Their goal is to control the population of an invasive mosquito species by releasing sterile male mosquitos. But don’t worry, they don’t bite.
They plan to use lab-bred mosquitoes infected with a naturally-occurring bacteria that would make them unable to breed. So, when a wild female mosquito mates with a sterile male, her eggs won’t hatch. If the plan works, the mosquito population should shrink. And ideally so should mosquito-borne diseases.
Jeremy Shannon, the assistant manager at the Santa Clara Mosquito and Vector Control District, says, “One of our primary concerns here, at least in Santa Clara County and really throughout the state, since its introduction, has been West Nile virus.”…