"Every year, mosquitoes kill more humans than any other animal—including our fellow humans—due to the deadly diseases they carry, with Zika being merely the latest high-profile threat.
Now, a new multipurpose strategy could one day control mosquito disease transmission as a whole. And one of the hottest frontiers in this effort is, strangely enough, Marlon Brando’s private island.
In just six months, without the use of chemical pesticides or genetic modification, researchers have freed one of the atoll’s islets from Aedes polynesiensis, an invasive mosquito species that is the vector of diseases such as dengue, chikungunya, and Zika.
It’s a simple process: Introduce certain male mosquitoes that will mate with and sterilize the wild females in a particular locale, rendering their eggs nonviable.
After a few rounds of such treatment, the population is unable to reproduce itself and collapses..."
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