This sounded especially bad when I first heard about it on TV news this morning. The talking head said that the GM mosquitoes live longer and breed faster than natural mosquitoes. According to the linked article, the GM mosquitoes live longer and lay more eggs than their natural counterparts after being fed infected blood only — not when feasting on healthy blood. So, it's not as bad as I first thought (ZOMG! We're going to be overrun by super mosquitoes!), but the prospect of releasing human-engineered mosquitoes into nature is still pretty frightening.
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misleading TV coverage
This sounded especially bad when I first heard about it on TV news this morning. The talking head said that the GM mosquitoes live longer and breed faster than natural mosquitoes. According to the linked article, the GM mosquitoes live longer and lay more eggs than their natural counterparts after being fed infected blood only — not when feasting on healthy blood. So, it's not as bad as I first thought (ZOMG! We're going to be overrun by super mosquitoes!), but the prospect of releasing human-engineered mosquitoes into nature is still pretty frightening.