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We’re trying to stop bad mosquitoes by raising and releasing good ones

debugproject.com

21–30 of 67 posts

Re: We’re trying to stop bad mosquitoes by raising and releasing good ones

#21

The problem I see is that, while this can be used for good, it can also be weaponized. Zika for example, has existed for thousands of years if not millions of years. How come just in 2015 there's this massive unprecedented outbreak? Just when Oxitec starts releasing their "good mosquitoes"? What specifically changed and caused this outbreak?

Whatever caused the Zika outbreak in Brazil has nothing to do with Oxitec. As this post shows, Oxitec released their mosquitoes years before the Zika epidemic in Brazil and the release was done hundreds of miles away [1]

- [1] "No, GM Mosquitoes Didn’t Start The Zika Outbreak." [ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/science-sushi/2016/01/31/g... ]

Re: We’re trying to stop bad mosquitoes by raising and releasing good ones

#22
post #10
post #7

How is "Can't breed" a good thing? Something to do with > good bugs ... will stop bad ones from reproducing ? Are mosquitos monogamous (or do they just get really tired after sex, or do they transmit the infection to others...) If "good bugs" don't bite, I'd have thought you'd want them to reproduce as much as possible, so long as not-biting was hereditary. A non-reproducing population can never out-compete the repro…

This is all explained in the video. The process has nothing to do with genetics; the good bugs don't bite because they're all male (the females are weeded out by the scientists), and male mosquitoes never bite. And they can't breed because of a bacteria related to healthy egg development. The good bugs still mate (with bad bugs, since there are no good female bugs), they still fertilize the eggs, but the eggs don't w…

The bacteria being used is probably Wolbachia. Singapore is one place where a trial of such Wolbachia treated male mosquitoes will take place to see how well it works. You can find out more details about the technology and the Singapore trials via this link [1]

- [1] "Wolbachia-Aedes Mosquito Suppression Strategy" [ http://www.nea.gov.sg/public-health/environmental-public-hea... ]

Re: We’re trying to stop bad mosquitoes by raising and releasing good ones

#24
I wonder how long it will take for the mosquitoes to evolve a mechanism that allows the female to detect males infected with that bacterium and not mate with them, or a mechanism to counteract the detrimental effect on the development of the eggs.

Right now the evolutionary pressure to do this is probably quite low as there is only a small number of infected males, but if that number goes up the pressure will increase exponentially.

Example:

If 1 % of males are currently infected with the bacteria, the selective advantage of a mosquito that can counteract the infection is just 1.0/0.99 (as the probability of mating with an infected male is just 1 percent), which is probably too small compared to other risks to produce any visible evolutionary effects.

If we increase the number of infected males to 90 %, the evolutionary advantage of detecting them soars to 1.0/0.1 = 10! This means a mosquito able to detect or counteract an infection is ten times as likely to produce offspring, which provides an incredibly strong gradient for evolution.

The question is of course how fast an immunity can arise (or if it already exists in the population), and how many generations of mosquitoes are able to survive after the infected males are introduced.

Probably they ran their own population genetics simulations on this, so I'd be curious to see results, which should give a good indication on whether this can work and if so under which conditions.

My personal guess is that it won't be effective, as there are very few cases where introducing a single external stress factor into a population causes it to collapse entirely, what's more likely is that it will adapt and relapse.

Re: We’re trying to stop bad mosquitoes by raising and releasing good ones

#26
post #10
post #7

How is "Can't breed" a good thing? Something to do with > good bugs ... will stop bad ones from reproducing ? Are mosquitos monogamous (or do they just get really tired after sex, or do they transmit the infection to others...) If "good bugs" don't bite, I'd have thought you'd want them to reproduce as much as possible, so long as not-biting was hereditary. A non-reproducing population can never out-compete the repro…

This is all explained in the video. The process has nothing to do with genetics; the good bugs don't bite because they're all male (the females are weeded out by the scientists), and male mosquitoes never bite. And they can't breed because of a bacteria related to healthy egg development. The good bugs still mate (with bad bugs, since there are no good female bugs), they still fertilize the eggs, but the eggs don't w…

That explains most of it -- the not biting, the displacement effect. Still, infertility is strongly selected against. Unless the introduced mosquitoes completely displace existing males in the mating pool, or the bacteria are transmitted between mosquitoes, it sounds like a pretty short term fix. With males living only 10 days, wouldn't the population bounce back pretty quickly?

Re: We’re trying to stop bad mosquitoes by raising and releasing good ones

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(semi-serious question) What happens when the sucker lands on your face and gets detected?

The laser is very weak, it can't even blast through the exoskeleton, it just destroys their wings. (it is a cheap laser like those used in blu-rays...and it needs to use a minimum of energy) Also, its sensors are smart...it can tell the difference between male and female mosquitos by beats per second of their wings. So that shouldn't be a problem.

But what impact does this laser have on the human cornea, or retina?

Re: We’re trying to stop bad mosquitoes by raising and releasing good ones

#29

The problem I see is that, while this can be used for good, it can also be weaponized. Zika for example, has existed for thousands of years if not millions of years. How come just in 2015 there's this massive unprecedented outbreak? Just when Oxitec starts releasing their "good mosquitoes"? What specifically changed and caused this outbreak?

Weather patterns spring to mind. Warmth+Moisture = Increased population of mosquitoes.

Re: We’re trying to stop bad mosquitoes by raising and releasing good ones

#30

I still want to build: - An array of three microphones for locating mosquitos by sound - a servo-mounted laser - Software to combine the two, possibly with a manual mode.

This paper should give you a good start for phase I: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254023592_Real-time...
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