Corporate trolling
Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes
341–350 of 441 posts
Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes
#342Earlier quoted context omitted.
Societies and cultures are just the emergent results of the interaction of phenotypes. i.e. Culture and people are one and the same.
No, you can opt out of the culture you were born into.
Sure, but if you're born in Canada and move to a city in China, then your phenotype is contributing to the cosmopolitan culture of that city, and the culture of the city is contributing to your phenotype.
Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes
#343Maybe all the pesticides used to control mosquitos have created the virus in the first place.
Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've heard that's not true. I've never investigated it to verify, and personally thought it was a little hard to believe, but nonetheless your assumption may not be correct.
I've heard that's not true. I've never investigated it to verify, and personally thought it was a little hard to believe, but nonetheless your assumption may not be correct.
What's going on here. Is this an HN meme?
Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've heard that's not true. I've never investigated it to verify, and personally thought it was a little hard to believe, but nonetheless your assumption may not be correct.
I've heard that's not true. I've never investigated it to verify, and personally thought it was a little hard to believe, but nonetheless your assumption may not be correct.
What's going on here. Is this an HN meme?
Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to an acquaintance who worked there, the original research was funded by the Gates Foundation’s anti-malaria R&D program. Intellectual Ventures developed the prototype Photonic Fence ( http://www.intellectualventures.com/inventions-patents/our-i... ) but concluded that low-tech things like bed nets had higher benefit per dollar for malaria prevention, particularly when you factor in the challenge of powerin…
Definitely agree with the idea that it should be sold in the first world to get economies of scale. How much would these things cost, like 300$ a pop?
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser it would cost $50. They deliberately built it using already available parts (the laser is the same as used for bluray for example) to keep cost down. The problem seems to be (as parent pointed out) reliable electricity.
Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes
#347Mosquitoes is not just about the macro-ecosystem. Blood sucking animals actually help micro-organism maintain their biodiversity by allowing DNA from very different environment to mixup. Killing mosquitos would be like killing bees (which we are).
Also you may think that most organism causing diseases are bad, but they can be actually useful in your own organism most of the time, and only trigger a disease once their population is out of control or when your body is not tuned correctly anymore.
Killing everything that seems to affect us in a bad way could snow ball into terrible consequences. Not to say I'm not glad that the plague is out of the picture, but everything is not "plague-level".
BTW: I have malaria. I hate mosquitos. I still believe we should not eradicate mosquitos.
Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
If there is simultaneously released artificial retrovirus, carried with Plasmodium, that will transfer gene to human blood from now sterile mosquito, than we are doomed. And from what I know about the US and current state of pharma research, that is entirely technically possible and application only depends from a certain political will. Discl. a good friend of mine developed biological weapons in late 80-ies. In 40…
Sure. But then, anyone who'd do that could just include the code in the retrovirus ;) There's a trope in dystopian SF (and maybe first, in Burroughs' Cities of the Red Night ) about specifically targeting particular races.
Reality is always way stranger than fiction.
Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes
#349We've done this lots[1] of[2] times[3] when it threatens agriculture, but when it threatens the lives of poor people in third world countries, suddenly we're worried about the ecosystem? There will be an environmental impact, but it will be from hundreds of millions of humans not getting malaria and climbing their way out of property, not from the lack of mosquitoes in the ecosystem. It's still a significant problem,…
Those eradications were paid for by the Department of Agriculture (and equivalent organizations in other regions). Who is going to pay for the mosquito? I'm not objecting. I think we should eradicate the mosquito. But as someone who has worked for the government (albeit a different branch) I know that bureaucrats are not being evil or heartless when they don't allocate funds for necessary work that falls outside of t…
[deleted]
Re: Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those eradications were paid for by the Department of Agriculture (and equivalent organizations in other regions). Who is going to pay for the mosquito? I'm not objecting. I think we should eradicate the mosquito. But as someone who has worked for the government (albeit a different branch) I know that bureaucrats are not being evil or heartless when they don't allocate funds for necessary work that falls outside of t…
As an Alaskan AND a Floridian: If they wanna auction/raffle off the privilege of throwing the switch I would attempt to give them all my money.
...but then Alaska would have to find a new state bird.