The idea is to capture a group of male mosquitos ... (how would I know they are either of the sex ... dunno) and place them in a container that would eliminate their reproductive ability ( microwave, maybe) and then release them into the great outdoors and let them do their thing. Sterile mosquitos cannot reproduce; so eventually, through probability and pumutation calculations, the entire malaria-causing bug is exterminated through natural causes. Replacement fish food another consequence. The big black fly is another challenge.
-- Rodeney, Oct 11 2005

New Mosquito Sexing Technique http://www.scienced...10/051010090454.htm
From research at Imperial College. [st3f, Oct 11 2005]

SIT http://en.wikipedia...le_insect_technique
[Shz, Oct 11 2005]

The orginal press release http://www.imperial.ac.uk/P6929.htm
dated 9 October 2005. [st3f, Oct 11 2005]

Mediterranean Fruit Fly Exclusion Program http://www.cdfa.ca....ep/prpinfo/pg1.html
Welcome to California. We've been releasing sterile male medflies since 1996, and quite proud of it. [jurist, Oct 12 2005, last modified Oct 13 2005]

Well. I'm glad you picked an informative title.

Strangely enough, something like this is already done. Since it is the female mosquito that spreads malaria, it is possible to release large quantites of sterile male mosquitos into the wild without causing a health risk. [looks for link]

[Finds that this exact story hit the news yesterday.] [link]
-- st3f, Oct 11 2005


This is baked. It’s called SIT (Sterile Insect Technique).
-- Shz, Oct 11 2005


Eh? How do you suppose these sterile bugs will pass on their non-child bearing characteristics, by osmosis?

I suppose this is an idea, in that it advocates, rather than the usual boring idea of killing ALL the mosquitoes in the whole world, for the killing/genetic tampering of a paltry 50% of all the mosquitoes in the world. It seems so reasonable now.

Unfortunately, the resources and time saved by only having to kill half the world-wide mosquito population may become eaten up in the male female identification process. Perhaps we should begin work on streamlining that process ASAP.

By the way, what's a pumutation calculation?

As for my vote, I'm trying to decide whether this is pure brilliance, or Stimpian stupidity of the highest order. Actually either way, it doesn't matter, it gets a huge bemused, equally idiotic bun from me. [+]

Actually no, no it doesn't.
-- zen_tom, Oct 11 2005


What? This is real? So you release a bunch of sterile males into the population (one would imagine you'd need an awful lot to have an impact - depending on how promiscuous those gentlement mosquitoes are) plus it puts the onus on the survival on those remaining mosquitoes who
a) don't like their mate to glow in the bedroom
b) breed explosively

The point I'm getting to is that while this might lower populations in the short-term (by temporarily flooding the environment with far more insects than normal - albeit male sterile ones) in the long term, it can only encourage more virulent mosquito populations.
If you're going to go to all that effort, why not breed a whole bunch of mosquito natural predators?
-- zen_tom, Oct 11 2005


It's quite easy to tell a male mosquito, at a glance, without looking for glowing bollocks:
They have antenna, instead of a needle.
-- Ling, Oct 12 2005



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