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US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease

nature.com

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Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease

#71

Post by sumeno »

angersock wrote: post #44
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.who.int/whr/1996/media_centre/executive_summary1/... Mosquitoes are responsible for millions of deaths every year, and hundreds of millions of infections often with severe disability. We understand stuff pretty deeply now. According to https://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html eliminating mosquitoes would not cause major ecological issues. So when you have millions of people dying every yea…

Wouldn't having millions of people not dying every year cause problems of its own?

This is very easy to say when you have a very near 0% chance of being one of the millions.

Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease

#72

Post by saulrh »

Chardok wrote: post #63
saulrh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like 30 out of the 500 anopheles species are capable of carrying malaria. Only 2 of those 30 bite humans: A. gambiae and A. funestus . Eradicating those two would be sufficient and another species, one that doesn't bite humans, would take over the rest of their niche. "Bites humans" is not a sufficiently beneficial adaptation to be a game-changer. We can eliminate that trait and precisely that trait with su…

I am also wondering how mosquito populations are affected by increasing human populations. I can imagine with a lot of left out garbage collecting standing water plus being a food source could have given mosquitoes a unnatural advantage.

Garbage and standing water benefit all mosquitoes against non-mosquito competitors. We only need to consider whether biting humans benefits human-biting mosquitoes over non-human-biting mosquitoes, or separately whether carrying malaria benefits malaria-carrying mosquitoes over non-malaria-carrying mosquitoes; eliminating either trait would be sufficient. I believe that neither of these are powerful enough, meaning that the malaria-carrying human-biting species can be almost seamlessly replaced by non-human-biting or non-malaria-carrying species with no risk of the trait re-evolving or of the broader ecological niche, as tiny and unimportant as it is, failing to be re-filled.

Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease

#73

Post by eatbitseveryday »

ftxrcc wrote: post #43

I heavily disagree with this decision from the US gov't. It's incredibly arrogant and selfish for a species to try and modify nature for an evolutionary advantage.

This is not a genetic modification of the mosquitoes, thus I don't see it as "modification of nature".

We use bleach to kill bacteria, insecticides to reduce insect populations, condoms to negate the course of insemination, and breed animals and plants to have specific properties they might not otherwise acquire for our sustenance (cow, pig, chicken). Do you not consider these processes the same? If so, do you disagree with these, also? If these are not comparable, why are these different?

Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease

#74

Post by pm90 »

Chardok wrote: post #63
saulrh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like 30 out of the 500 anopheles species are capable of carrying malaria. Only 2 of those 30 bite humans: A. gambiae and A. funestus . Eradicating those two would be sufficient and another species, one that doesn't bite humans, would take over the rest of their niche. "Bites humans" is not a sufficiently beneficial adaptation to be a game-changer. We can eliminate that trait and precisely that trait with su…

I am also wondering how mosquito populations are affected by increasing human populations. I can imagine with a lot of left out garbage collecting standing water plus being a food source could have given mosquitoes a unnatural advantage.

Is it that surprising? Populations of animals that depend on humans has generally expanded with people. This applies to livestock, pets, vermin etc.

Mosquitoes are prevalent even in super clean places, btw. I used to live by a small creek in Austin, TX and in the summers I could basically never enjoy my yard: it would be flooded by mosquitoes (the creek would have standing water which mosquitoes require to reproduce).

Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease

#75

Post by briga »

napa15 wrote: post #50
saulrh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like 30 out of the 500 anopheles species are capable of carrying malaria. Only 2 of those 30 bite humans: A. gambiae and A. funestus . Eradicating those two would be sufficient and another species, one that doesn't bite humans, would take over the rest of their niche. "Bites humans" is not a sufficiently beneficial adaptation to be a game-changer. We can eliminate that trait and precisely that trait with su…

It's fine being careful but this argument devolves all too often into some kind of religious nature worship. We are the dominant species on this planet. Animals and plant life - nature - have to conform to our wishes. Not the other way around.

The only reason we are the dominant species is because we have resources and ecosystems that can support us. The dominant species won't be so dominant anymore when ecosystems collapse.

Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease

#76

Post by dec0dedab0de »

eatbitseveryday wrote: post #67
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #20

This is kind of like neutering/spaying feral cats, and returning them to where they were found. They stop breeding, but continue to compete with others for resources.

> This is kind of like neutering/spaying feral cats, and returning them to where they were found. They stop breeding, but continue to compete with others for resources. What resources are mosquitoes competing for in the environment?

Mating partners...

It's obviously not a one to one with cats, just a similar technique of population control via sterilization and release.

Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease

#77

Post by dmitriid »

quotemstr wrote: post #51

If I could, I would drive every human-biting mosquito to extinction. Ecosystem preservation and caution in deploying new technology is nice, but human welfare takes precedence.

Not just human-biting

--- start quote ---

... the arctic tundra actually has the biggest mosquito problems in the world, because the land there is a perfect incubator for mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes control the migrations of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou). Their massive herds in Canada are always on the move to find food, but in the summer they travel a lot more, covering greater distances and moving to higher ground, sometimes avoiding the best feeding sites, because they are trying to avoid the gigantic swarms of mosquitoes that plague the Arctic regions in the summer

The caribou are clearly bothered by mosquitoes, losing up to a liter of blood a week during the worst outbreaks, so if asked I’m sure they’d vote for eliminating mosquitoes, and given their population size and herd mentalities they’d likely come out to vote in large numbers.

--- end quote ---

[1] https://www.quora.com/profile/Matan-Shelomi/Posts/Mosquitoes...

Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease

#78

Post by benchaney »

anonacct37 wrote: post #22
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.who.int/whr/1996/media_centre/executive_summary1/... Mosquitoes are responsible for millions of deaths every year, and hundreds of millions of infections often with severe disability. We understand stuff pretty deeply now. According to https://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html eliminating mosquitoes would not cause major ecological issues. So when you have millions of people dying every yea…

How many planets do we have? By my count it's one. What's our track record on changing ecosystems to fix problems without creating worse problems? Zero out of how many? I hate mosquito too, and they are probably useless, but no good engineer makes changes without a backup and a tested rollback strategy, where's our backup?

What are you talking about? We change the environment all the time. Mostly there are minimal side effects. People are scared of the exceptions, because that is what gets the most attention. Its all just conformation bias and fear mongering.

Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease

#79

Post by saulrh »

sametmax wrote: post #57
pault wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had dengue and zika, and I don't care how arrogant it is, I'm all for extincting those fuckers.

I HAVE malaria. Right now. I'm not.

You have malaria, money, and first-world medical support. Very different thing. Kill the fuckers.

Re: US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease

#80

Post by sametmax »

saulrh wrote: post #79
sametmax wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I HAVE malaria. Right now. I'm not.

You have malaria, money, and first-world medical support. Very different thing. Kill the fuckers.

So the problem is the state of the third world. No mosquitoes. Let's fix that instead of killing things. Especially since we are mostly responsible.
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