US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease • Hacker News Board

Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease

#101

Post by soundwave106 » Thu, Nov 09, 2017, 10:16 PM UTC

josiahtu wrote: post #30

sametmax wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eliminating an insect that has been here for millions of years, part of the food chain, helping thousands of micro-organism to mix DNA and be exposed to various conditions, thus helping evolution... That won't cause a major issue ? Sure ? 100% Safe ? You swear ? No backies in case of totally destroying our environment like we always do ? We are such an arrogant specie.

You're taking a "if it ain't broke don't fix it" approach, but the reality is that it is broken. Mosquitos kill millions.

Several Hacker News items regarding massive overall insect decline in general, and as far as I can tell, the general consensus has been that this is not a good thing. [1] [2] I think this is sort of where the concern is coming from.

The mosquito is a special case considering how it carries lethal diseases, of course. So to me, control is certainly acceptable (mass extinction, I'm not so sure either).

My guess is at any rate that this won't be a mass solution even if it 100% works -- applied at too much scale and a likely result is mosquitoes will develop resistance to Wolbachia (just as they have with chemicals when we tried massive control with pesticides). As a localized solution, this is intriguing.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14323533 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074

Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease

#102

Post by cwkoss » Thu, Nov 09, 2017, 10:25 PM UTC

Would be really cool if they were able to engineer a way to make female progeny inviable while leaving males viable. Seems like that would make the system self-perpetuating.

Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease

#103

Post by andrei_says_ » Thu, Nov 09, 2017, 10:26 PM UTC

Chardok wrote: post #66

andrei_says_ wrote: post #4

I am just wondering, are we about to discover what other insects etc. are being influenced by this decision, possibly with negative effects on a large scale? Makes me think of the four pests campaign. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign

Except this proposal is widely accepted in the scientific community with hundreds of ecological studies behind it, where as the Four Pests was just speculation by a guy who likely never studied any modern biology.

Yes, that’s definitely a huge differentiation.

What i was using this example for, however, was the unpredictability of influencing an infinitely interconnected and complex system. In the case of the four pests, the influence was crude and especially myopic, so it makes for a wonderful example.

It is rare that the influence ends where we imagine it would. There are many possibilities for race conditions which i know i can’t even imagine.

Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease

#104

Post by rrhd » Fri, Nov 10, 2017, 12:03 AM UTC

napa15 wrote: post #50

saulrh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like 30 out of the 500 anopheles species are capable of carrying malaria. Only 2 of those 30 bite humans: A. gambiae and A. funestus . Eradicating those two would be sufficient and another species, one that doesn't bite humans, would take over the rest of their niche. "Bites humans" is not a sufficiently beneficial adaptation to be a game-changer. We can eliminate that trait and precisely that trait with su…

It's fine being careful but this argument devolves all too often into some kind of religious nature worship. We are the dominant species on this planet. Animals and plant life - nature - have to conform to our wishes. Not the other way around.

Uh no, we don't have the power to live without nature. We have a lot of power but we need to be careful wielding it.

Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease

#105

Post by imtringued » Fri, Nov 10, 2017, 9:13 AM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #23

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.who.int/whr/1996/media_centre/executive_summary1/... Mosquitoes are responsible for millions of deaths every year, and hundreds of millions of infections often with severe disability. We understand stuff pretty deeply now. According to https://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html eliminating mosquitoes would not cause major ecological issues. So when you have millions of people dying every yea…

Eliminating an insect that has been here for millions of years, part of the food chain, helping thousands of micro-organism to mix DNA and be exposed to various conditions, thus helping evolution... That won't cause a major issue ? Sure ? 100% Safe ? You swear ? No backies in case of totally destroying our environment like we always do ? We are such an arrogant specie.

If it has existed without biting humans why is removing disease causing bacteria from two out of hundreds of mosquito species equivalent to eliminating mosquitos?

Is the selective pressure that strong that an animal family that generally doesn't bite humans and ouf of the tiny percentage that does there is an even smaller percentage that carries a bacteria that can kill humans is required for the entire families survival?

No insect is killed. The only change is that the mosquito doesn't carry a bacteria. Yet you equate that to the destruction of an entire species.

Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease

#106

Post by badminton1 » Fri, Nov 10, 2017, 6:04 PM UTC

josiahtu wrote: post #35

badminton1 wrote: post #28

Mao started a campaign to kill all sparrows because they eat the "grain of the people". Well, right after that, insects started proliferating, so then they had to exterminate all of them. Among the insects killed, pollinators died. So that region now looks completely Marsformed and now all agriculture required pollination by hand . Killing a species can start a slippery slope.

Sure but not all species play an equally critical role in the ecology.

Insects and fish eat mosquito larva. That means you would be affecting numerous other species by removing the mosquito.

Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease

#107

Post by katastic » Sat, Nov 11, 2017, 1:25 AM UTC

sschueller wrote: post #47

katastic wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. You could probably simply "kill" the ones you don't need in a particular batch. I don't think I've ever considered "killing" the optimum strategy for sorting before.

Samething is done with chickens for egg production. It's barberic, the males are ground up.

Fair enough, but in that case at least the males are used for food right? Whereas the male mosquitos are literally just turned into trash.