Gizmorama - July 30, 2014

Good Morning,

A biotech company plans on raising millions of genetically modified mosquitos with the hopes of curbing the spread of dengue fever. Before they go through with this maybe this company needs to get on Netflix and watch Guillermo del Toro's 'Mimic'.

Learn about this and more interesting stories from the cientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- Elephant's nose better at smelling than all other mammals --*
TOKYO (UPI) - Humans don't usually think of the ability to smell as an important survival tool -- just a way to tell if the garbage needs to be taken out. But mammals use their noses for all kinds of vital activities: finding food, determining whether food is safe to eat (or rotten), locating mates, avoiding predators and so on.

And among mammals, nobody has a better sense of smell than an elephant. Researchers have known elephants possess some serious sniffing skills, but only recently did they nail down some hard evidence of the animal's superiority. The ability to differentiate between lots of different smells is determined by how many olfactory receptors are found in an organism's genome.

A group of researchers led by Yoshihito Niimura, a molecular evolutionist at the University of Tokyo, analyzed the olfactory genes of 13 mammalian species. The African elephant, with 2,000 receptors, had the most -- double the amount dogs have, and five times as many as humans.

Their analysis was also able to isolate older more stable genes and others that have evolved over time, spawning new genes specific to the African elephant's environment.

The findings lend credence to an array of previous research heralding the keen noses of African elephants. One study showed the species could differentiate between two ethnic groups in Kenya, the Maasai and the Kamba.

"Maasai men spear elephants to show their virility, while Kamba people are agricultural and give little threat to them; therefore, elephants are afraid of Maasai men," said Niimura, lead author of the new study, published this week online in the journal Genome Research.

As to why the elephant has developed such an impressive sense of smell, Niimura thinks part of the reason is that the animal's nose is essentially its first point of contact with the surrounding world -- it is its hand.

"Imagine having a nose on the palm of your hand," he said. "Every time you touch something, you smell it!"


*-- Brazil to release millions of GM-mosquitos to fight dengue --*
CAMPINAS, Brazil (UPI) - Next week, the biotech company Oxitec, based in Abingdon, England, will begin raising millions of genetically modified mosquitos at a new factory in Campinas, Brazil. The objective: curb the spread of dengue fever.

These new GM-mosquitos won't target dengue specifically, only other mosquitos -- the main vehicle by which the virus travels. These Franken-bugs will mate with females; but their defective sperm will produce offspring that won't make it too adulthood. The logic goes: by slowing rates of mosquito reproduction, there will be less mosquitos and, eventually, less dengue.

But scientists aren't really sure whether it will work.

Margareth Capurro, a researcher at the University of São Paulo, recently completed a small trial study in Jacobina. Her official report is forthcoming, but she said initial data showed that the GM-mosquitos precipitated a massive drop in the number mosquito eggs. However, that decrease failed to translate to any reduction in incidents of dengue. Capurro said it may be that the trial was too small to affect the disease.

Predictably, Oxitec is still confident in the strategy's promise.

"In every trial we've demonstrated excellent control of the dengue mosquito in an urban setting," said Hadyn Parry, spokesperson for Oxitec.

Only time -- and a larger set of trial data -- will tell whether the technique works. And even if it does, the question remains: will it be cost effective? Raising and releasing GM-mosquitos is expensive, and because they can't pass on their debilitating genetic traits, they must be rereleased every year.

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