We’re trying to stop bad mosquitoes by raising and releasing good ones • Hacker News Board

Re: We’re trying to stop bad mosquitoes by raising and releasing good ones

#51

Post by djb_hackernews » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 2:27 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #47

mattparlane wrote: post #46

They don't mention this, but I believe this can cause extinction of mosquitoes within an area: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_insect_technique

I believe that is the goal. I'm all on board. I've heard about proposals like this for years and years. I'm thrilled someone is actually working to make this theory reality.

It'd be sort of like removing all of the kelp from the worlds oceans. It'd have ripple effects on other species that we wouldn't want to negatively affect.

Re: We’re trying to stop bad mosquitoes by raising and releasing good ones

#52

Post by 24gttghh » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 2:39 PM UTC

djb_hackernews wrote: post #51

coldpie wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that is the goal. I'm all on board. I've heard about proposals like this for years and years. I'm thrilled someone is actually working to make this theory reality.

It'd be sort of like removing all of the kelp from the worlds oceans. It'd have ripple effects on other species that we wouldn't want to negatively affect.

I am quite sure there are plenty of other blood-sucking insects around that will fill the ecological niche left by mosquitoes rather quickly.

Re: We’re trying to stop bad mosquitoes by raising and releasing good ones

#53

Post by maxerickson » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 2:46 PM UTC

ThePhysicist wrote: post #24

I wonder how long it will take for the mosquitoes to evolve a mechanism that allows the female to detect males infected with that bacterium and not mate with them, or a mechanism to counteract the detrimental effect on the development of the eggs. Right now the evolutionary pressure to do this is probably quite low as there is only a small number of infected males, but if that number goes up the pressure will increas…

The period with many less mosquitoes can still have a dramatic impact on future disease transmission. During the limited population period, the number of reservoir hosts also decreases dramatically (they either get over the illness or die). So later when the mosquito population rebounds, there is much less virus for them to spread.

For the diseases mentioned at the link there are animal hosts (other primates) so it won't be as effective, but for something like malaria where humans are the primary reservoir species, the effect can be very large.

It can also be effective in lowering the rates of transmission in urban areas.

Re: We’re trying to stop bad mosquitoes by raising and releasing good ones

#54

Post by coldpie » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 2:50 PM UTC

djb_hackernews wrote: post #51

coldpie wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that is the goal. I'm all on board. I've heard about proposals like this for years and years. I'm thrilled someone is actually working to make this theory reality.

It'd be sort of like removing all of the kelp from the worlds oceans. It'd have ripple effects on other species that we wouldn't want to negatively affect.

This has been pretty extensively studied. There's always the possibility the science is wrong, but the consensus is there will be very small or no ecological impact[1]. It's certainly nothing like removing all the kelp from the oceans. Meanwhile roughly a million people die every year from mosquito-borne diseases and three quarters of a billion people get sick[2].

[1] http://debugproject.com/faqs/

[2] http://www.ebmedicine.net/topics.php?paction=showTopic&topic...

Re: We’re trying to stop bad mosquitoes by raising and releasing good ones

#55

Post by willis77 » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 2:55 PM UTC

djb_hackernews wrote: post #51

coldpie wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that is the goal. I'm all on board. I've heard about proposals like this for years and years. I'm thrilled someone is actually working to make this theory reality.

It'd be sort of like removing all of the kelp from the worlds oceans. It'd have ripple effects on other species that we wouldn't want to negatively affect.

People have studied this. While you have to take these theoretical "what if" studies with a grain of salt, some believe that eradicating mosquitos would not affect ecology in a major way:

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html

Re: We’re trying to stop bad mosquitoes by raising and releasing good ones

#56

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 3:00 PM UTC

ThePhysicist wrote: post #24

I wonder how long it will take for the mosquitoes to evolve a mechanism that allows the female to detect males infected with that bacterium and not mate with them, or a mechanism to counteract the detrimental effect on the development of the eggs. Right now the evolutionary pressure to do this is probably quite low as there is only a small number of infected males, but if that number goes up the pressure will increas…

[deleted]

Re: We’re trying to stop bad mosquitoes by raising and releasing good ones

#57

Post by tdb7893 » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 3:04 PM UTC

djb_hackernews wrote: post #51

coldpie wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that is the goal. I'm all on board. I've heard about proposals like this for years and years. I'm thrilled someone is actually working to make this theory reality.

It'd be sort of like removing all of the kelp from the worlds oceans. It'd have ripple effects on other species that we wouldn't want to negatively affect.

To be fair animals have gone extinct before without huge environmental impact so it's not so simple.

Re: We’re trying to stop bad mosquitoes by raising and releasing good ones

#58

Post by al_chemist » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 3:48 PM UTC

piyush_soni wrote: post #42

Seriously, Google (/Alphabet), as long as you continue to invest in such research studies, you can take all of my so called personal data for its progress and I won't mind.

Because my personal data is very helpful with creating infertile mosquitoes.

Re: We’re trying to stop bad mosquitoes by raising and releasing good ones

#59

Post by piyush_soni » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 3:59 PM UTC

al_chemist wrote: post #58

piyush_soni wrote: post #42

Seriously, Google (/Alphabet), as long as you continue to invest in such research studies, you can take all of my so called personal data for its progress and I won't mind.

Because my personal data is very helpful with creating infertile mosquitoes.

Good try, but no, because my personal data can help them earn money (through advertising or other means), which Alphabet can use for funding their research in other areas.

Re: We’re trying to stop bad mosquitoes by raising and releasing good ones

#60

Post by cc_ » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 4:45 PM UTC

corecoder wrote: post #33

I first read about using sterile male mosquitoes more than twenty years ago (there was no mention of the bacteria, so I don't know if a different technique was proposed); how comes this is news now? Or is it that this has been proposed since forever but only now someone is talking of actually throwing money at it? Edit: typos

Not an expert, but I think an important part of this is only releasing male mosquitoes, and separating them at scale is generally considered to be difficult (there have been other successful uses of SIT but always with different species).

From their FAQ it sounds like they have made progress on this front:

> What has Debug accomplished so far?

> We've developed methods for automated mosquito-rearing, and we know that we can separate males from females with high precision, and we’re continuing development of these technologies at larger scale in our lab.