Corporate scientists have received final approval from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to release hundreds of millions of genetically altered mosquitoes into the Florida Keys. The goal? To begin reining in the mosquito population, which is only expected to increase as climate change continues to warm and flood the low-lying, tropical Keys. But some environmental groups object strongly to the move.

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Heres how the plan is designed to work: Local officials want to use these neobugs as an alternative to insecticides. The genetic modification, which is a common one being explored by scientists around the world, involves making female larvaeresponsible for laying eggsdie off very young before they can reproduce.

Male mosquitoes spread the gene, and in practice, this means any males spend their, uh, best years passing around a population-reducing time bomb. By generations, the population continues to dwindle.

But does this plan actually work?

While it's hard to find coverage of these events that arent from groups that lobby against genetically modified organisms, that doesnt necessarily mean these groups are wrong. In 2019, a controlled release in Brazil made news around the world when the genetically modified mosquitoes not only lived into fruitful adulthood, but began interbreeding and maybe even strengthening the local mosquito populations. That was a few years after a promising release killed 95 percent of problematic mosquitoes in a Brazilian trial.

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This has led to accusations that biotech firms that plan these events have taken the wrong lesson, to say the very least, from genetic engineering cautionary tales like Jurassic Park. Scientists continue to research ways to self-limit insects using genes, like invasive moths that destroy crops and are resistant to existing chemical technology. With mosquitoes, the stakes are even higher because of the diseases they carry.

Discussing evolution and genetics can end up assigning agency in a strange wayas though an animal chooses something to become, or that the environment chooses which organisms will survive. Whats interesting about breeding self-limiting pests is that a naturally occurring organisms with a gene like this would rapidly die out. Theres no way to breed a natural population the way you might breed flowers of a certain color or a new designer cat breed.

Sponsoring organization Oxitec has focused on the positives of a project like this, and indeed, mosquitoes are gigantic pests that cause almost unfathomable disease spread around the world. Theyre such a bane that people freely suggest wiping them all the way out, which isnt the panacea it sounds like due to, again, those pesky unforeseen environmental consequences.

The Oxitec experiment has gone through layers of approval, from local all the way up to the EPA. Oxitec must notify state officials 72 hours before releasing the mosquitoes and conduct ongoing tests for at least 10 weeks to ensure none of the female mosquitoes reach adulthood, CNN reports.

Please also let us know if anyone sneaks in or out with a suspicious Barbisol can.

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Release 750 Million Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Into the Wild, They Said - Popular Mechanics

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