thanks for your service baker
Bluebeam's coming?
kek
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/02/20/693735499/scientists-release-controversial-genetically-modified-mosquitoes-in-high-securit?t=1586307680500
Scientists Release Controversial Genetically Modified Mosquitoes In High-Security Lab
February 20, 20195:00 AM ET
Scientists have launched a major new phase in the testing of a controversial genetically modified organism: a mosquito designed to quickly spread a genetic mutation lethal to its own species, NPR has learned.
The lab was specially built to evaluate the modified insects in as close to a natural environment as possible without the risk of releasing them into the wild, about which there are deep concerns regarding unforeseen effects on the environment.
"This is an experimental technology which could have devastating impacts," says Dana Perls of Friends of the Earth, an environmental group that's part of an international coalition fighting this new generation of modified organisms.
Researchers created the mosquitoes by using the powerful new gene-editing technique known as CRISPR, which Mueller likens to a "molecular scissor which can cut at a specific site in the DNA."
The cut altered a gene known as "doublesex," which is involved in the sexual development of the mosquitoes.
"The females become a bit more male," Mueller says. "A kind of hermaphrodite."
"This is a technology where we don't know where it's going to end. We need to stop this right where it is," says Nnimmo Bassey, director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation in Nigeria. "They're trying to use Africa as a big laboratory to test risky technologies."
The experiment is a key step in the Target Malaria project. The project's major funder is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which also supports NPR and this blog.
vosshall.rockefeller.edu/pdf/23-malaria_eng.pdf