Steve Whyard and colleagues have developed a sterile insect technique that uses double stranded RNA to target the testis gene and female sex determinant gene (doublesex) to induce male sterility, stop female development and consequently suppress mosquito populations.
Research published by Mains and colleagues in PLoS NTD explores a new method for auto-dissemination of insecticides, employing the male Aedes albopictus mosquito. This new method could potentially help reduce the burden of dengue, malaria and other mosquito-transmitted diseases.
Chronic low-level malaria infection has been shown to affect the Darwinian fitness of great reed warblers by shortening their life span, and that of their offspring, as a result of shortening of chromosome telomeres.