Sometimes you have to think that scientists don’t ever read science fiction, and thus have not even contemplated all the things that could go wrong when they do something like creating 20 million mosquitos in a laboratory, infecting them with a bacteria, and then releasing those mosquitos in Fresno, California.
First of all, did you even know that Google had a bio-lab? They do and it’s called Verily. Which, I dunno, sounds rather biblical. “Verily, I say unto you…we are the purveyors of all that is The Truth.”
But I digress.
Verily plans to create 20 million mosquitoes and infect them with a bacteria in their laboratories. Then, the mosquitos will be released on the unsuspecting populace of Fresno, California, a city with over half a million people.
Why? Because, Zika.
Remember last year’s Zika scare that prompted the government to spray harmful chemicals all over citizens in Florida? That terrified a whole bunch of pregnant women and made them worry that their babies would be born with microcephaly?
Apparently, the Aedes aegypti mosquito that is thought to carry the Zika virus is prevalent in Fresno. However prevalent these mosquitos may be, there is only one confirmed case of Zika, and this woman’s partner had been traveling.
So, anyway, in a project wittily named DeBug, Verily has “created” a whole bunch of mosquitos and infected the males with a bacteria called Wolbachia. When the male mate with female mosquitos, the resulting eggs can’t hatch. And by the way, they did a smaller release of franken-mosquitos last year in Fresno. (See? says Verily soothingly. We already did this once without you knowing about it and nothing bad happened. Don’t worry, you silly mortal.)
