121–130 of 285 posts
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> 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?
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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?
According to the WHO ( http://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria ) * Malaria killed 445,000 people in 2016. * Of those, 285,000 were children under the age of 5. * There were 216 million cases of malaria in 2016. That is a large city's worth of children dying every year, and a large country's population having severely reduced productivity. And that is just one mosquito born illness. The guaranteed h…
The guaranteed human and economic benefits of wiping out mosquitoes, far outweigh any theoretical downside. I like how you just state that, like it doesn't even matter what the downside was. What if bird populations crashed and a pestilence set upon crops worldwide, and caused mass starvation & millions dead- kind of exactly like what happened during the Great Leap Forward? I'm not saying that would happen, but we ca…
It’s great to ask “what-if”?! This is a well studied problem of an invasive species where the scientific answer to your question is: there is no downside.
I never understood why the U.S didn't just do the same sort of thing with poppies in Afganistan. Would have completely wiped out the Taliban funding.
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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.
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Yes, pretty sure: https://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html
> "Yet in many cases, scientists acknowledge that the ecological scar left by a missing mosquito would heal quickly as the niche was filled by other organisms." More concerning than the ecological scar left behind by the eradication of some species of mosquito is the precedent that would be set. Once you've deliberately eradicated one pest species, people will incorporate the knowledge of that action into their image…
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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?
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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…
> 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.