In the article that I read it talked about how scientists at Michigan State have found a new bacteria that could eliminate malaria from mosquito populations. It's called wolbachia, it started out as a way to stop dengue fever, and now its being used to infect mosquitoes, so that that generation becomes malaria free, along with the next generation and so on. Malaria was 100 percent eliminated throughout the first 34 generations of mosquitoes that they tested it on so wolbachia has proved that it can work in a lab. This could help people greatly because of the economical factor, most places where malaria is prominent are poor, and they will now not have to get an expensive vaccine if the wolbachia bacteria works.
Link:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130509142106.htm
NOS Themes:
1) Science is collaborative - many scientists from Michigan State worked on this bacteria until they were satisfied with their results.
2) Role of Chance - The scientists are hoping that the mosquitoes in the real world will react like the mosquitoes in the lab and lose their malaria carrying capabilities.
3) Importance of repeatability - The scientists repeated this 34 times on different generations.
I found this article to be interesting, so I decided to do more research on Wolbachia. I found that they are one of the most common bacterial endosymbionts (a bacteria that lives in another organism) on the planet. They also play a large role in cytoplasmic incompatibility, which, from what I understand, is just not being able to fertilize an egg.
ReplyDeletehttp://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/wolbachia/index.html
I found another substance that is killing the malaria disease from mosquitoes. Mosquitoes have a substance in their guts that makes them immune to malaria, and this substance could be used to kill the disease. Both these methods would help the areas heavily infested with malaria and save a lot of lives.
ReplyDeletehttp://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/13#.UYxRibWsiSo