The Debug Project at Google (parent company Alphabet) aims to drastically reduce the populations of mosquitoes in California and Florida. Hooray! Debug is seeking an experimental use permit from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to release 64 million lab-grown male mosquitoes (they don't bite) that are infected with the Wolbachia bacteria over two years. The infected males breed with wild (biting and disease-carrying) females who later lay eggs that do not hatch. The result: a mosquito population crash resulting in far less risk of people acquiring mosquito-borne illnesses.
Spreading lab-grown, Wolbachia-infected male mosquitoes as a way to drastically reduce the populations of disease-carrying mosquitoes has been done successfully for many years all over the world. The result has been steep reductions in mosquito-borne illnesses in place like Northern Australia, Singapore, and Brazil.
