"Of all the great hunters and predators that stalk the planet" "One has taken more human lives than any other..." "The mosquito." "It annoys us..." "It attacks us..." "and it makes us itch." "But more than that, it is an unwitting killer." "Each year." "All around the world." "700 Million people are infected with a mosquito-borne illness... 3 million of them die." "The numbers are rising and the diseases are spreading." "We are caught in a battle against the mosquito." "A race against time to learn more about this formidable foe... an enemy with a thirst for blood." "As long as people have walked the earth." "There have been mosquitoes here to plague us." "In fact." "They've been around and biting for more than 50 million years." "Today." "They carry more than one hundred diseases." "Many fatal..." "All transmitted through their simple bite." "Researchers help by studying the life and behavior of mosquito" "They can devise better strategies for dealing with it" "Perhaps the best place in the world to learn about this insect is a site with more mosquitoes per square foot than anywhere else on the planet..." "The perfect breeding spot..." "The Florida Everglades" "It's summertime..." "Hot and humid." "The height of insect season." "The mosquitoes are out in force." "Mosquito ecologist Phil Lounibos and control expert Allen Curtis are in the thick of their research." "We're on the coastal prairie trail in Flamingo." "Probable the highest populations of mosquitoes anywhere in the world." "We're experiencing something about a 500 a minute landing rate." "And being here several minutes we're probably going to blood feed five or six thousand mosquitoes in a very short period of time." "I'd say judging from the competition that I'm winning right now." "I have about 200 mosquitoes here and we've only been here thirty seconds." "This is what Florida would be like without mosquito control." "They're baring their legs to the salt Marsh mosquito..." "An insect to which doesn't carry human disease." "But is known for its fierce bite." "And for being a major pest." "For twenty years Curtis has been collecting mosquitoes in Everglades for his research." "Lounibos is here to study the habitat." "The easiest way to collect adult salt marsh mosquitoes is that they are coming to one of their preferred hosts" "And it's pretty simple to collect them off an individual standing here because the mosquitoes are drawn to Phil and the black fabric on his shoulders." "It's real easy to collect 10 or 20.000 of these mosquitoes in just a matter of minutes." "The Everglades aren't the only place" "Curtis and Lounibos search for mosquitoes." "These highly adaptable insects take advantage of almost any environment particularly those made by humans." "On nearly a million acres in Florida." "Farmers aren't just raising grapefruits and oranges..." "If you were trying to design a habitat for a mosquito." "You couldn't do any better than designing a citrus grove." "The problem here is the water table is so high that they had to protect the trees." "And that's why we put the trees upon beds." "And the furrow in the middle is where the rain water collects." "And this was a perfect man make habitat." "These furrows are full of larvae - mosquitoes in an early stage of their life cycle." "Curtis doesn't have to pay deep to collect them." "We've found that from a single flooding of a citrus grove." "It'll produce 47 pounds of mosquitoes per acre" "That equates to something like a billion mosquitoes per acre." "Whether in natural ecosystems or man-made environment." "Mosquitoes thrive in every corner of the earth... from the jungles of the Amazon to the Louisiana bayous..." "Across the plains and mountains of every continent except Antarctica" "The mosquito's ultimate survival depends on heat." "Food." "And above all." "Standing water." "Find water." "And you'll likely find the mosquito..." "Reproducing." "And evolving..." "In fact." "There are 3.500 different species of mosquitoes with about twenty more being discovered every year." "Some are black and white striped..." "Others golden brown." "Their length can range from less than a tenth of an inch to three-quarters of an inch." "Not all carry disease." "In fact." "Only ten percent do." "But all mosquitoes are members of the fly family..." "And share key character instincts" "A single pair of wings and six spindly legs" "Make this stealthy stalker highly mobile" "The mosquito lands gently." "Often imperceptibly." "And escapes by lifting up wards in almost any direction." "Covered in iridescent scales." "Its wings beat up to 600 times a second" "That's ten times as fast as a hummingbird" "Giving the mosquito its distinctive buzz" "On the hunt." "It flight is a zig-zag pattern..." "Little bursts of acceleration over short distances..." "Top speed for a mosquito is just half a mile an hour." "While most stay close to home." "Some fly as far as 15 miles over the course of their