[jon_elbrook]

>we could drive the mosquitoes that cause malaria/yellow fever/dengue/etc to extinction.

How?

[Jyaif]

"Debug is a group of scientists and engineers developing technology to raise and release sterile mosquitoes to eliminate the ones that carry disease."

And it's used in the real world:

"Today, our scientific paper reporting near-elimination of Aedes aegypti from three neighborhoods in Fresno County"

https://blog.debug.com/2020/04/nature-biotechnology-features...

[jon_elbrook]

Releasing sterile mosquitoes wouldn't eliminate the ones that carry disease. that's basically the opposite of natural selection.

[ses1984]

"sterile" is an over simplification, with something called gene drive, you can actually introduce sterility into the gene pool in such a way that spreads through the entire population driving it to extinction. Crazy.

[jon_elbrook]

I don't see how that could work. Clearly some mosquitoes are going to be resistant to the modification and will survive.

[ses1984]

I could explain it but not as well as if you just search for crispr gene drive.