Mosquitoes May Meet Their End Thanks to Marlon Brando
An innovative program has nearly eradicated the insects on the late actor's private island, no pesticides or genetic engineering needed.
Every year, mosquitoes kill more humans than any other animal—including our fellow humans—due to the deadly diseases they carry, with Zika being merely the latest high-profile threat.
Now, a new multipurpose strategy could one day control mosquito disease transmission as a whole. And one of the hottest frontiers in this effort is, strangely enough, Marlon Brando’s private island.
The late actor fell in love with and secured ownership of the Polynesian atoll of Tetiaroa in 1967. Now the area is home to one of the most successful mosquito-control efforts on Earth.
In just six months, without the use of chemical pesticides or genetic modification, researchers have freed one of the atoll’s islets from Aedes polynesiensis, an invasive mosquito species that is the vector
