Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage • Hacker News Board

Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#81

Post by rewqfdsa » Thu, Dec 24, 2015, 5:41 AM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #71

bluejekyll wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they mean something more along the lines of Dragonflies. They love to eat mosquitoes and their larvae. Not that we shouldn't do it, I'm sure they can live off knats just as easily.

I am pretty sure they were talking about people. From the Nature article "The ecological effect of eliminating harmful mosquitoes is that you have more people. That's the consequence," says Strickman.

There's a certain strain of environmentalist that sees deindustrialization, technological regression, and human population decline as the solution to the world's problem. This perspective misses the mark, I think.

Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#82

Post by sanxiyn » Thu, Dec 24, 2015, 5:49 AM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #72

sanxiyn wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that it is far from clear [1] is what needs to be done. [1] introduces sterility using gene drive. Sterility is effective but in a sense self-defeating, and it can only suppress, not eradicate, mosquito population. [2] demonstrates introducing malaria immunity using gene drive. To attack malaria, it is enough to immunize mosquito against malaria, instead of eradicating mosquito. Immunity is also not self-defeati…

With multiple gene drivers you can drive a species to extinction - the power of CRISPR-Cas9 gene drive system is that you can make multiple different drivers easily. Yes you can use gene drivers to create immunity in mosquitos against carrying certain diseases, but that only targets one disease at a time. Better to remove the vector rather than try to make the vector less dangerous. This paper by George Church is a p…

Yes, gene drive can be used for extinction. No, the article you originally linked and said "we already know what needs to be done", is not for extinction.

Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#83

Post by powertower » Thu, Dec 24, 2015, 5:51 AM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #9

The sooner we get serious and start to deal with mosquitos the better. We already know what needs to be done [1], now all we need to do is get on with. How many millions of people have to die before we solve the problem of mosquito borne disease once and for all. Are we really going to sit around for decades debating if we should use this technology or not? Edit. For those who want to understand more about this gene…

Just 40 years ago "global warming" was called "global cooling", and an ice-age apocalypse was predicted.

Imagine if the powers-that-be decided to do global scale climate geo-engineering by dispersing chemicals into the atmosphere (to increase the temperature).

> We already know what needs to be done [1], now all we need to do is get on with.

The good old thinking that you know everything and can't be wrong almost guarantees that you will be wrong.

Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#84

Post by geomark » Thu, Dec 24, 2015, 6:00 AM UTC

purpled_haze wrote: post #76

danieltillett wrote: post #9

The sooner we get serious and start to deal with mosquitos the better. We already know what needs to be done [1], now all we need to do is get on with. How many millions of people have to die before we solve the problem of mosquito borne disease once and for all. Are we really going to sit around for decades debating if we should use this technology or not? Edit. For those who want to understand more about this gene…

The world needs more bats. While bats will eat other more nutritious insects like moths, wasps, etc. before mosquitos, they can help control the mosquito population in areas where there are many mosquitos, and most of the insects they get rid of are a nuisance to humans: http://www.mosquito.org/faq#bats

I wasn't aware of that. Where I live, in a mountainous area of Thailand, we have lots of bats, small insect eaters to large fruit eaters. It's quite a show around sundown watching them swoop overhead.

We also have lots of mosquitoes and the population sure isn't dwindling. We've got the aedes aegypti and there have been a few cases of dengue in my area. I don't think bats are going to solve the problem.

Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#85

Post by danieltillett » Thu, Dec 24, 2015, 6:01 AM UTC

sanxiyn wrote: post #82

danieltillett wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With multiple gene drivers you can drive a species to extinction - the power of CRISPR-Cas9 gene drive system is that you can make multiple different drivers easily. Yes you can use gene drivers to create immunity in mosquitos against carrying certain diseases, but that only targets one disease at a time. Better to remove the vector rather than try to make the vector less dangerous. This paper by George Church is a p…

Yes, gene drive can be used for extinction. No, the article you originally linked and said "we already know what needs to be done", is not for extinction.

By we I mean humanity, not the authors of the paper. They tended to hide behind sciencese in regards the significance of their work and didn’t go too much into its importance - the English don’t like to boast in public about themselves :)

What is important is they have showed how you can achieve extinction - we have known for a while that it was possible in theory, but there has not been a practical way of achieving this. We now have a practical way doing this - basically there are no limit to the number of genes you can target with the CRISPR-Cas9 driver system. Target enough and the species goes extinct.

If this approach is implemented it will save millions of people - every day we delay means another 3000 people die.

Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#86

Post by rdtsc » Thu, Dec 24, 2015, 6:02 AM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #78

rdtsc wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To save, maybe not. But we sure did it for other reasons -- like say to hurt others, or for economic reasons. One example is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bison_hunting We went from 30 million on North American continent around 16th century, to a few hundred around 19th century.

We were trying to exterminate the American Indian.

I implied it only, but yes that I believe that was the goal.

Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#87

Post by jevinskie » Thu, Dec 24, 2015, 6:07 AM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #72

sanxiyn wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that it is far from clear [1] is what needs to be done. [1] introduces sterility using gene drive. Sterility is effective but in a sense self-defeating, and it can only suppress, not eradicate, mosquito population. [2] demonstrates introducing malaria immunity using gene drive. To attack malaria, it is enough to immunize mosquito against malaria, instead of eradicating mosquito. Immunity is also not self-defeati…

With multiple gene drivers you can drive a species to extinction - the power of CRISPR-Cas9 gene drive system is that you can make multiple different drivers easily. Yes you can use gene drivers to create immunity in mosquitos against carrying certain diseases, but that only targets one disease at a time. Better to remove the vector rather than try to make the vector less dangerous. This paper by George Church is a p…

Thanks for the link. That article mentions a plan where A) a vector species is eliminated and B) the species is repopulated from "clean" populations that have been simultaneously been kept alive in a lab/farm. Supposedly this will eradicate the parasite and its host while (probably?) allowing the reintroduction of the host species in the future without all the nasty parasites.

