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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

#31

Post by ufo »

cbhl wrote: post #20
ksec wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they serve no irreplaceable environmental purposes How are we sure of this?

Because they used to not exist in these areas. That's what the word "invasive species" means.

Indeed. Aedes aegipti originated in Africa and spread to throughout the world due to trade and globalization (including the transatlantic slave trade). It brought with it many African mosquito-bourne diseases such as Dengue and Yellow Fever, which are specifically transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes.

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

#32

Post by cbhl »

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

Verily has also been releasing these sterile mosquitoes in Fresno since 2016:

https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/07/18/heres-the-real-buzz-g...

https://blog.verily.com/2017/07/debug-fresno-our-first-us-fi...

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

#33

Post by dev_dull »

mulletbum wrote: post #2

Can't wait to find out what is next on the list of terrible things that will kill us as the climate continues to warm.

My friend, you’re barely a few generations removed from a time when a scraped knee could be a bacterial infection and death. This news is fantastic and your life probably isn’t as bad as you make it seem.

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

#34

Post by blattimwind »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #16
jonny_eh wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if mosquitoes had some heretofore undiscovered critical purpose for the environment But what if mosquitoes are actually bad for the environment? By not removing them we can be screwing things up!

The 'environment' is often in balance. Any abrupt change can cause oscillations and crashes. May as well ask "By not removing this brick from the wall, I may be screwing the wall up!"

Technically, Lotka–Volterra tells us that almost no environment is in a stable equilibrium (balance).

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

#35

Post by aero142 »

beauzero wrote: post #27

I have one question...can we do this with fire ants?

As annoying as fire ants are, invasive aquatic species like Zebra Mussels are having a frightening impact in the United States. If we can remove them using a similar technique, that would be amazing.

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

#37

Post by cbhl »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #9
emilsedgh wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you actually have arguments to object this from a moral standpoint or it's just a snarky comment? Because I would really love to hear some moral objections to the matter.

While I'm all for wiping out the race of mosquitoes, I think it's arrogant on our behalf to assume that we can just remove a species completely from an ecosystem without consequences. If we're really lucky, the consequences will be minimal: spiders and other predators will simply find something else to eat. But if mosquitoes had some heretofore undiscovered critical purpose for the environment, we might have seriousl…

It's arrogant to assume that these species are "natural".

Aedes aegypti did not exist at all in Fresno, for example, until 2013.

These species of insects were introduced to these ecosystems. By humans. The diseases (for example, Zika) being spread now are the consequences of us introducing these mosquitoes in the first place.

https://blog.verily.com/2017/07/debug-fresno-our-first-us-fi... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4109175/

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

#38

Post by iknowstuff »

panarky wrote: post #36

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

It's not a virus. Rather than being immune, they might have managed to avoid mating with the altered mosquitos (by chance apparently, as there seems to be no perceptible difference) - for now.

Antiretrovirals fight HIV by blocking its multiplication in multiple ways, such that the virus would have to mutate in a few particular ways simultaneously to survive, which is extremely unlikely. Perhaps the mosquitos could be altered similarly.

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

#40

Post by tonfa »

eatbitseveryday wrote: post #21
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm all for wiping out the race of mosquitoes, I think it's arrogant on our behalf to assume that we can just remove a species completely from an ecosystem without consequences. If we're really lucky, the consequences will be minimal: spiders and other predators will simply find something else to eat. But if mosquitoes had some heretofore undiscovered critical purpose for the environment, we might have seriousl…

> While I'm all for wiping out the race of mosquitoes, I think it's arrogant on our behalf to assume that we can just remove a species completely from an ecosystem without consequences. You are mistaken. Not wiping out all mosquitos, just the specific aedes aegypti species from the aedes genus.

Also isn't that specie not native from a bunch of place where it currently is anyway? (at least Europe/America/Australia/Pacific islands)
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