Trans mosquitoes are real. Yup, you heard that right!
Scientists have genetically modified female mosquitoes to grow a male proboscis–the needle-like mouth–so they can’t suck your blood. Only female mosquitoes have a sharp enough proboscis to puncture human skin and in an effort to fight malaria, they took that ability out of the gene pool.
“Using the CRISPR technique, it’s possible to genetically modify mosquitoes by disabling a gene in females, so that their proboscis turns male, making them unable to pierce human skin,” @Rainmaker1973 explained on X.
Using the CRISPR technique, it’s possible to genetically modify mosquitoes by disabling a gene in females, so that their proboscis turns male, making them unable to pierce human skin.pic.twitter.com/bpsQp1oKjw
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 5, 2024
It looks a little pitiful for the mosquito trying to erect it’s flaccid proboscis. It might even be gender dysphoric for the little trans mosquito, if they had the ability to conceptualize such a thing.
Nature has always been queer, from gay penguins, to polyamorous flamingos, to intersex birds, and now trans mosquitoes. It just goes to show that diversity in gender and sexuality is normal. Mother Nature doesn’t discriminate, and we should be taking notes.
But the main goal for these scientists is to use Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR), a gene editing technology, to fight malaria, a deadly disease that kills more than 600k people per year. According to a 2018 study published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, using CRISPR on female mosquitoes not only stops their ability to spread malaria, but it also messes with their ability to reproduce causing a “total population collapse.” Meaning that within 7 – 11 generations, mosquitoes could become obsolete.
However, it’s not a guarantee. There are still a lot of genetic factors researchers have to consider when tackling this problem. Editing the genes of mosquitoes is just one of several ways that scientists are using CRISPR to curb the spread of malaria. Another way, published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers propose a method that would prevent mosquitoes from getting malaria in the first place.
The research looks promising. Hopefully in the future someday, we’ll live in a world free of malaria.
Image from UnSplash
This post was originally published on here