lifetime." "On average that lifetime lasts only about a week." "All mosquitoes feed on one thing for sustenance... the sugar-rich nectar of plants." "As the mosquito crawls along a plant." "Receptors on the lower section of its legs act like taste buds..." "Sensing carbohydrates..." "Leading it to nectar..." "But." "The mosquito also seeks another kind of meal" "Blood..." "Blood is mosquito's lifeline." "The bite is the sole domain of the female and species" "She bites for one reason - to reproduce." "Blood provides the critical source of protein she needs for her eggs to develop." "To help locate prey." "The female mosquito has evolved a remarkable set of detections systems." "Oversized eyes have hundreds of tiny lenses." "Motion detectors that are sensitive to the movement of prey." "Palps are short range sensors that act like a nose" "They help pick out the best spot to bite" "But it's the mosquito's antennae that may be her most useful detector" "These long range sensors hone in on body heat." "And detect chemicals like carbon dioxide and lactic acid." "That all humans and other animals emit" "All these characteristics make the female mosquito a perfect air-borne blood-seeking weapon" "And she isn't afraid to take on monsters Like us." "But before taking her first blood meal." "The female must take one important step" "She must mate." "Her distinctive wingbeat attracts a male who latches on underneath her." "For most female mosquitoes." "Mating happens only once." "It may only take a few seconds." "But she'll store enough sperm." "To fertilize one to ten batches of eggs that she'll lay in her short life..." "And add as many as 2.000 new mosquitoes to the planet." "With mating complete the female begins her hunt." "In some species." "The ever-prowling female can detect a meal as far as 100 feet away" "Landing lightly." "She quickly starts probing" "A sophisticated set of surgical tools goes into action." "They're housed in the proboscis." "Or snout" "A full third of her body length." "It's home to an entire arsenal of spears saws and bloodsucking devices." "The proboscis is covered in a protective sheath." "Inside are four tiny saws." "Two with serrated edges... each as sharp as a scalpel." "Percing her prey the mosquito cuts just a fraction of an inch deep searching for blood vessels." "The lower part of the sheath bends backwards during probing." "As she breaks through the blood vessel wall." "Her saliva trickles down a narrow tube into the site." "Two pumps in the back of her head contract and expand." "Drawing blood up the proboscis and into her gut." "This engineering feat pays off with a mere ten-thousandth of an ounce of blood" "But the female continues to drinks as much as she can" "Even while feeding she expels unneeded water by releasing tiny droplets to make room for more protein." "It's all done so lightly and quickly." "That we cannot even feel it at the time." "But the mosquito is not just taking something out..." "She's also leaving something behind... her saliva." "The deposit of this complex mix of foreign molecules triggers an allergic reaction " "But by then." "The mosquito has already escaped." "The result..." "The itching and scratching..." "Response time can vary sometimes taking only a few seconds..." "Sometimes an hour... but that tiny bump can torment you for days." "At the United States' national institutes of health." "Ribeiro investigates the critical role saliva plays in the success of the mosquito's bite." "We only know about 4 or 5 different components of the saliva of mosquitoes." "Some of them interfere with the immunity system." "They design all the molecules." "They are indicators of the injuries inside of the bite." "And this is possible because of what they have in their saliva." "Mosquito saliva contains a storehouse of chemical weapons" "That block our body's defenses against intrusion." "There are proteins that keep our blood vessels from closing as the mosquito feeds;" "Others prevent the flood from clotting so that it flows freely into the mosquito." "Ribeiro has been studying saliva for 20 years." "Earning him the nick-name dr." "Spit." "But he's still trying to identify the exact chemical make-up of this key ingredient" "It's a challenge to get saliva from a mosquito." "The glands are measured in microns and embedded deep inside the chest." "Pull the head off..." "When you remove the head." "The glands pop out too." "Oh." "This is beautiful." "Just protruding from the head there are two pairs there." "They both came out very nicely." "Ribeiro and his assistants will have to do this 1000times..." "To harvest enough glands to get one milligram of saliva." "All for a single experiment." "His team has isolated only four of the 20 or so key proteins in the saliva." "But Ribeiro may be getting closer to the heart of a bigger mystery..." "While saliva is critical for feeding." "It also is the conduit which passes disease from one person to another." "The