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

csiro.au

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

#181

Post by Untit1ed »

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.

Partnering with industry has always been a part of the plan though - that's why it's the Commonwealth Science _and Industrial_ Research Organisation.

If CSIRO doesn't partner with industry you end up with debacles like the wifi lawsuit.

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

#182

Post by maxerickson »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #180
maxerickson wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technique has been used against other species of insects since ~1950. There should be a horror story by now.

Horror story? The "horror story" would be "the insects are still around".

Indeed, I was being flip. It's actually been successful at eradicating populations of insects, rather rapidly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sterile_insect_techniq...

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

#184

Post by luma »

JackCh wrote: post #156
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is suggesting we eradicate all mosquitoes, just the disease-vector ones in areas where they are a problem. But yes, the law of unintended consequences will probably apply. But it's worth keeping in mind that Malaria kills one child every 30 seconds. As for you last comment, well even the Dahlia Lama swats mosquitoes.

As far as I can tell, the eradication of hundreds of species of mosquitoes is being suggested by many.

I'm going to need a source on that. Fewer than 30 out of 3000 species of mosquito feed on humans. There is little reason for us to bother with the rest.

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

#185

Post by luma »

dev_dull wrote: post #4

> Aedes, Anopheles and Culex are found almost all over the world and are responsible for around 17 per cent of infectious disease transmissions globally." If I understand that correctly, that is a massive number. I really like what these sterilization trials are producing. In my mind, it’s a lot safer than spraying chemicals across cities.

It gets worse. As I posted elsewhere in the comments, an article in Nature[1] suggests that up to half of humans ever to live have died as a result of mosquito-borne disease.

In light of those numbers I feel we are ethically clear to take drastic action. We don't have to kill all mosquitoes as fewer than 1% of mosquito species feed on humans. We have several tools which will target the specific species which impact us (such as the approach used in this article). It's time we do something about it, or accept the fact that millions more humans are going to die while we wring our hands.

[1] https://www.nature.com/news/2002/021003/full/news021001-6.ht...

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

#186

Post by Simon_says »

felipemnoa wrote: post #95
panarky wrote: post #36

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

You are being down voted because on the surface your argument seems unreasonable. But in a way you could be correct that the remaining mosquitos have an innate immunity against mating with the sterile mosquitos. Just speculating but it is possible that some mosquitos are able to detect a sterile mosquito by the pheromones, or lack of them, that they produce (or through some other hidden mechanism that we don't know).…

> Otherwise the male would not have to court a female.

That's not even true for all hominids.

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

#187

Post by franciscop »

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…

Evolution requires deaths, so the cost is millions of people dying! Until we understand better the cost, I think it's reasonable to put it on hold as much as possible

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

#188

Post by JackCh »

luma wrote: post #178
JackCh wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Its important to differentiate b/w the plans of a politician and the plans of research scientists who have done actual work in this area." Not really, because the general public won't take such care with the differentiating. The more scientists deliberately exterminate or cull animals, the more the public will grow accustomed to the idea of humanity taking such an active violent role in the environment. And the mo…

If you're going to weigh the social factors in wiping out the 20-something species of mosquitoes which feed on humans (out of > 3000), I think you need to factor in the possibility that malaria (and thus mosquitos) may be responsible for HALF of human deaths in our history. Half. That's an outrageous number, but Nature suggests it might be true: https://www.nature.com/news/2002/021003/full/news021001-6.ht... At what…

Half of human deaths isn't very significant considering that despite that the human population is still exploding at an unsustainable rate that will cause incredible environmental destruction if left unchecked. Far from being threatened with extinction, our present course will cause the extinction of countless other forms of life.

And in response to that, you propose that we deliberately drive even more species to extinction for the purpose of making the problem even worse?

> "How many more human lives need to be lost before you think it's OK?"

If they were a threat to the survival of our species, I would sign off on it. Plainly they are not.

How many more species must be exterminated before you decide the planet is safe enough for humanity? When will the Disney Worldification of the planet be sufficient for you? Maybe Disney World levels of safety from wildlife aren't even sufficient for you? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2017/11/03/d...

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

#189

Post by JackCh »

luma wrote: post #184
JackCh wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, the eradication of hundreds of species of mosquitoes is being suggested by many.

I'm going to need a source on that. Fewer than 30 out of 3000 species of mosquito feed on humans. There is little reason for us to bother with the rest.

As I've stated throughout this threat, it isn't just about mosquitoes. Honestly I would not mourn mosquitoes if every last species was exterminated. What concerns me is the social impact of further establishing humanity as the arbitrators of which species get to live and which deserve to be exterminated. It won't stop at mosquitoes; the extermination of mosquitoes will be used to justify even more exterminations in the future.

(Furthermore exterminating a species just so the human population can grow even faster will lead to an incredible amount of additional extinctions due to habitat loss. Humanity is growing fast enough already; we don't need to optimize for this any further.)

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

#190

Post by JackCh »

soperj wrote: post #122

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.

In early 2001 the Taliban banned the growth of poppies and opium export plummeted to near zero.

>The first American narcotics experts to go to Afghanistan under Taliban rule have concluded that the movement's ban on opium-poppy cultivation appears to have wiped out the world's largest crop in less than a year, officials said today. The American findings confirm earlier reports from the United Nations drug control program that Afghanistan, which supplied about three-quarters of the world's opium and most of the heroin reaching Europe, had ended poppy planting in one season.

>But the eradication of poppies has come at a terrible cost to farming families, and experts say it will not be known until the fall planting season begins whether the Taliban can continue to enforce it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/20/world/taliban-s-ban-on-po...

Later that year America invaded and poppy production soon exceeded historic numbers by a significant margin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanista...

Make of this what you will.

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