http://www.physorg.com/news103886541.html

Articles like this always make me think about the law of unintended consequences.

Oh, be carefully what you wish for... Disease like everything else in evolutionary structure is designed to over come obstacles. One way or the other it will. Breed an insect with no possibility of spreading illness, my friends, they, like us are not designed to sit and soak up the sun all day. We all have places to go...

They don't have any disease but they will be 3 feet long and still bite.

Yeah, we are playing with genes to see what might happen. There is that saying 'curiosity killed the cat'. Sure we change the Mosquito, see if it works, hopefully it does as malaria is no fun. What we can't guarantee though, is that the gene modification won't mutate again or bring some unwanted effect into the mosquito's life cycle.

I agree that it's good to be cautious, particularly with modifications to the germ line of an organism, but I'm very disappointed that when pointed out a possible breakthrough of astounding proportions, one that has the potential to pull _millions_ of people out of misery and death, and all you can think is 'oh, that might be risky'. Well, why not? you are quite comfortable, presumably, sitting in from of your computer with all the comforts of the modern world, with the blood, pain and death of these diseases a distant news story. Why risk rocking the boat when you, personally, have it really good? Cowards.

Cowards are not the ones who have to pay the price for arrogance. By the time it hits the fan, they have long run for the exits. But you can't accomplish anything worth while by being afraid to try, just don't forget to were your helmet.

Adriaan, the thing here being gene modification, as for myself i say let's try it. Malaria is a nasty disease but, we don't want to do something that will be the mosquitoes demise, they are part of this Earth and also part of the food chain. In a way you're right, i'm feeling distinctively distrustful of the research and the moral of those doing gene research. As it's now nobody knows what effects gene modification on a large scale can have, how the animals being modified will survive or mutate further on, it is one thing if the effects are reversible, but when hard coding it like those people are trying to do that won't happen if they get it right. That we can identify the genes doesn't mean we understand them and even less their interaction in living organisms.