Unintended consequences, anyone?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences
E.g. Rabbits in Australia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia#Biological...
Brazilians welcome genetically-modified mosquito to help fight dengue fever
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Re: Brazilians welcome genetically-modified mosquito to help fight dengue fever
#72I've recently been thinking about the possibility of a genetic disease for mosquitoes, transmitted down male lines but killing only females of the same brood, with the intended result that a relatively small release of males can cause an extreme imbalance in the sex ratio and possibly the elimination of mosquitoes from an area. The different mechanisms of mosquito sex determination aside, I haven't been able to work…
This would only work for a while, and then, "nature would find a way". Sometimes I think no one even bothered paying attention to Jurassic Park.
Humans have been very successful at beating evolution, if more by accident than purposeful action. Mosquitoes won't be pushovers like the dodo were, but if we eradicate one species of them they won't be the first insects we've driven extinct on purpose.
Re: Brazilians welcome genetically-modified mosquito to help fight dengue fever
#73I've recently been thinking about the possibility of a genetic disease for mosquitoes, transmitted down male lines but killing only females of the same brood, with the intended result that a relatively small release of males can cause an extreme imbalance in the sex ratio and possibly the elimination of mosquitoes from an area. The different mechanisms of mosquito sex determination aside, I haven't been able to work…
Once you start to get a sex imbalance then the genetics of future generations as a whole will disproportionately be determined by the female population, which won't have any copies of the gene. Eventually the gene will be eliminated from the population. It's the same principle that causes most species to produce equal number of males and females despite that not being ideal for the species as a whole.
Re: Brazilians welcome genetically-modified mosquito to help fight dengue fever
#74Unintended consequences, anyone? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences E.g. Rabbits in Australia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia#Biological...
Simply saying "unintended consequences" means doing nothing, ever.
WHO says "severe dengue is a leading cause of serious illness and death among children in some Asian and Latin American countries." After we don't have so many dead kids, some of them can grow up, and you can ask them how they feel about whatever unintended consequences there are.
Re: Brazilians welcome genetically-modified mosquito to help fight dengue fever
#75Somethine something, Hunger Games Tracker Jacker wasps.
Re: Brazilians welcome genetically-modified mosquito to help fight dengue fever
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Green revolution did, but that wasn't GMO. The green revolution did a lot of good, but GMO is potentially doing even more. Have you looked at modern strains of GM rice? That stuff is absolutely amazing. Incredibly drought and flood resistance, and can thrive in a huge range of environmental conditions. As GMO tech progresses, we'll probably just see better and better stuff. Imagine plants with antifreeze proteins to…
As GMO tech progresses, we are seeing strange side effects like interference with the monarch butterfly and bees, soil depletion, a drive for deeper genetic modification as weeds and insects adapt to old versions, a draconian patent structure effecting farmer livelihood, just to name a few problems. Who would blame anyone for choosing food over starvation? But GMO is not a solution for the world, and it is not a sust…
> strange side effects
Most of these are myths or have nothing at all to do with GMOs
> a drive for deeper genetic modification
So? That just means it's working.
> a draconian patent structure effecting farmer livelihood
This is an artifact of patent law, not genetic modification.
> But GMO is not a solution for the world, and it is not a sustainable solution for fixing poverty.
What does "not a solution for the world" mean? And why is it not sustainable? If we use genetic modification to optimize an organism, there is no reason that it can't be sustainable. In fact, we can make farming even more sustainable than it is now.
> it's a bit rich for the so-called developed world to destroy sustainable indigenous populations and then "solve" the problem with intensive agriculture
You're using a misdirected ad-hominem attack against GMO technology. "The developed world damaged some technologically undeveloped populations, so it's somehow negative that any technology from the developed world be used to help any technologically undeveloped populations."
Re: Brazilians welcome genetically-modified mosquito to help fight dengue fever
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Citation: my taste buds.
So where are you getting the GM tomatoes?
Shockingly, I was alive in the mid-90s :) It's also a given that any GMO tomato would be a hybrid, a.k.a. a cardboard-esque rubber ball. A little experience and common sense can go a long way in determining something's flavor (lol)!
