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Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

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Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#111

Post by fipar »

scythe wrote: post #45
beauzero wrote: post #27

I have one question...can we do this with fire ants?

Ants actually serve a purpose in the ecosystem. Mosquitoes are unique in that many ecologists believe mosquito eradication would not adversely affect other species.

> Mosquitoes are unique in that many ecologists believe mosquito eradication would not adversely affect other species.

With all due respect, I read that as “many ecologists can’t imagine how mosquito erradication...” seems like naive interventionism where benefits are known and hence measured but risks are unknown and hence ignored.

Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#112

Post by evgen »

billions wrote: post #82
dosy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Ecosystems are a delicate balance. Who knows what chaos will be unleashed by tampering with them? Especially species facilitating horizontal gene transfer. Pathogen vector may be only one of the functions of the mosquito. Perhaps by simply existing and occupying so much of a certain pathway they are keeping other pathogens at bay or preventing other viruses from evolving, perhaps down paths that, after the pr…

What if some helpful antibodies are transmitted via mosquitos? What if this happens cross-species?

What if invisible unicorns are actually the transmission vector and they are also spreading it to mosquitos? Wow, posing useless hypotheticals is somewhat enjoyable. We must do this again sometime.

Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#113

Post by cimmanom »

gus_massa wrote: post #102
cimmanom wrote: post #46

How long did they measure this for, and how long is that relative to the lifecycle / reproductive cycle of a mosquito? Is there any reason to believe the mosquito population won't quickly (or if not quickly, then eventually) bounce back?

Assuming they are like some flies that has been eradicated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_insect_technique , the population would bounce back in a few years. You must repeat the treatment next year lower the population to the 5% of the initial population, and repeat the treatment the next year to reduce it to the 1% and repeat it a few years to reduce each time the population until it is completely eradicated.…

In the bilge of a ship, since they lay eggs in water?

Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#114

Post by hahajk »

hayksaakian wrote: post #93
billions wrote: post #50

It is theorized there is no adverse effect from killing mosquito species. There is always a counter-effect. Typically it's unpredictable. Mosquitoes FACILITATE transmission of bad stuff. I believe that if bad stuff is not transmitted, species evolve more slowly against pathogens. Species will still be exposed, maybe generations later through a scratch or otherwise. At that point, having never evolved a strong immune…

Do mosquitos control other, more harmful pests that might see a resurgence if mosquitos disappear?

Well, humans.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=930498...

Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#115

Post by 3flp »

twelvechairs wrote: post #96
denzil_correa wrote: post #5

> To address this challenge, Verily, an affiliate of Alphabet Inc, developed a mosquito rearing and sex sorting and release technology as part of its global Debug project. Verily is formerly "Google Life Sciences" and currently Alphabet Inc's research arm for life sciences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verily_Life_Sciences

If only Australia's CSIRO still had enough funding to do this kind of work itself rather than 'partner with' (i.e. contribute public funding towards the private investment goals of) for-profit companies. Amongst CSIRO's earlier inventions are 1960s insect repelent 'Aerogard', polymer banknotes and major components of Wi-Fi as we know it.

Isn't the Wi-Fi patent quite controversial?

Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#116

Post by delbel »

delbel wrote: post #41
panarky wrote: post #36

The 20% that survived are immune to this and will now multiply unchecked.

This is exactly what is going to happen.

Downvote all you want, it will still happen. Downvote this if it'll make you feel better! There ya go

Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#117

Post by mikec3010 »

subpixel wrote: post #48

I’m not a zealot on the subject but I do believe some form of equally-distributed sterilization is the only way the human race can be saved from itself. That’s a very hard conversation I’d like to see broached.

Historically we're living in the best times we've ever had.

Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#118

Post by martalist »

pm90 wrote: post #99
twelvechairs wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only Australia's CSIRO still had enough funding to do this kind of work itself rather than 'partner with' (i.e. contribute public funding towards the private investment goals of) for-profit companies. Amongst CSIRO's earlier inventions are 1960s insect repelent 'Aerogard', polymer banknotes and major components of Wi-Fi as we know it.

I don't see what the problem is if the for-profit companies goals align with theirs.

The "if" is the problem. How many projects are they unable to work on because no for-profit company is interested?

Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#119

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

fipar wrote: post #104
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who knows what chaos will be unleashed by tampering with them? It's a good question. And the same thing could be said about any disease prevention strategy. What if the persistent presence of Polio is necessary for us to survive some future hypothesised outbreak? Imagination is the limit here. But we certainly do know the chaos that is unleashed everyday by not eradicating viruses that use mosquitoes as a vector.

> But we certainly do know the chaos that is unleashed everyday by not eradicating viruses that use mosquitoes as a vector. Note however that here they are erradicating mosquitoes and not the virus.

What’s the point of this comment?

Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito

#120

Post by JoshCole »

delecti wrote: post #84
kd5bjo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but dice that roll sixes more often are contributing more offspring to the next generation. If the selection pressure keeps up, you will have most dice consistently rolling 6s.

There's no reason to think there's any difference between the wild mosquitos who bred with fertile wild specimens and the wild mosquitos that bred with sterile lab specimens. If there's no difference, then there's no "selection" going on. If you want to argue that there is a difference, then you'll have to provide some evidence of that. Currently you're asserting it as a premise.

A list of differences:

- Birth environment.

- Coordinates of release into the wild environment.

These two differences alone are already enough to represent a selection pressure. A mosquito pair which is fortunate enough to have a statistical deviance in its position relative to a released population of sterile mosquitos will tend to reproduce more often than others. We absolutely expect that a pressure will exist. We absolutely expect that a selection will take place.

Assuming that the selected feature will be one which corresponds with detecting a difference between sterile and non-sterile mosquitos might be a stretch though. There is an enormous space of potential features which might be selected for. For example, mating multiple times to increase the chance of being with a fertile mate is another possible selection. Another is flying away from regions with large numbers of mosquitos which are appear to be newly introduced to the environment. Another is that mosquitos which exist in hazardous environments which usually kill mosquito possess unique adaptions which may prevent the sterile mosquitos from hindering their reproduction. The space of possibility is too large to enumerate.

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