Google’s parent has a plan to eliminate mosquitoes worldwide

A project lead biologist speaks during an interview in the mosquito factory at the Verily Life Sciences LLC lab in South San Francisco, California, U.S., on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018. Silicon Valley researchers are attacking flying bloodsuckers in California's Fresno County. It's the first salvo in an unlikely war for Google parent Alphabet Inc.: eradicating mosquito-borne diseases around the world. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Silicon Valley researchers are attacking flying bloodsuckers in California’s Fresno County. It’s the first salvo in an unlikely war for Google parent Alphabet Inc: eradicating mosquito-borne diseases around the world. 

A white high-top Mercedes van winds its way through the suburban sprawl and strip malls as a swarm of male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes shoot out of a black plastic tube on the passenger-side window. These pests are tiny and, with a wingspan of just a few millimetres, all but invisible.