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Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

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Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#41

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

When will we stop pretending like silver bullet solutions exist and that we can tamper with natural systems like this without introducing impactful unintended consequences?

We've repeatedly observed that what happens in the lab has little to do with what happens in nature, yet we ignore this lesson routinely and dangerously.

Does science have a learning disorder? Could it be, in part, a lack of humility?

Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#42

Post by jobigoud »

vpribish wrote: post #28
AstralStorm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None. Anything we have would have worked on the original problem if deployed.

that response doesn't mean anything. are you missing some words?

I think they wanted to write "Nothing" instead of "Anything".

Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#43

Post by giorgioz »

daxfohl wrote: post #35

I keep hearing that mosquitoes are not ecologically important, and their extinction would have little to no ecological effect. However one indirect ecological consequence if something like this worked would be the migration of mammals to regions previously largely uninhabitable due to mosquitoes. Would such a migration and/or population increase have some ecological effect? I don't think anyone has explored this pote…

I don't think that regions uninhabitable by mammals because of mosquitoes do exist. Female mosquitoes do require warm blood extraced by animals to depose eggs so if no animal live in a region also mosquitoes would not be able to reproduce there.

Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#44

Post by arbuge »

daxfohl wrote: post #35

I keep hearing that mosquitoes are not ecologically important, and their extinction would have little to no ecological effect. However one indirect ecological consequence if something like this worked would be the migration of mammals to regions previously largely uninhabitable due to mosquitoes. Would such a migration and/or population increase have some ecological effect? I don't think anyone has explored this pote…

Are there any such regions to begin with? If they were uninhabitable, mosquitoes themselves would be absent, given that they require a blood supply.

Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#46

Post by maxerickson »

phkahler wrote: post #26
noname120 wrote: post #19

The linked article (edit: it has been changed) is rather confusing so I'd like to highlight the fact that the underlying study[1] hints at two very specific observations: 1) The effectiveness started to decrease after 18 months: the population of Ae. aegypti progressively returned back to its normal levels—and this despite the continued release every week of 450 thousand males of the modified strain. 2) Some hybrid o…

3) Two other species from different regions moved in during the population drop. Now they're I interbreeding which may lead to more robust variants.

The two other species are the species the released mosquitoes were hybridized from. They didn't move in, they were brought in as part of the experiment.

Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#49

Post by bayesian_horse »

daxfohl wrote: post #35

I keep hearing that mosquitoes are not ecologically important, and their extinction would have little to no ecological effect. However one indirect ecological consequence if something like this worked would be the migration of mammals to regions previously largely uninhabitable due to mosquitoes. Would such a migration and/or population increase have some ecological effect? I don't think anyone has explored this pote…

I've heard that human populations in Africa tended to stay away from the regions with the Malaria problems.
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