, is then to release the malarial-resistant mosquitoes into the wild, in hopes that they will replace the current strain that infects more than 250 million people a year with the disease, leading to more than a million deaths. "Before we do this, we have to somehow give the mosquitoes a competitive advantage over the disease-carrying insects," said professor Michael Riehle, a principle investigator on the project, to the BBC. Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!