Yes, it's true. Those were really mosquitoes.

Bill Gates did release a jar of the insects at an elite tech gathering in California. "Not only poor people should experience this," Gates said. A picture and blog post from the event is here.

Gates released "several" mosquitoes, thinking it would be a good way to draw attention to the issue of malaria, since that was part of his talk, says a Gates Foundation spokesperson, adding that the mosquitoes were not carrying malaria.

It wasn't clear whether the mosquitoes came from a nearby lab or flew to Long Beach in a private jet. One commenter suggested they would starve in a room full of bloodless technocrats.

In case anyone was wondering, the mosquitoes did not come from Seattle Biomedical Research Institute (SBRI), a top malaria research center, where volunteers are paid to get bitten. In our informal poll, 1,586 out of 2,464 people said they would be willing human hosts.

Here's the in-depth series we did on malaria in 2007. Gates spoke about the topic with an almost feverish enthusiasm during a lengthy interview.