mosquito is a vector a carrier of disease." "When the mosquito bites." "It may get more than just blood." "If the person has a transmittable illness." "The mosquito may take in the disease-causing agent too." "When mosquitoes hatch." "They don't have a little backpack of viruses that come with them hatching." "They have to pick up that disease from either some animal or another human that has that disease or parasite to be able to transmit it." "These malaria parasites can be seen by dissecting the stomach of an infected mosquito." "Magnifying the stomach a thousand times." "The parasites appear as orange circles" "The black lines are part of the mosquito's respiratory system." "Malaria parasites remain in the stomach wall for ten days" "On the tenth day." "They migrate to the salivary glands." "Most mosquitoes are not affected by the parasite" "It simply waits for an opportunity to invade another human." "So how can a virus get out of the mosquito and get into another person?" "They can go out by invading the gut of the mosquito and then invading the salivary glands and when the mosquito starts feeding on a person " "Not even starts feeding." "Just lands and starts a bite - It's getting back into us." "Malaria." "Encephalitis." "Yellow fever." "And dengue " "All use the mosquito as an intermediate host" "Probably the number one killer of everyone in the world is malaria." "It kills more than any other disease you can think of" "And it is transmitted by mosquitoes." "Back in the days of ancient Greece and Rome." "Many suffered from this illness they associated with the swamps." "Over the centuries." "Malaria epidemics raged across the continent of Europe... reaching as far north as Sweden." "Today. 90 percent of all malaria victims live in Africa where 500 million acute cases are reported annually." "There is no total immunity for the disease." "Kenyan microbiologist Fred Oduol knows the ravages of the parasite he's fighting" "He has been stricken by malaria six times." "You start off feeling feverish." "Where you have bouts of sweating." "And then the temperature goes down again" "And you get your joints very weak." "And you have discomfort like in the stomach..." "Vomiting." "Headaches." "And at times you even get hallucinations" "And at that point is when you really feel like maybe you're going to die." "Every year." "Mainly in tropical regions of the world." "Malaria kills more than two million people." "Most of the victims are children." "Because their immune systems aren't strong enough to fight it off." "Transmission is only getting worse as more and more mosquitoes are born..." "Mosquitoes are probably one of the most explosive insects..." "Maybe even animals that you'll ever encounter 6 or 7 days ago you would not see a single mosquito." "A single larvae." "You get a rainfall and all of a sudden there are literally billions of mosquitoes here all at once." "For all of them." "Life begins the same way." "After a blood meal." "The female's eggs begin to develop." "When her stomach turns white." "She lays her eggs." "As she deposits them." "Each is fertilized by the sperm she's stored." "She'll lay 30 to 500 eggs in a single batch..." "Different species have different strategies for egg-lay" "But all of them depend on water to complete the process." "Some lay their eggs one at a time in different sites just above the water's edge." "Others." "Like the Mansonia mosquito." "Lay their eggs clumped together under the water." "In tropical regions throughout the world the Mansonia makes its home in the water lettuce plant." "Putting her abdomen beneath the water's surface." "She deposits a series of eggs on the underside of the leaf..." "But large tracks of water aren't the only place mosquitoes living and reproduce." "In rainforests and woodlands" "Many species take advantage of tree holes that collect rainwater." "We can have small tree holes that may only hold milliliters of water that only provide enough space for five or ten mosquitoes" "And then others that will have gallons and gallons of water" "And can produce thousands of mosquitoes at a time." "So one of the things that's fascinating about tree holes is" "When you've seen one tree hole." "You aren't seen them all." "What they all have in common is nutrient rich water and a dark protective refuge to support generation after generation of tree-hole mosquitoes." "Mosquitoes also take advantage of water that collects high off the ground in bromeliads." "All it takes is a single ounce of standing water to house the mosquito young." "Many species of mosquito even lethal vectors - have adapted to an artificial type of tree holes..." "One such invader was first discovered in North America in 1984" "After hitching a ride in a shipment of rubber tires from Southeast Asia." "It's known as the Asian tiger mosquito." "A serious carrier for dengue in that part of the world." "This is as close to nirvana as a container mosquito like the