A project backed by Google’s parent company is seeking federal approval to release 32 million mosquitoes in California and Florida, all in hopes they can help eliminate others that spread deadly viruses.
That may sound like the beginning of a disaster movie, but this is far from the first time mosquitoes have been released in the U.S. A Florida Keys trial conducted by the British company Oxitec was deemed a success in 2022 and the Alphabet subsidiary, Verily, behind the new proposal, dubbed “Debug,” released one million sterile mosquitoes in California in 2017.