I suppose if the parasite rears its head again you could try rinse & repeat or just eradicate the host species and not bother to give them another chance via repopulation from a clean source.

EDIT: This eradicate everything, followed by a reintroduction of a "clean" population certainly sounds nicer than plain eradication. I worry about how an ecosystem can gracefully handle a rapid fire extinction/reduction and reintroduction.

Even if that isn't feasible, we would behoove ourselves to think about creating a Naughty Species Bank of populations of species we want to eradicate, before we actually attack that species. I'd be worried that we cannot re-introduce the original species if (when?) we encounter an "Oops... turns out that was a bad idea..." situation.

Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#88

Post by tzs » Thu, Dec 24, 2015, 6:10 AM UTC

powertower wrote: post #83

danieltillett wrote: post #9

The sooner we get serious and start to deal with mosquitos the better. We already know what needs to be done [1], now all we need to do is get on with. How many millions of people have to die before we solve the problem of mosquito borne disease once and for all. Are we really going to sit around for decades debating if we should use this technology or not? Edit. For those who want to understand more about this gene…

Just 40 years ago "global warming" was called "global cooling", and an ice-age apocalypse was predicted. Imagine if the powers-that-be decided to do global scale climate geo-engineering by dispersing chemicals into the atmosphere (to increase the temperature). > We already know what needs to be done [1], now all we need to do is get on with. The good old thinking that you know everything and can't be wrong almost gua…

> Just 40 years ago "global warming" was called "global cooling", and an ice-age apocalypse was predicted

That's rather misleading. As noted in the Wikipedia article on "global cooling" [1], which I know you are aware of because you cited it in the original version of your comment:

   This hypothesis had little support in the scientific
   community, but gained temporary popular attention due
   to a combination of a slight downward trend of
   temperatures from the 1940s to the early 1970s and press
   reports that did not accurately reflect the full scope of
   the scientific climate literature, which showed a larger
   and faster-growing body of literature projecting future
   warming due to greenhouse gas emissions.

Those who did support it generally did so not because they thought global warming was wrong. They just thought that smog levels would continue rising faster than greenhouse gas levels, so that the cooling affect that smog causes would be more significant than the warming effect greenhouse gases cause.

Their only mistake was not anticipating that we would actually start taking air pollution seriously enough to not only stop the smog rise but reverse it. Since the '70s smog levels have come way down.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#89

Post by mitchtbaum » Thu, Dec 24, 2015, 6:12 AM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #61

mitchtbaum wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem was until now we didn’t have a good system to actually make these drivers, we do now. Link? Again, please show me a machine that can operate at scale or even a simple demo with an inlet, a re-engineered mosquito, and an outlet. (preferably without insulting me)

I am not trying to insult you, but you do need to try to understand what is being discussed. I am pretty sure if you knew what a gene driver system is and what it can do then you would understand the significance of this paper. I edited my original post to include a link to a review paper that explores this whole area. You might find reading this helpful.

Ok, I see my misunderstanding. Gene driving takes both genetic engineering, like the process you pointed to initially, and it would require a catch-and-(selective)-release approach that works on guiding sexual reproduction (sorta like domestication, not gene therapy). (Aside: This reminds me of the TED talk https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_ewald_asks_can_we_domesticate... )

It makes a lot more sense to me when looking at it on a population level, rather than genetic. Emphasizing gene-level enhancements seems to inspire a "one-and-done approach" view, when as in the paper you added, its authors note several open questions they want to answer later (like these two):

* How can large numbers of high-quality modified insects be reared economically? In this context, how can insect quality be assessed?

* How should potential risks relating to the long-term instability/evolution of self-sustaining genetic elements be investigated, assessed and mitigated?

It seems, they have eyes bigger than their stomachs.

I will keep my eyes open to new tools from a wide range of fields. Influencing mosquito populations' genetics seems worthwhile, long-term. To get behind it, I simply want to see some practical approaches, like some phenotypic sorting tools, and some studies showing good mosquito DNA diffs. As related to this article, how/when could this work at scale in all parts of Earth mentioned here?

Re: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage

#90

Post by danieltillett » Thu, Dec 24, 2015, 6:13 AM UTC

powertower wrote: post #83

danieltillett wrote: post #9

The sooner we get serious and start to deal with mosquitos the better. We already know what needs to be done [1], now all we need to do is get on with. How many millions of people have to die before we solve the problem of mosquito borne disease once and for all. Are we really going to sit around for decades debating if we should use this technology or not? Edit. For those who want to understand more about this gene…

Just 40 years ago "global warming" was called "global cooling", and an ice-age apocalypse was predicted. Imagine if the powers-that-be decided to do global scale climate geo-engineering by dispersing chemicals into the atmosphere (to increase the temperature). > We already know what needs to be done [1], now all we need to do is get on with. The good old thinking that you know everything and can't be wrong almost gua…

>Just 40 years ago "global warming" was called "global cooling", and an ice-age apocalypse was predicted

No serious scientist ever thought we were going into an ice age 40 years ago.

>The good old thinking that you know everything and can't be wrong almost guarantees that you will be wrong.

Ad hominem arguments are not very helpful, but where exactly did I argue that I can’t be wrong? If you have an actual argument that shows I am wrong please post it. It has to be better than a warmed up precautionary principle.