Asian Tiger can find." "These rubber tires which fill up with water are perhaps the best of all containers in a junk yard like this." "But used radiators." "Hubcaps." "You name it." "Whatever will hold water here after the rain." "We will find mosquitoes in it." "Here in North America the Asian tiger does not yet carry disease." "But at the rate it's breeding and coming in contact with humans." "Scientists believe one day it will." "Who knows how many eggs were in the initial shipment of tires." "It could have been 20 or 30 but it rapidly expanded beyond the point that any mosquito eradication efforts were hopeless." "Wherever these eggs are laid." "Tree holes." "Potholes." "Or rubber tires." "The growth process for all mosquitoes is the same" "In just one hour the outer shell of each egg hardens and darkens..." "Then during the next rain a transformation take's place." "The eggs hatch masse in a chemical response to submersion mosquito larvae struggling free of their shells." "Larvae instinctively swim to the surface" "They breathe air through snorkel-like tubes." "As they siphon microscopic particles of food into their moths below..." "For many mosquitoes." "This will be the longest stage of their lives." "Lasting anywhere from a few days to a few months." "But a metamorphosis is coming." "The new form." "Called the pupa." "Will push out of the larval case." "As two small breathing trumpets sprout from its head." "The old skin is shed..." "And the pupa springs to the surface to breathe." "For two to three days." "The pupa seems inactive." "It doesn't eat In fact." "It doesn't even appear to move." "But inside the case." "The pupa is using all its energy to become different organism" "A creature with wings and legs and newly developed organs - an adult mosquito." "Its head rises from below the water's surface." "It shakes off the pupa case..." "About ten minutes later." "It has emerged." "Finally free of its underwater realm." "A wobbly but fully-formed mosquito." "For its first act - it walks on water." "An hour later." "After it darkens and dries." "The mosquito takes flight." "In search of its first nectar meal..." "This cycle is repeated on average every ten days..." "That's 50 new generations of mosquito in a single year." "With such a high reproduction rate." "It's not surprising that we have difficulty in controlling them." "The war against the mosquito was often led by real military forces and is being marked by a series of victories and defeats" "One key win came about during the construction of the Panama Canal" "The French began the project in 1881." "And right from the start." "Yellow fever outbreak took the lives of many workers." "Within eight years." "The workforce was so decimated" "That France was forced to abandon the project... surrendering to the disease that had claimed more than 20.000 lives." "A decade later." "Americans faced the same deadly threat." "But a team of scientists made a break-through discovery at the end of the 19th century..." "Yellow fever was spread by Aedes Agypti a mosquito which bred in standing water near peoples homes." "One scientist was major William Gorgas." "He led the U.S. Effort to get rid of yellow fever by eliminating the mosquitoes' breeding sites." "His teams drained ditches and emptied water-filled containers." "With the disease in check." "Construction of the canal moved forward and was completed in 1914." "While the battle against the yellow fever mosquito was successful." "There were many other species with diseases." "Yet to be fought" "During world war II." "In Asia and the south pacific." "Soldiers ran the risk of more than enemy bullets." "As malaria took thousands of lives." "Training films used humor to put soldiers on guard against the "invisible enemy."" "The mosquito was another kind of dive bomber." "The U.S. Military began intensive research well-beyond the mosquito net to fend off the mosquito." "They discovered the repellent called DEET." "Di-Ethyl-Tolamide" "Soon after world war two." "It found its way into commercial use..." "Now you get in the irritating misery of mosquito's bites with "off" insect repellent." "Today people spend millions of dollars each year to keep the female mosquito at bay." "While repellent are effective." "Researches continues." "At the Walter reed army institute for research in Washington D. C..." "Scientists are worried that some malaria mosquitoes are no longer repelled by the dest compound." "Using human blood for testing." "The search continues for a better and even longer-lasting defender." "Initially each pool of blood is coated with a different concentration of the compound being tested." "The blood pools are then exposed to hungry females mosquitoes" "Repellents work by confusing." "Or disrupting the mosquitoes' chemical detection system effectively blinding them to the presence of a blood meal." "By observing which concentration of repellent works best." "Researchers will determine