vaccination

Malaria kills upwards of a million people a year, infects hundreds of millions, and significantly damages the economies of dozens of countries. Cures and prophylaxis for malaria range from bug nets to drugs to gin and tonics, but none are weirder -- or more poetically just -- than a new method that uses mosquitoes themselves to deliver a malaria vaccine.

German scientists have demonstrated that the tattoo needle may be a more effective way of delivering vaccines than the standard injections. In tests on mice, the tattoo technique proved more successful in stimulating an immune response—tattooing a vaccine produced 16 times more antibodies in the mice.