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Gregory Lanzaro, medical entomologist and professor at University of California Davis (UC Davis) and leader of the research team behind the discovery, says they are calling the hybrid mosquito a "super" mosquito because it can survive exposure to the insecticides used to treat bed nets. He and his team report their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Hybrid animals are infertile because of the way their sex cells form. But sometimes, life finds a way.

It took about 9,000 years and alterations in six genetic pathways to transform the inedible grass teosinte (left) into the corn we eat today (right). (Center: a first generation hybrid between teosinte and corn)

Malaria has long been a problem in Mali. But in 2006, the situation got worse: a malaria-carrying mosquito species named Anopheles coluzzii became increasingly resistant to common insecticides. Scientists searched for an explanation in its genes. Somehow, the species had acquired mutations that were previously only found in another species, Anopheles gambiae - despite the fact that these two species didn't usually mate with each other, and that their hybrids tended to die without producing offspring of their own, the mutations were identical.

Scientists announced Monday that they had created mice with small amounts of human brain cells in an effort to make realistic models of neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease.