October 5, 2026

YOU KNOW, SINCE I’M THEIR FAVORITE SNACK, I’D BE ALL FOR THIS:  Since my original post below got a bit of traction, I’ve been doing a bit of research with Grok on the costs of completely eliminating mosquitoes that attack humans using gene drives. Bottom line is, this would probably save 2/3rds to 3/4ths of the money we currently spend for only partly effective insecticide based control methods in the United States, but would totally eliminate mosquitoes rather than just cutting back on them. For those tuning in late, gene drive involves the release of male mosquitoes that generally only have male descendants; the “gene drive” part uses advanced techniques so that instead of half of the offspring inheriting this property, almost all or all do. Eventually the population disappears for lack of female mosquitoes.  Again for those tuning in for the first time, most mosquito species don’t attack human beings; there are 3500 species of mosquitoes worldwide but only a couple hundred, most of them invasive, are of interest because they bite humans and spread disease, not to mention just raw discomfort and an inability to stay outdoors without covering yourself in DEET. The rest we don’t care about. Also, only female mosquitoes bite humans; the males do not, so releasing males doesn’t itself add disease carriers to the environment.

Posted at 2:00 am by Sarah Hoyt