41–50 of 142 posts
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We need to make mosquitoes extinct, just like we made smallpox extinct.
We don’t even need to drive all mosquitoes to extinction, just the species that carry human diseases. If it is really so important to people that they survive then we could put some on an island as a kind of zoo.
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Yes these approaches have potential - the problem with them is the cost is much higher than using a CRISPR-Cas9 gene drive system. From the BBC article "As the mosquito only lasts a generation, it is necessary that the environment is continuously fed by new GMOs until it reaches the extermination.” This costs a lot of money and would not be able to implemented in most countries. If a country can’t afford to spray the…
Have we ever on-purpose driven another species to extinction in order to save ourselves?
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I have yet to study if these pests have any benefit, so I can only speak from experience. I dislike them intensely. Since you mentioned a possible solution, I checked to see how well it could do in terms of simplicity, effectiveness, and efficiency. From what I could tell, it would require an impractical[0,1,2] approach; and since I live among mosquitoes, I need to guard against illnesses like these. 0: overly-comple…
In regards your three points 0. CRISPR-Cas9 is an amazing simple system that has worked in every species tested. It really is not an issue to generate gene drivers for every species we want to go after. 1. How do you know it is ineffective? Do you understand how a gene driver system works? Arguments against attempting to control nature are rather weak - modern life is a successful attempt to control nature. 2. This i…
But how could we put it into practice? I only saw gene-level mechanics in that article. Please show me a machine that could do this at scale.
> modern life is a successful attempt to control nature
How so? I imagine 2,400 mothers in Brazil might have another story.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes these approaches have potential - the problem with them is the cost is much higher than using a CRISPR-Cas9 gene drive system. From the BBC article "As the mosquito only lasts a generation, it is necessary that the environment is continuously fed by new GMOs until it reaches the extermination.” This costs a lot of money and would not be able to implemented in most countries. If a country can’t afford to spray the…
Have we ever on-purpose driven another species to extinction in order to save ourselves?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes these approaches have potential - the problem with them is the cost is much higher than using a CRISPR-Cas9 gene drive system. From the BBC article "As the mosquito only lasts a generation, it is necessary that the environment is continuously fed by new GMOs until it reaches the extermination.” This costs a lot of money and would not be able to implemented in most countries. If a country can’t afford to spray the…
Have we ever on-purpose driven another species to extinction in order to save ourselves?
You could argue that the Tasmanian tiger was driven to extinction for commercial reasons as it was hunted to protect sheep flocks [1].
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Have we ever on-purpose driven another species to extinction in order to save ourselves?
The polio virus comes to mind.
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/health/world-health-organi...
I've been to Brazil a number of times, and the thing I could never understand is why, in a tropical country knee-deep in hungry disease causing mosquitos, is there not a single screen on any of the windows there? Big mistake, they're not expensive. They are cheaper and safer than rubbing chemicals into your skin every day.
Here we have screens even in the desert where there are few mosquitos, they still keep out flies and moths, etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes these approaches have potential - the problem with them is the cost is much higher than using a CRISPR-Cas9 gene drive system. From the BBC article "As the mosquito only lasts a generation, it is necessary that the environment is continuously fed by new GMOs until it reaches the extermination.” This costs a lot of money and would not be able to implemented in most countries. If a country can’t afford to spray the…
Have we ever on-purpose driven another species to extinction in order to save ourselves?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bison_hunting
We went from 30 million on North American continent around 16th century, to a few hundred around 19th century.
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We need to make mosquitoes extinct, just like we made smallpox extinct.
We don’t even need to drive all mosquitoes to extinction, just the species that carry human diseases. If it is really so important to people that they survive then we could put some on an island as a kind of zoo.
I very much like where you're going with this...
> then we could put some on an island as a kind of zoo.
wait, what??
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In regards your three points 0. CRISPR-Cas9 is an amazing simple system that has worked in every species tested. It really is not an issue to generate gene drivers for every species we want to go after. 1. How do you know it is ineffective? Do you understand how a gene driver system works? Arguments against attempting to control nature are rather weak - modern life is a successful attempt to control nature. 2. This i…
> CRISPR-Cas9 is an amazing simple system that has worked in every species tested. But how could we put it into practice? I only saw gene-level mechanics in that article. Please show me a machine that could do this at scale. > modern life is a successful attempt to control nature How so? I imagine 2,400 mothers in Brazil might have another story.
Figure 1C is what you need to look at. This is real mosquitoes, not genes.
I think the problem is you don’t understand what a gene driver system is and how it works (it is complex genetics so there is no shame in this). The wiki article [1] is not great, but the original article that raised this idea is complex, but worth reading [2]. The problem was until now we didn’t have a good system to actually make these drivers, we do now.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive
2. http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/270/1518/921