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Wolbachia is "healthy gut microbiota" but for mosquitoes. It prevents their infection by many viruses.
It seems that it shortens their lives, so it's not healthy for them.
Somehow I had in my head that it was the contrary. Probably because [I also thought that] W. increases their reproductive fitness (but yeah shortens their lifespan).
And even the reproductive fitness thing, it seems I've hallucinated it after all...
So all benefits, no negatives?
At this point I'm prepared to accept that though. The suffering these things cause is immeasurable. I hate mosquitoes so much I wish I could nuke them.
I find these sort of things somewhat odd. Dengue is extremely unpleasant, but as the article mentions it has a 99.98% survival rate in spite of being predominantly spread in some of the most impoverished areas in the world. Wiki [1] gives even better figures than the article which yield a 99.99% survival rate, and a total hospitalization rate of 0.13%. Unforeseen consequences are a thing, and nature can evolve in dif…
I believe conditions like this cause impact to people's livelihood by putting them out of action. Caring for the sick also has economic costs.
Note that California has reported two cases of Dengue in people who haven't travelled outside the United States.
Note that California has reported two cases of Dengue in people who haven't travelled outside the United States.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/california-officials...
It seems part of the common pattern for outbreaks of dengue viral infections in other urban centres. However California lacks a non-human primate reservoir would probably limit the risk of it becoming endemic.
I find these sort of things somewhat odd. Dengue is extremely unpleasant, but as the article mentions it has a 99.98% survival rate in spite of being predominantly spread in some of the most impoverished areas in the world. Wiki [1] gives even better figures than the article which yield a 99.99% survival rate, and a total hospitalization rate of 0.13%. Unforeseen consequences are a thing, and nature can evolve in dif…
It could be that the figures match your own as not everyone goes to a clinic when they have it - much more likely when its a bad dose. But a huge amount of people get it each year.
Ive had it twice. Can confirm - it sucks.
[0] https://www.kompas.id/baca/humaniora/2023/09/08/tren-angka-k...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's the means. If people wanted to look for ways to help reduce stagnant water, as a means of reducing mosquito populations, I suspect exactly 0 people would object. But releasing billions of mosquitos with a bacteria and hoping there's no natural evolution to it, and everything continues to work as planned indefinitely...? There's more than sufficient reason for skepticism there. Beyond this, I would also consider…
Are these the concerns of people who study ecosystems deeply, and dedicate their lives to environmental protection through understanding it deeply? Or are they the concerns of people who don't know much, though they care deeply? I find these folks often pursue actions with great passion that are effectively neutral or sometimes even detrimental to the environment. You say that most mistakes of the past have been made…
You’re failing to consider the opposite bias, where professionals whose income and prestige depends on a particular idea fail to critically assess it and judge themselves based on their motivations rather than outcomes — and outsiders who only see the claims and outcomes have a less biased view.
That’s the case for gain-of-function research:
- the US banned it despite expert opinions
- a rogue expert circumvented that ban by outsourcing the work to China
- that Chinese lab leaked the studied virus, causing a global pandemic
- the rogue scientist panicked and bribed several peers to help him cover that up and claim a “natural” origin
- millions of people are dead due to hubris and personal biases
This is great news. Dengue was a constant problem in my home country of Malaysia, and remains a problem to this day. I still remember all the public education campaigns about it that I saw when I was young (random ads on TV about making sure there's no stagnant water, seeking medical help if you notice , etc), I'm very glad that there are easily implementable solutions to these problems. As a side note, I wonder why…
This Wolbachia bacteria is really something else. It seems to have a massive set of effects on a variety of organisms, directly impacting the way they reproduce, or even the way which sex they develop into. Remarkable. As some sort of bonus it also prevents the host from developing other viral diseases in the case of mosquitos, I guess because it's a parasite, so it's advantageous for it to do so? Wild little thing.…
They're usually only transmitted maternally and different strains came up with different strategies to maximise Wolbachia offspring: some strains prevent male offspring from developing, some strains prevent reproduction with Wolbachia-uninfected females so the infected males have only offspring with infected females!
You can make models of Wolbachia population spread with these strategies forever and ever :)