MALARIA HOPE
With the advent of DDT in 1939, scientists foresaw an end to malaria. They were wrong. Though the insecticide had a huge impact, the malaria-carrying Anopheles mosquito became resistant to DDT, as it has to subsequent insecticides. The world's malaria count now stands at a record 400 million cases. But there is a new hope. University of California, Riverside, Entomologists Brian Federici and Mir Mulla have developed a high-power insecticide from Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (or BTI), a type of bacteria that is lethal to mosquitoes in nature. Unlike DDT, it is environmentally safe, and mosquitoes show no signs of...
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