The Checkup: Scientists Engineer Malaria-Killing Mosquitos

• Researchers at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore say they’ve created genetically modified mosquitos whose immune systems have been engineered to kill malaria-causing parasites before they get passed on to humans. Considering the disease kills 800,000 people a year, this could be huge. The hope is that the new mosquito strand can be released into the wild and pass their altered genes on to the rest of the population. Read more about how they made the mutant mosquitos here.

• We’ll chalk this up to a Christmas miracle. Twin sisters in Voorhees gave birth to their first children, both boys, just 13 minutes apart on Tuesday. Action News has the story.

• Another scary outcome of high lead exposure: hearing loss.  A new study of adolescents found that those with higher-than-considered-safe levels of lead in their blood were more likely to fail a hearing exam than kids with low levels of the metal. Read more here.