Fighting Mosquitoes With GM Mosquitoes 521
doug141 writes "Scientists are releasing genetically modified male mosquitoes that produce flightless female offspring. The male offspring go on to wipe out another generation of females. This is similar to the way screwworms were eradicated in the U.S., except with nature itself making more of the modified males. Field trials are already underway."
Do I get to say... (Score:5, Funny)
What could possibly go wrong?
Nature... will find a way! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Nature... will find a way! (Score:5, Insightful)
While fruit bats certainly are cute, I don't think they'll be very effective at eating mosquitoes. ;)
Re:Nature... will find a way! (Score:5, Funny)
We just need mosquitoes which genetically altered to taste like mangos.
Re:Nature... will find a way! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nature... will find a way! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Nature... will find a way! (Score:5, Insightful)
Ignorance and superstition. Bats eat insects -- LOTS of insects. They do no harm to society, other animals, or anything else. Little brown bats are insectivores, eating moths, wasps, beetles, gnats,
mosquitoes, midges and mayflies, among others. You like mosquitos, cockroaches, flies, and moths?
You wouldn't like your neighborhood without bats.
Re:Nature... will find a way! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Nature... will find a way! (Score:5, Funny)
Umm ... your parent poster complained about bat guano. Which of ignorance or superstition was it to claim that a large number of bats were responsible for his unwanted surplus of bat guano?
Re:Nature... will find a way! (Score:5, Funny)
Which of ignorance or superstition was it to claim that a large number of bats were responsible for his unwanted surplus of bat guano?
We may never know---I suspect he has gone batshit crazy.
Re:Nature... will find a way! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nature... will find a way! (Score:5, Insightful)
Be careful what you wish for. There was an article - google it - regarding the number of bats killed by wind turbines and the direct cost increase to farmers who had to increase their pesticide usage in response. Food prices, of course, also go up. Just as killing mosquitoes wholesale would be "bad" for the "cycle of life," killing off bats would be about as bad, I'd guess.
Personal anecdote: one night earlier this summer, my grand-daughter and I watched a flock of bats at dusk and, though they swooped and came close a few times - we were standing near the pool where the bats would dive bomb to get a drink - they never once threatened us. In addition to being a fascinating show, it was a good lesson for her: bats may -look- scary, but are usually harmless; no need to panic. I'm trying to get her - and her grandmother, and her mother - not to be so frightened by spiders, too, though less successfully.
Re:Nature... will find a way! (Score:5, Interesting)
Just as killing mosquitoes wholesale would be "bad" for the "cycle of life,"
I'm not at all convinced that mosquitoes aren't an exception. Most of their "positive utility" is in serving as food for critters higher on the food chain, but in that respect they're pretty fungible with most other insects. If we killed all the mosquitoes, it wouldn't kill all the bats -- they would just eat other insects.
The primary other thing they do is draw blood from various animals (which has a negligible effect on anything) and spread disease (which is pretty firmly in the net negative category).
Re:Nature... will find a way! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nature... will find a way! (Score:5, Informative)
Be careful what you wish for. There was an article - google it - regarding the number of bats killed by wind turbines and the direct cost increase to farmers who had to increase their pesticide usage in response.
Sorry, but that is totally false myth perpetrated by anti-wind power crowd. Modern wind turbines do not kill birds or bats in any great numbers. Ask any farmer who walks around under the turbines on his land. Ask Google. [lmgtfy.com]
Re:Nature... will find a way! (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you release owls to eat the bats. If the owls get out of control, we'll need to GM a fox into a flying fox to eat the owls. Then GM a flying mountain lion to take care of the flying foxes. Not sure if you can GM a flying bear, though.
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Females can in theory spontaneously reproduce... Males cannot.
Mosquitoes will go the way of the dinosaur! (Score:3, Informative)
The mosquito could become extinct in a few generations. Here's how this could play out:
Mosquitoes usually fly when fleeing danger. These flightless mosquitoes will not be in position to flee! In a situation where they could survive a whack by flying away, they will surely be killed!
Killed in enough numbers, there will be no female mosquitoes to produce the 'next generation!'
Result: Males will find it difficult to find a mate, resulting in fewer mosquitoes all together.
Folks, the
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Indeed. Without a vector for malaria, what will we do about all those poor brown people?
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Re:Mosquitoes will go the way of the dinosaur! (Score:5, Funny)
Will they be mango-flavoured?
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There are places in the world today where eradication of mosquitoes would definitely be seen as a Good Thing.
Malaria, sleeping sickness, ...
Re:Mosquitoes will go the way of the dinosaur! (Score:5, Informative)
Well, A mosquito species could be come extinct. According to TFA, Aedes aegypti to be exact. This particular mosquito can carry several major human pathogens including dengue hemorrhagic fever, yellow fever, and chickungunya, which are all viral diseases. Ae. aegypti originated in Africa but is now found throughout tropical and subtropical regions including the USA, where it used to be in only Florida and the southeast but has since spread north to New York and Illinois. Especially alarming is the fact that there have been outbreaks of dengue recently (in 2010 at least) in Florida.
