Amidst all the major social and health risks that technology has brought to humanity, its weight on the positive side still outweighs the negativities emanating from it. Technology has of all things, helped man achieve some bit of certainty about the future. Unlike before, man can now predict some key future happenings that might affect his life and thus helping human beings prepare in advance before calamities hit.

At the heart of these predictive scientific mechanisms, are satellites. Satellites are the focal point where earthly activities can be monitored to forecast any possible change in climate, earthly movements or earth shifts. Since man invented the first satellite, these machines have been used to predict Typhoons, Hurricanes and even explain certain happenings on earth based on things like orbital behavior, (things that can only be seen from space.)

But guess what, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, is now using their satellites to track forces that could trigger a Malaria outbreak. Using their Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS), NASA has been using its satellites positioned directly above the Amazon rainforest in South America to detect certain environmental changes that could attract the Anopheles Darlingi mosquito.

As we all know the Anopheles mosquito together with 40 other different mosquito species, are notoriously responsible for carrying and transmitting the Malaria parasite. However, some changes in climate could attract these lethal biters to a region. The outbreak of malaria can be increased by human activities such as logging and dumping, whereas rainfall and temperature are a major natural cause of a Malaria outbreak.

According to Foxnews, by using satellites to track areas where dumping, logging, high temperatures and huge amounts of rainfall occur, NASA can be able to notify relevant authorities of a looming malaria outbreak. This breakthrough comes as a relief, as the world prepares to fight against two more grave mosquito-transmitted parasites, the ZIka virus, and Dengue.