The Hello, welcome to this week's naked scientists with me, Chris Smith and also with

Hannah Crichlo. This week genetically modified mosquitoes to halt malaria, a radiation shield for

space travelers and the computer program that's convinced people they're

really talking to a human. Plus, this week marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Alois-Alois-Altois-Altsimer.

We'll be finding out more about the disease that he gave his name to,

and playing a new computer game that's meant to teach teenagers

about the biology behind the condition.

The The insistent buzz of mosquitoes isn't just an annoying sound when you're trying to sleep on a summer night.

In countries affected by the malaria parasite, which is spread by mosquito bites, it could be deadly.

For years, people have been trying to wipe out malaria by using insecticides to control mosquito populations,

but they can develop resistance to the chemicals.

And the disease still kills hundreds of thousands of people around the world every year.

Now scientists at Imperial College London have genetically engineered

mosquitoes so that they can only produce male offspring and that's important because it's

the females that bite and spread disease.

Katani went to see Nick alive in Bickler who led the research to find out how changing the

ratio of males to females can help combat malaria.

Well the idea is if you progressively shift the sex ratio of a population towards

males and fewer and fewer females in the population, then the overall size of the population

will decrease up to a point where the population cannot sustain itself anymore and will actually crash.

What did you do to try and skew this sex ratio?

We introduced into the mosquito a gene which essentially

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