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
Re: Brazilians welcome genetically-modified mosquito to help fight dengue fever
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
As GMO tech progresses, we are seeing strange side effects like interference with the monarch butterfly and bees, soil depletion, a drive for deeper genetic modification as weeds and insects adapt to old versions, a draconian patent structure effecting farmer livelihood, just to name a few problems. Who would blame anyone for choosing food over starvation? But GMO is not a solution for the world, and it is not a sust…
> strange side effects Most of these are myths or have nothing at all to do with GMOs > a drive for deeper genetic modification So? That just means it's working. > a draconian patent structure effecting farmer livelihood This is an artifact of patent law, not genetic modification. > But GMO is not a solution for the world, and it is not a sustainable solution for fixing poverty. What does "not a solution for the worl…
The Monarch butterfly thing actually does: It is a result of the fact that herbicide-resistant GMO crops allow you to actually eliminate (rather than just reduce) weeds in a field. Those weeds both sustain butterfly populations and reduce crop yields.
Re: Brazilians welcome genetically-modified mosquito to help fight dengue fever
#79I am not afraid of GM stuff, but does anyone else think this idea is potentially really dumb? What about everything that relies on these mosquitoes as a food source? I am not an expert... but trying to just kill off an entire species sounds like a TERRIBLE idea...
The people behind this program aren't fools. They're experts who have given a lot of thought to this problem. Some basic points should alleviate your fears. First, the mosquito they're trying to eradicate is a non-native species. Second, said mosquito is the primary vector for Dengue fever, which infects hundreds of thousands and kills hundreds in Brazil every year. Even if this mosquito was native to South America,…
> First, the mosquito they're trying to eradicate is a non-native species.
I really don't get the environmentalist emphasis on the world being, and staying, the way god ordained it at the beginning of the universe. Mosquitoes have a generation time measured in weeks; for any practical purpose, there's no such thing as a non-native mosquito. Assuming a mosquito generation length of one month, and a human generation length of 25 years, we can see that a mosquito population that's been around for 5 years is the equivalent of a human one that's been around for 1500.
Trying to distinguish between "native" species and "non-native" species makes all the sense of distinguishing between "anthropogenic global warming" and "natural global warming". There's no point. A phenomenon is good, or it's bad; it's not bad just because you can finger a particular cause, it's not good just because things were that way 100 years ago, and it's not bad just because things were different 10 years ago. Judge by the effects.
Re: Brazilians welcome genetically-modified mosquito to help fight dengue fever
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
The aedes aegyptus is an invasive species in the Americas and should be eradicated. There are about 3000 species of mosquitoes in the world, of which three bear deadly disease: 1. Anopheles (malaria, elephantiasis, and encephalitis) 2. Culex (encephalitis, elephantiasis, and West Nile virus) 3. Aedes (yellow fever, dengue, and encephalitis) Asian Tiger mosquitoes are a subspecies of Aedes. If we were to wipe out thes…
First, I'd like to point that those are gender, not species. Those together add to thousands of species, and you forgot at least about Lutzomyia. That said, I completely agree that we should get rid of them. And think it's more likely than you stated, if we can extinguish so many species, it can't be so much harder to do it on purpose. Currently we are barely trying, with techniques from the earlier XX century.
Well, we could extinguish the mosquitoes if we nuked and irradiated the world so thoroughly that we experienced a 10-year nuclear winter that would cause mass extinction. No more animals to feed on, no more breeding zones, hence no more mosquitoes!
But that would come with some undesirable side effects such as the eradication of our own species (except for a few living in hardened, self-sufficient underground shelters as in the "Silo" novel).
Arguably, there are too many humans, so perhaps it would make sense to reboot the world with a tiny core of eugenically superior men and women, plus seed stocks and animals to repopulate, and of course maintain massive DNA banks for future species re-creation and replenishment as needed.
Or, preferably, terraform Mars or Venus and selectively introduce only the flora and fauna that humans like, and hope some jerk doesn't accidentally or deliberately release ticks, mosquitoes, and other pests into this erstwhile perfect new Eden.