Google plans to release up to 32 million treated mosquitoes into the wild in California and Florida to combat the diseases the insects spread. The plans became known from a notification filed by the company with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Mosquitoes remain the deadliest animals on the planet and can infect people with a range of viral and other diseases, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes. Among them are West Nile fever, St. Louis encephalitis, dengue fever, Zika virus, chikungunya and yellow fever – which Google intends to fight, the New York Post (NYP) clarifies.
For this purpose, the bacterium Wolbachia pipientis wAlbB will be used – it is proposed to inject it into millions of male mosquitoes of the genus Culex quinquefasciatus in advance, and then release them into the wild.
The bacterium, according to Google, will prevent the appearance of viable offspring in females, which will lead to a decrease in the number of insects and reduce the threat of the spread of diseases. West Nile virus remains the most common mosquito-borne infection in the United States, claiming an average of 120 lives each year. According to NYP, another case of human infection was recorded in California earlier in May.
It is proposed to release mosquitoes not immediately, but in several groups over the next two years, in order to avoid an imbalance in the ecosystem. The approach will allow researchers to monitor results and adjust strategy in case of unintended consequences.
In Florida, the idea has already been evaluated at the local level. Florida Keys County Pest Control Center spokesman Chad Huff told WBNS it's great, although the technology isn't new at all.
“This can lead to population decline, and those who have tried this are doing just that—using one mosquito as a means of controlling others,” Huff said.
The channel's interlocutors among ordinary residents were divided in their opinions – Tara Nye stated that she was in favor of introducing this method if it would help reduce mortality. However, there was also a proposal to try the idea “in another state.”
Public health experts have long been exploring biological methods as an alternative to the widespread use of pesticides, writes The Garden Magazine. This project continues that work, scaling up an approach that has shown promising results in small trials in other regions.
The EPA will review public comments on the initiative until June 5, after which it may approve Google's request or deny the company.
The initiative is part of a little-known Google Debug project launched more than a decade ago to develop new technologies aimed at reducing the population of disease-carrying mosquitoes. The first successes in what the company says were “field trials” were achieved in Fresno, California, in 2018, with results later published in the journal Nature Biotechnology in 2020.
“At the height of the mosquito breeding season, the number of female mosquitoes was 95.5% lower in areas where they were released compared to areas where they were not, with a 99% reduction in the most geographically isolated area,” the study noted.
The IT giant's program is probably named after the process of finding, localizing and eliminating errors in program code – debugging. Errors in programming themselves are called the word bug, which literally translates as “bug.”
The origin of the term is connected with a real story that occurred in the middle of the 20th century. In 1947, at Harvard University, while working on the Harvard Mark II computer, engineers discovered a burnt moth between the contacts of an electromechanical relay. The insect, attracted by the light and heat of the machine, got inside and caused a short circuit, causing the device to malfunction.
