Mutant Mosquitoes

I stated seeing this around Halloween and though it must be a Zombie /Ghoul type of thing to scare but no real substance and then comes contributor XNewsMan with almost the same story. Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes engineered to kill their own children! And this from the New York Times to boot!

The meat of the story is that researchers report initial success from the first test release into the wild of these mutant bugs. Their job....to pass on a lethal gene to their offspring that kills them before reaching maturity.

Of course the end result is not just eradication of pest blood suckers but the control of agricultural pests and disease bearing insects that carry illnesses like Malaria or Dengue Fever.

And of course they are up against public fears over mutations. As XNewsMan says...I hate giant Skeeters! Haven't These guys ever read any science fiction?!!!! lol

Germs Taken Into Space May Come Back Deadlier

from USNews.com

Does this sound like the Andromeda Strain or what? "Deadly germs come back on a research space craft" Perfect B-movie plot , huh? What's even scarier is , it really happened. In a medical experiment, salmonella carried about the space shuttle in the fall of 2006 proved far more lethal to lab mice than the exact same microbe here on Earth. Just how much more deadly? 90% dead vs. 60% dead in twenty-six days. And that was with far less of the microbe in the oral dose. Apparently 167 genes in the space-evolved strain had changed. The likely cause: In zero G the force of fluids passing over the cells is low, similar to conditions in the gastrointestinal tract, and the cells adapted quickly to the new environment.

thanks to slashdot.com for the original article