Gordon – that, however, is not a typo. It’s just really badly written I’ve rephrased it. See if it makes more sense. Basically, you let the parasites evolve and they become MORE virulent. You allow them to spread via mosquitoes, and they become LESS virulent, but they’re still MORE virulent than they originally were. Makes sense?

Great post! Evolutionary resistance to biological vaccines is a scary thought, I am sure some SyFy exec is reading your post and has now formulated a B-rank movie involving a killer evolved HIV-flu-Ebola-SARS virus embedded in a parasite and delivered by mosquitoes…

On a different note, you have a typo. In your sentence, ” (However in the team’s earlier study, they did use mosquitoes and although the evolved parasites became less virulent, they were still more so than the original strains.)” I think you meant to use the word MORE instead of LESS, as that would make far more sense, and fit with your overall theme.