Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Gates releases “more bugs” into the world.

Bill Gates spoke at TED on Tuesday about his philanthropy work and while discussing the prevalence of malaria in some developing nations, he cheekily opened a container and released some mosquitoes into the air, telling the audience of millionaires and billionaires that it shouldn’t just be the poor who experience the disease.

It was a bizarre way to get the audience’s attention. But some bloggers and news agencies that aren’t at the conference are calling the mosquitoes a “swarm” and raising health concerns about the act. There were only a handful of mosquitoes (TED organizers say the exact number was seven) and, as Gates said onstage, none of them carried malaria.

When Gates finished his talk, TED curator and host Chris Anderson quipped that Gates would now be known for releasing “more bugs” into the world.

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