Google is planning to release a total of 96 million mosquitos infected with Wolbachia pipientis bacteria across the three states of New Jersey, California and Florida between 2026 - 2028.
Now at first this may seem bizarre, why would anyone do such a thing. But the reality is strangely different.
Mosquitos kill more humans than any other creature on the planet. Every year they spread dangerous diseases like malaria, dengue, yellow fever and many more. What makes this even worse is mosquitos are now developing resistance against traditional pesticides.
So to counter this, Google plans to release male mosquitos infected with Wolbachia bacteria, a naturally occurring bacteria already present in many insect species. The plan is simple, these mosquitos will mate with wild female mosquitos. But since they carry this bacteria, when the female lays eggs they simply won't hatch, nothing develops in them. This gradually leads to less and less mosquitos over time.
Now this is not something new, Singapore has been doing the same since 2018. They release 10 million Wolbachia mosquitos every week and this has led to a significant decline in the mosquito population and a 70 percent reduction in dengue cases.
The EPA approval for this project is still pending and if it gets approved the mosquitos in these states may finally meet their match.