比尔・盖茨斥资400万美元研发“杀手蚊”
Microsoft founder Bill Gates is pouring $4 million into a project to create killer mosquitoes that destroy each other through sex.
微软创始人比尔·盖茨将投资400万美元（约合2654万元人民币），用以培育能够在交配中杀死对方的“杀手蚊”。
It's a bold bid to curb malaria, a deadly disease typically transmitted through the bite of infected mosquitoes.
Tech mogul Gates will use funds from his own charity organization - the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - to eradicate malaria "within a generation."
The plan is to create genetically modified male mosquitoes that mate with their female counterparts in the wild.
Only female mosquitoes bite, so Gates' army of gene-engineered male mosquitoes would be safe to humans.
What's important is that these male mosquitoes contain a self-limiting gene that gets passed onto female mates.
When the females give birth, their offspring will die before adulthood thanks to the gene.
Mosquitoes only start biting people once they're adults, so given enough time, the danger of blood-sucking female mosquitoes could be eradicated.
This means it would be possible to stem the spread of malaria through mosquito bites.