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Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

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Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#231

Post by bradam »

One of my classmates came back from Africa to Europe this March without any symptoms. 10 days later she got high fever, dizziness, and unfortunately she could not even recognise her family. Everyone thought its COVID, and doctors recommended her to stay home to not spread the "virus". Unfortunately when she got the the hospital, the diagnostics was too late to and she died in malaria 1,5 days later.

Please beware of this infection and get the medication even if it has strong side effects.

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#232

Post by toshk »

jonshariat wrote: post #12

This is why Verily's https://debug.com/ project is so interesting. The idea is to create modified mosquitoes that can't bite or breed and release them to "breed" with the general populous thus neutralizing them.

Thinking of ways to reduce mosquitos populations are understandable, and many organisations are working on them, but this proposition to completely eradicate them, mainly with certain technologies, is borderline insanity.

The problems eradication solves are obvious and important to solve.

The problems eradication might cause are less obvious and are potentially disastrous.

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#233

Post by nutbutter »

"The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator" by Timothy Winegard is an excellent read on the topic of the Mosquito. I'm paraphrasing, but I think he mentions that, of all the humans that have ever lived, the mosquito accounts for half of their deaths.

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#235

Post by brigandish »

barkingcat wrote: post #230
tomohawk wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dog attacks are really more about dogs that have rabies. In countries that have good rabies control this is not an issue. For example, the US has 30 - 50 deaths due to dogs each year.

North American and Western European audiences don't realise that while 1 dog can only sometimes hurt you, a pack of 8-10 non-rabid dogs can hunt an adult human down and kill them easily. In countries around the world, it's more about packs of wild dogs and rabies, instead of just rabies alone. Countries/Regions that have wild dog pack problems: India, Some Eastern European countries, South East Asia (almost all peopl…

I had to regularly face down packs of wild dogs in India, probably the scariest thing I’ll do in my life. A trick my friend showed me in Greece (this was after India and wouldn’t have applied) was if you see a group of dogs at a distance and they seem threatening or interested, then bend down and pretend to pick up stone and they’ll back off.

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#236

Post by chrisco255 »

twothamendment wrote: post #222
cameronfraser wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor sharks, they get one of the worst raps for how little damage they do to humans. I'm surprised to see dogs so high up on that list.

Yeah, I'd rather have a neighbor with a shark than a neighbor with a dog.

A neighbor with a shark is clearly a super villain.

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#237

Post by paulcole »

derefr wrote: post #177
morsch wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0 Traffic 1,350,000 Sort of weird to limit the Human category to, apparently, conflict, war, murders, and acts of terrorism. Also, it's horrible that conflict, war, murders, and acts of terrorism are in the same ballpark as traffic deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... (2016)

The human category is limited, I believe, to intentional killing. Otherwise you open up a whole can of worms about macroeconomic trolley problems. (Am I killing people right now by making insufficiently-optimal donations to charity?)

I mean it’s pretty clear that traffic deaths are humans killing humans. We don’t need to wring our hands over some imagined slippery slope.

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#238

Post by pnako »

ahelwer wrote: post #51
petters wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ecological systems would likely be fine; the mosquitoes responsible for diseases are a minority. But that is beside the point and does not matter. What matters are 700,000 human lives annually. It's tragic really. If we had these diseases in Europe or North America, we would have already done this.

Maybe you didn't click the link, so I guess I'll ask you: how many humans would die if we did exterminate the mosquitoes? More or less than 700,000? Do you know? You have no way of knowing how ecological systems would react.

Pretty much zero humans would die.

Ecosystems adapt. The things eating mosquitoes would find something else to eat, or maybe not. Some species will grow their population, some will reduce. Some species will evolve a bit differently.

The idea that everything will collapse if we eradicate mosquitoes or pandas is just absurd (I have nothing against pandas by the way; I'm just observing that them disappearing did not collapse everything).

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#239

Post by pnako »

nkozyra wrote: post #53
epicureanideal wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I am in favor of exterminating every last mosquito. I’d rather deal with any results than the mosquitos themselves. Also I had a long conversation with a specialist in a company working on this and they convinced me that it wouldn’t actually be a big problem like some say.

> it wouldn’t actually be a big problem like some say Well this is the law of unintended consequences in action. Many people don't think it will have any negative effect but we don't know. Nature is extraordinarily complex and disrupting it in such a huge way almost always carries knock-on impact.

Yes, and? It's not going to change the orbits of planets. Ecosystems will have to adapt to mosquitoes disappearing, like they did when countless other species disappeared.

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#240

Post by bsytko »

dean wrote: post #110

According to the book "The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator" by Timothy C. Winegard, the mosquito has killed an estimated 52 billion people from a total of 108 billion people that have ever lived. (Not sure how those numbers were determined.)

Curious as to why we haven't evolved tougher skin then. Mosquito resistant skin would appear to be a trait that would allow you to live longer.
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