whether the chemical is a break through or a bust." "If the repellent is successful." "It will advance to the final stage of testing." "Major Mustapha Debboun." "Chief of the institute's repellent research." "Demonstrates the process" "This is the current standard military repellent we use in the system." "It's a 30 percent DEET active ingredient" "One arm is treated with repellent." "The other is not." "Small plastic boxes full of hungry mosquitoes are strapped to the major's arms..." "When the covers are opened." "The mosquitoes are face to face with their potential blood meal." "On the arm with repellent." "The mosquitoes are not biting." "The mosquitoes right now are trying to move away from the repellent." "The vapors that are coming out." "They're trying to get away from it." "And that's what's going on when you see right there in the box." "In the cage." "As opposed to the one over here " "Every circle there you can find at least two or three mosquitoes biting" "And there are like 15 in this cage." "Right now they're so happy because they are getting a blood meal to produce some eggs." "While DEET may be the best current answer to avoid being bitten than prevent diseases from spraying." "It's not the long-term solution other attempts ended wiping out the mosquito all altogether" "Perhaps the biggest breakthrough came in the 1940's." "It was a chemical..." "Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloro-Ethane..." "DDT." "First tested in World War II." "This insecticide became the atomic bomb in the battle against bugs." "For decades." "Its use was widespread..." "from Europe to Latin America." "By the 1950's DDT had helped to end mosquito-borne disease in many industrialized nations" "Unfortunately." "It attacked more than just mosquitoes." "DDT entered the food chain." "Causing harm to birds of prey and other animals threatening some with extinction." "To make matters worse." "Some mosquitoes fought back by adapting to their chemical killer." "It was the only pesticide available not only for mosquitoes but for roaches." "Fleas." "And anything else you can think of." "We really didn't know anything about resistance." "And within a short period of time." "Mosquitoes were able to develop resistance to DDT to the point where it was absolutely useless against them..." "New chemicals were created..." "But again and again." "The mosquito would rebound." "The tide began to turn in the 1950's." "And continues in modern societies." "The shift was based on a simple lifestyle change." "We don't live outside." "We have screened houses." "We have air conditioning..." "Perhaps we barbecue once a week." "But much of the week." "We're sitting in our offices." "The whole equation has been tilted away from the probability of transmission." "With fewer people getting infected." "The rate of transmission dropped so low that the parasites eventually died out." "The mosquitoes that carry disease are still around." "The diseases themselves are not." "However in most of the developing world." "Mosquito-borne illnesses never really went away." "The U.S. Center for disease control in Atlanta" "Has sent a team to the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico" "To monitor outbreaks of a dengue fever" "In Puerto Rico." "As in many tropical regions where an ocean breeze is welcome..." "Air conditioning and window screens aren't common." "So the mosquito has easy access to human prey." "It breeds in their backyards." "Rests in their homes and feeds on their flesh." "CDC entomologist Paul Reiter and his research colleague Manuel Amador have devised an experiment for tracking the mosquito in an effort to understand how it spreads disease." "They start with a homemade mosquito buster." "House by house." "Room by room." "What it does give us is an idea of the number of adult mosquitoes that there are per person." "Per house." "And they say we have also done studies in which we've looked for virus in these mosquitoes." "And so we get and idea of what proportion of the mosquito population is actually carrying virus." "Back at the lab." "Amador carefully transfers the captured females..." "Next." "He prepares a blood meal." "But this blood is laced with a rare chemical called rubidium chloride" "Although harmless." "It will be absorbed into the mosquitoes' eggs providing the scientists with a chemical marker." "After they've finished feeding." "The mosquitoes will be released back into the neighborhood where they were collected" "Containers filled with water are placed every yard within a half-mile radius of the initial release point." "The chemically marked mosquitoes will travel in search of egg-laying sites... depositing eggs one at a time in many different places." "Including these containers." "Ten days later." "After collecting the traps." "Amador carefully scrapes the eggs from the paper of each container to test for rubidium." "The eggs are mixed into a solution and burned in a