Mosquitoes specially bred to pass a death gene to their offspring could wipe out one of the world's most debilitating diseases, according to British scientists.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-New ... 0712?f=rss

Cool, but I'm kinda wondering about any potential effects in the environment (in every sense) later on

I heard they were first developed to kill Jews using genetically targeted viruses, but I forget the details...

Apparently they will have little impact as their offspring die as larva. The trick is to swarm the wild population so massively that wild male mosquitos do not get the opportunities to breed so die out. It reduces the population and then with further releases they can wipe out local populations reducing the disease significantly over a few years.

Next lets hope that they can deal with malaria.

Fringe?

Bratty?

Do mosquitoes actually sevre a purpose? Flys help in the decomposition of dead animals etc. but mosquitoes as far as I can tell are just parasites, would any ecosystem be worse off without them?

I live with at least 5 types of mosquito, the most recent seen only a few days ago. It's a big bugger of a thing, with stripes that make it look like a tiger, it causes a massive swelling approx. 5cm as opposed to almost every other type causing 1cm max. I'll try to get a macro shot of one just so you can see what I have to put up with.