91–100 of 441 posts
watch the will smith movie "I am Legend" where he's the last human alive because scientists made a bold decision like this, then decide if we should do a pre-emptive strike. Or will this be the 12 monkeys (wow, 2nd movie reference) tipping point.
What if mosquitoes are the only thing preventing an alien invasion? Or even worse, the key to stopping one when it happens. "Tabarnak! we would have won if we had some damn mosquitoes!"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even more on point: Which is likely to cause more ecological damgage: 1) Wipe out two (of over 3,500) species of mosquito 2) Spray poisons indiscriminately, wiping out many different species of insect, both mosquitos and non-mosquitos?
Don't things eat mosquitos? Do any of those things matter?
edit: http://www.chron.com/life/gardening/article/Dragonflies-Moth...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We should just cure these diseases. Vector control is fucking hard, we've been trying it for a century without really fixing the problem. That isn't likely to change; therapeutic interventions, however, can keep getting better and cheaper.
>We should just cure these diseases. Much, much easier said than done.
How many bugs and spiders rely on mosquitoes as part of their diet? Out of all of the ideas in this article, not once was the impact to the biological food chain discussed. We can kill all of the little annoying things, but how many beneficial organisms are being supported by them?
You must have stopped reading part way through: > There’s little evidence, though, that mosquitoes form a crucial link in any food chain, or that their niche could not be filled by something else. When science journalist Janet Fang spun out this thought experiment for Nature in 2010, she concluded that “life would continue as before—or even better.” I arrived at the same answer when I looked into the same question fo…
This is one of those ideas that sounds genius on its face, until it's actually implemented. Kudzu? Grows fast, prevents erosion, let's pay farmers to till it into the top soil. MTBE? Prevents engine knock, makes for cleaner air, let's mandate its use at the federal level. Whoopsie, once it's in the water we can't get it out, and its a carcinogen. Let's kill all of the mosquitos because we find their presence unpleasa…
Now: to ensure we're only extracting the mosquito DNA and not the dino DNA...
watch the will smith movie "I am Legend" where he's the last human alive because scientists made a bold decision like this, then decide if we should do a pre-emptive strike. Or will this be the 12 monkeys (wow, 2nd movie reference) tipping point.
See also: http://dresdencodak.com/2009/09/22/caveman-science-fiction/
We'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,…
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 their mandate: they could go to jail for misallocation of taxpayer funds. So whose mandate is this?
We'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,…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is much more than a million dollar question. I know local economies depending on mosquito larvae winter haul. They sell those to fishermen. Fish populations depends on mosquito larvae in many lake and river ecosystems.
Those economies don't specifically depend on Aedes aegypti.
Remember human population fertility control effort performed by the US under cover of humanitarian aid in Central Africa less than 30 years ago?