chromatogram which determines the presence of particular elements by the color of the flame." "The peak on this screen indicates that rubidium is present in the eggs" "In just over a ten-days." "The mosquitoes spread throughout this San Juan neighborhood." "Depositing eggs." "Traveling much farther and biting more often than anyone has expected" "The general assumption when we began this work was that the mosquito didn't travel more than 50 yards in its entire lifetime." "What we have found in our work is that the mosquito may range over a square mile or so." "To us this is quite surprising." "Not so much the distance." "Because these insects are very well equipped to fly distances." "But because the mosquitoes disperse in all directions..." "If a mosquito is looking to lay her eggs and is carrying a virus." "Then she's spreading the virus to many people." "There is no telling where she'll get to." "It's no wonder mosquito-borne epidemics spread so quickly." "In fact." "Dengue fever has reached epidemic proportions in Puerto Rico." "Roughly 20.000 cases each year." "Even Reiter himself has felt this pain" "It's a horrible disease." "You have terrible aches and pains." "Retro-orbital pain is what I read in the literature." "I knew it when I had it." "Retro." "Behind the eyes pain." "Of course." "Everybody has a different set of symptoms." "But most generally." "There's high fever." "In my case the fever lasted for eight days." "People always try and describe it." "But it's like trying to describe what it's like to be in a hurricane" "You can't imagine what it's like unless you have it." "Reiter knows that dengue fever can threat almost every backyard in San Juan" "Standing water is all the dengue mosquito needs." "Anything that accumulates water in a container." "Whether it's a bottle." "Or a bucket." "Or maybe a child's toy." "Anything that will accumulate water and maybe a little bit of leaf material to provide nutrition is an attractive artificial tree hole for the female Aedes agypti." "Fumigation is the typical defense attack in Puerto Rico" "But insecticides rarely reach the adult female mosquitoes." "Who are usually resting indoors." "People have been conditioned for so many years that the response to dengue cases is Fumigation." "That they feel that is the answer." "Unfortunately." "It's not." "The simple answer is to get rid of the breeding sites." "But unfortunately." "It's not that easy to persuade people to do that." "In southern Florida mosquitoes are no longer a major carrier of disease." "But they continue to be a serious pest." "Control teams are using a technique known as impoundment to help." "All of these salt marshes." "There's an earthen dike that's put around the outside of the salt marsh" "And in the winter time we let the marsh go dry." "And then in the summer time." "We fill it up with water." "Only to a certain level." "And what that does is it denies the female salt marsh mosquito a place to lay her eggs." "It's a very effective physical method that does not impact the marshes severely." "And it really limits the amount of pesticides that we actually have to use." "Where impoundment isn't possible." "Curtis sends out a team with a new biological weapon." "Spray guns loaded with a synthetic hormone." "Attack the mosquito in the larval stage." "Larger areas are treated by airplanes which drop corn kernels laced with a lethal bacterium." "One of the materials we use is a juvenile hormone that interrupts the developmental cycle of the mosquitoes." "It's very specific for mosquitoes." "All insects as they are growing up have a whole set of hormones that they use to trigger them to go into a next stage." "And the material that we are using tricks them and it makes them think they are teenagers for pretty much all their lives." "It's overloading with his juvenile hormone." "And when it pupa it stays in the pupal stage." "And then never develop any further anymore." "Very effective material." "It's very safe." "It's one of the few materials that we can actually put into potable water around the world and it can be consumed by humans." "In all of these control methods." "Speed is critical." "We only have about a three-day window from when the egg hatches until we hit the pupal stage." "We're very much like a fire department." "We may sit around and not have a lot to do for a few days." "But then when we get a rain or a high tide that comes into a salt marsh like this." "The field crew has to really work fast." "If an outbreak does occur and adult mosquitoes invade neighborhoods." "Then a last resort comes into play... spraying with insecticide to kill the adults." "But it isn't very effective " "Because it only works when adult mosquitoes come into direct contact with the airborne mist." "Some scientists are looking for alternatives to chemicals and other synthetic weaponry." "Natural predators may be one solution." "At the John A. Muhlrennan Lab along Florida's gulf