Google Wants to Release 32 Million Mosquitoes in California and Florida. Here's Why

That might sound apocalyptic, but the request is part of the tech giant’s “Debug” program to eliminate disease-carrying mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes are the world’s deadliest animal. They spread malaria, dengue fever, West Nile virus, and other fatal diseases to millions of people each year. The Debug project wants to tackle this issue by releasing male mosquitoes—which don’t bite or carry disease—to stop these “bad mosquitoes,” like Aedes aegypti.

These “good” bugs will be infected with a naturally-occurring bacteria called Wolbachia that will make them sterile. When one of these males tries to mate with a “bad” female, the eggs won’t hatch. “Over time, there will be fewer and fewer bad mosquitoes,” per the program’s website.