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Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

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Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#251

Post by alphydan »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #225
James001 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem is how do we actually eradicate mosquito's without introducing other severely risks? For example, one of the popular techniques is releasing genetically modified mosquitoes that are sterile. The problem is we don't know what could happen if/when these modified genes spread into the wider environment It's a very serious concern, whether or not eradicating mosquitoes will introduce more severe problems

How would sterile mosquitoes transfer genetic material?

I assume that mutating. We release 1bn sterile mosquitoes, most die, but 1,000 of them have a random mutation on top of the original mutation and become hermaphrodites. Now they reproduce on their own and become invincible microbots that bring zika to the masses.

Of course that could also happen in the wild with some good 'ol cosmic rays and no human intervention.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#252

Post by washadjeffmad »

nickff wrote: post #162
jessaustin wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly the EPA screwed up, but the BLM should have promoted rather than jailed the bureaucrat who sold the feral horses. That program should be ramped up: it would be better for the horses and for the arid environment that they inhabit if the absolutely necessary regular culling resulted in nutrition rather than thousands of horses penned up to no purpose for the rest of their lives. It's not as though we're going t…

I have heard of equivalent 'screwups' described as horrific criminal actions, described as being done by greedy, stupid, and lazy people who should be sent to federal prison; but alas, those were private parties. My point was that catastrophic negligence goes unpunished when committed by a bureaucrat. Horses were native to North America, and existed on the continent before humans arrived; they were probably wiped out…

I would. The hunting to scarcity of gray wolves led to a boom of deer who ravage crops and woods, carry disease, and create hazards for humans on roadways and when they end up in cities. And look up rates for CWD in your state, and hope it never becomes transmissible to humans.

Bison have the same issues with overpopulation and overgrazing, and they're being allowed to roam outside of Yellowstone again soon, which is making people nervous. They're destructive, dangerous, and carry diseases transmissible to other cattle, and they've been underculled in recent years, so no one is sure what's going to happen.

So you hear things where the people are the bad guys, but that doesn't make the problems for people living around these animal populations go away. It's a common oversight by people from (sub)urban areas; because they live in world built by and for humans, they forget they're only a relatively few miles in any direction from unforgiving wilderness.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#254

Post by maxerickson »

bryondowd wrote: post #244
nickff wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard of equivalent 'screwups' described as horrific criminal actions, described as being done by greedy, stupid, and lazy people who should be sent to federal prison; but alas, those were private parties. My point was that catastrophic negligence goes unpunished when committed by a bureaucrat. Horses were native to North America, and existed on the continent before humans arrived; they were probably wiped out…

Not familiar with bison, but we do have the same issue with deer, as I understand it. We've driven out their natural predators, so they have a habit of overpopulating and eating their environment clean, then starving off. That's why we encourage controlled hunting. Keeps the numbers down to what they would have been if we still had wolves/bears around eating them.

The deer population in Michigan appears to be quite a lot higher than it might be under predation, the DNR manages the herd to have a large population so that there can be a larger harvest.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#255

Post by bduerst »

speleding wrote: post #236
bduerst wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really an apples to apples comparison. All of those are invasive species, except for the screw fly, which isn't a large part of a biological ecosystem (e.g. a sizeable portion of the Myotis lucifugus diet).

There are places where mosquitos are an invasive species. Hawaii apparently did not have mosquitos until they were introduced there by humans. So that might be a good place to experiment with eradicating them, the "it's not natural" argument would carry less weight there.

Precisely. To be clear, eradication of invasive mosquito species where they aren't native is a great idea. Thinking that removing mosquitoes from the ecosystems everywhere won't have a negative impact on the environment is less so.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#256

Post by [deleted] »

qb45 wrote: post #207
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that people back then were rather clear on the idea that if something you put in the ground makes food and seeds you're gonna want to keep the seeds to make more.

But then you become a slave of those pesky humans and their whims, while trees grow freely in forests where they didn't face much danger from humans before the industrial revolution.

[deleted]

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#257

Post by thatswrong0 »

ElijahLynn wrote: post #199
sirtastic wrote: post #168

Why do people think it's a good idea to kill off an insect that's a food source to thousands of other insects and animals?

Truth. Most of the comments here made me realize that a significant amount of HN readers are less intelligent than I thought.

We're dumb because we know how to RFTA?

> There’s little evidence, though, that mosquitoes form a crucial link in any food chain, or that their niche could not be filled by something else. When science journalist Janet Fang spun out this thought experiment for Nature in 2010, she concluded that “life would continue as before—or even better.” I arrived at the same answer when I looked into the same question for a piece published three years later. “There’s no food chain that we know of where mosquitoes are an inevitable link in a crucial process,” one mosquito-control expert told me.

Or because we like reading other sources? http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html

How ironic.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#258

Post by Steko »

waffle_ss wrote: post #13
mikestew wrote: post #5

This is one of those ideas that sounds genius on its face, until it's actually implemented. Kudzu? Grows fast, prevents erosion, let's pay farmers to till it into the top soil. MTBE? Prevents engine knock, makes for cleaner air, let's mandate its use at the federal level. Whoopsie, once it's in the water we can't get it out, and its a carcinogen. Let's kill all of the mosquitos because we find their presence unpleasa…

Chairman Mao thought killing all the sparrows in China (part of his Four Pests Campaign[1]) would be a great idea because they ate laborers' grain seed. But then the population of crop-eating insects ballooned, causing the Great Chinese Famine to get a lot worse. Tens of millions starved to death. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign

Related: because there was a bounty on rats the farmers started growing rats secretly.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#259

Post by charlieflowers »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #195
mrweasel wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Research assures government that killing mosquitos would have no negative effect on world ecology Neither would killing of the last few panda (stupid, useless animal), but we wouldn't actually do it. With mosquitoes, do to their large numbers, it would seem like a bit of a gamble. If we're wrong it would be hard to undo killing all the mosquitoes.

Really? Seems like it would be pretty easy to recreate a population of wild type mosquitoes. Just freeze a bunch of eggs. But that probably won't be necessary. Mosquitoes are too successful to be that easily wiped out. Probably best we can hope for is to get rid of 80-90% of them.

> Just freeze a bunch of eggs. Sadly, I never thought of that. Great point.

Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes

#260

Post by charlieflowers »

kpil wrote: post #165
rimantas wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we get as many cases of malaria in Europe, just nobody dies from it? Or maybe it does indeed has something to do with mosquitos after all?

There was malaria in Sweden a couple of hundred years ago, and we still have a few mosquitos. It was never a big problem but malaria went away when it couldn't spread efficiently, largely because of better houses and hygiene such as not keeping the cattle in the same house (room) as the people. Also a lot of breeding ground was dried out and converted to farm land. I'm all for releasing CRISPR on the worst species of…

It's sad when a chain of logical reasoning points out (again) how weird it is that we cannot solve the real problem, which is "Why is there a third world in the first place?"

Why does there have to be a region in permanent squalor? Why can't every place on earth where civilization exists be a decent place for humans to live, with peace, opportunity and sanitation?

But ... back down to earth. Since we can't fix that larger problem, at least maybe we can stop malaria by killing all the mosquitoes.

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