coast." "Entomologist Eric Schreiber is testing one such predator on a local population of mosquitoes." "This is a typical mosquito lab here." "We raise two different species of the mosquito we're interested in." "And we're interested in trying to work on non-chemical ways of controlling them." "They're also raising a microscopic predatory creature that eats mosquito larvae." "It's called the copepod..." "The copepods that we study here crustaceans." "Meaning that they're related to the crabs." "The shrimp." "And the crayfish." "And what they do is they will feed on eggs and the hatching larvae in the container habitats such as tires." "And different containers people have in their backyard." "And they just go ahead." "Pounce right on them and munch them down" "Copepods may be lethal to mosquitoes." "But they're not harmful to the environment in any way." "Schreiber loads them into sprayers and heads out into the woods near the lab." "He's placed a pile of old tires on the ground to test the effectiveness of the copepods in a realistic environment." "You put material inside these containers the copepods in it they'll eat the developing larvae." "As you can see if I just disturb some of these tires right now." "There're quite a few mosquitoes actually flying around." "You come out here." "This is labor intensive." "But you only have to treat it once." "If you use the chemical treatment you'd have to come out and treat every 5 to 7 days." "Today." "Despite all the latest methods." "Better understanding and new control programs." "Mosquito-borne illnesses are still on the rise... in a hundred nations..." "from Brazil to Burundi." "And all the way across the Indian subcontinent." "Scientists battling malaria are especially concerned." "Molecular biologist ken Vernick has been charting its spread." "Malaria transmission is really exploding in the world now." "Transmission is out of control." "Insecticides that were once effective against the mosquito vector." "Now no longer work." "The vectors are resistant." "Drugs that used to be effective to treat people now no longer are effective." "There's a region in Southeast Asia where there's a new parasite that in fact does not respond to any drug that we have." "With no clear solution in sight." "The world health organization predicts that the rate of malaria will increase globally more than 15 percent in the next few years alone." "At New York University's school of medicine." "Vernick and his team are working on one radical option for combating this growing killer." "We're facing a public health disaster." "And the tools that we have to deal with this are inadequate." "So now." "In the last ten." "Fifteen years there are new molecular tools that have been generated by the growth of molecular and cell biology." "And there are possibilities that we didn't have before." "Vernick intends to change the very DNA of the mosquito." "His quest to build a better mosquito A genetically altered insect... one that would kill the malaria parasite before it ever has a chance to spread to humans." "It's called the transgenic mosquito." "Fred Oduol is working with Vernick to isolate the genes that may hold the key." "So a transgenic mosquito is a mosquito that we are able to put in a gene which we think would be beneficial for killing or interrupting the transmission cycle of the parasite." "The key to the team's success already exists in nature." "The ones that we're interested in are those few that do not become infected." "What we're doing is looking at the genetic basis of their ability to block the development of malaria parasites." "And we want to identify the gene or genes that control that blockade of parasite development." "There are two types of resistant mosquitoes." "The black spot is the dead parasite inside the mosquito's gut." "In this case." "The mosquito's immune system surrounds the malaria parasite with a chemical coating and suffocates it." "Here the parasites are literally dissolved." "The gut returns to its normal healthy state." "By identify the genes that trigger the resistance in these mosquitoes." "The team hopes to control the spread of the disease." "I'd like to understand how does this mosquito recognize when the parasite is already within the cell?" "And how this gene is turned on and eventually what it is that kills the parasite." "A mosquito has 20.000 genes." "So identifying the ones that resist and attack malaria is like finding a needle in a haystack." "Even if they succeed." "Scientists will still face the challenge of breeding transgenic mosquitoes in the wild so that the trait will pass down from one generation to the next." "Eventually replacing the mosquito that carries malaria." "It may be many years before the team can create that "perfect" transgenic mosquito..." "But it's a race against time..." "Because although the mosquito is less than one millionth our size..." "As it ensures its survival..." "It endangers our own."