A novel way to treat malaria

Each year 200-300 million people worldwide are infected by malaria, and 1 million children die. This is why many, most notably Bill Gates, have put their money, efforts and time into finding ways to fight malaria. (It is also why, when I asked for donations for tsunami relief two years ago, one old friend lashed out at me saying money would be better spent fighting malaria.)

There was an interesting AP article on the east African jumping spider, Evarcha culicivora.

A jumping spider in East Africa is known to crave mosquitoes engorged with blood. Now scientists find the spider prefers a particular type of them—mosquitoes infested with the deadly malaria parasite. These predatory spiders could help control the lethal disease, scientists say.

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In past research, the scientists discovered E. culicivora consistently preferred female mosquitoes that had recently finished a blood meal. The spiders targeted bloodsuckers over non-biting midges (by far the dominant mosquito-sized insect in these habitats), male mosquitoes (which do not suck blood), and female mosquitoes that were fed sugar.

Talk about biological warfare. I wonder if this species could somehow be encouraged to grow in numbers to contain the number of mosquitos that spread malaria.