Eradication of Ae. aegypti might not necessarily be that big of a deal environmentally. While mosquitoes are an important part of the diet of many predators, there are over 40 genera comprising thousands of species of mosquitoes. Any reasonably sized chunk of land probably has more than one species of mosquito, for example here in Wisconsin we have not less than 58 species. Even tiny Rhode Island is home to at least 46 mosquito species!
Re:Mosquitoes will go the way of the dinosaur! (Score:5, Funny)
Hell, here in Louisiana, the mosquito is the fscking state bird....
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While mosquitoes are an important part of the diet of many predators, there are over 40 genera comprising thousands of species of mosquitoes
And while pork is an important part of my diet, I can do just fine without it, thank you.
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Other than feasting on warm blooded animals, there is probably no other significant niche that mosquito fill that could not be filled by other insects, so even if some mosquito species are more or less suppressed (eradicated seems un-likely), there are a dozen other insects that will fill the bellies of the the mosquito eaters.
Further, since it is (allegedly) only the female mosquitoes that seek blood, simply reducing the flying ability of females may give the perception that mosquito are reduced without ac
Re:Mosquitoes will go the way of the dinosaur! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Mosquitoes will go the way of the dinosaur! (Score:5, Funny)
Result: Males will find it difficult to find a mate, resulting in fewer mosquitoes all together.
And then those mateless male mosquitos will either go into IT, become imaginary property lawyers, or become politicians.
Re:Mosquitoes will go the way of the dinosaur! (Score:4, Funny)
Result: Males will find it difficult to find a mate, resulting in fewer mosquitoes all together.
Or, worse, you're going to end up with a bunch of horny male mosquitos humping your leg.
Re:Mosquitoes will go the way of the dinosaur! (Score:4, Informative)
Many many years ago I read a study that determined that the only species that could go poof and it wouldn't matter was the mosquito. It wasn't this one, but it said more or less the same thing-
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html [nature.com]
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Like we wouldn't have evolved at all in the presence of dinosaurs?
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430334/ [imdb.com]
i
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The issue for me is that these scientists are, making decisions that should be evaluated well before they act, and not just by them, but by a larger audience.
According to the article, the scientist is still doing controlled cage trials. It's his corporate partner, the company who actually developed the mutation, that has already started releasing them in the wild. I'm not sure that science is to blame here.
Oxitec's historic first release of GM mosquitoes in 2009 killed an estimated 80% of the A. aegypti population on the Grand Cayman island in the Carribbean - a geographically isolated area.
More mutant, autocidal mosquitoes have been released in Malaysia, and the technique is reportedly going into large scale production in Brazil.
James sees Oxitec's full-speed-ahead approach as a potential risk to the entire science of genetic modification. "That's the difficulty of working with corporations," he told Scientific American, "I can't control corporate partners."
Re:Do I get to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
The irony when I contast your sig and your sudden approval of mass consensus has literally blown my mind. Fortunately, my muscles remained able to type this in the absence of centralized motor control.
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Even if it's replaced with other mosquitoes, only a few species of those actually drink blood and thus spread disease.
Obligatory turd in punchbowl (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it OK for us to blindly eradicate them just because they cause disease in humans? It's not like mosquitos are going to kill us off or anything.
Re:Obligatory turd in punchbowl (Score:4, Interesting)
Although I don't immediately know the specifics for mosquitos, not everything in nature serves a useful purpose.
Re:Obligatory turd in punchbowl (Score:5, Funny)
Although I don't immediately know the specifics for mosquitos, not everything in nature serves a useful purpose.
Like, for instance, humans. Nature would get along much better without us, probably.
Re:Obligatory turd in punchbowl (Score:5, Funny)
> Like, for instance, humans. Nature would get along much better without us, probably.
Not quite, there are mosquitoes that need humans as a food source.
Re:Obligatory turd in punchbowl (Score:5, Funny)
My theory is that nature wanted plastics, and since there was no natural way to produce plastics nature created humans to make plastics. Unfortunately for nature this plan has gone slightly had some unforeseen side effects.
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The earth wants us to transform her into a gigantic electronic brain. She thinks the Internet is awesome progress. Oh, and she doesn't really give a fuck about lions, tigers or baby seals...
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They didn't. "Cows" are domesticated, and are a far cry from the animals that were around before we were...
Keep in mind we are not talking water buffalo here.
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Humans aren't the problem, it is and always will be .. technology. The moment we started using tools, we started to augment our environment to make it more inhabitable for larger groups.
Take away all the tools, we are just animals, like the rest of nature.
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Why can't someone enjoy living but also believe that nature would also get along much better without us?
Re:Obligatory turd in punchbowl (Score:5, Insightful)
Nature wants to survive
As far as I know, nature doesn't and can't want anything.
Re:Obligatory turd in punchbowl (Score:5, Funny)
Don't anthropomorphize nature. It really hates that.
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them and us. (Score:2)
The effort to warm the planet will increase the population of mosquitos. We have to eradicate them to enjoy our swan song.
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The effort to warm the planet will increase the population of mosquitos. We have to eradicate them to enjoy our swan song.
Ever been to Winnipeg?
Re:Obligatory turd in punchbowl (Score:5, Informative)
Since clearly a lot of people didn't read the article or the link in the article that directly addresses this [nature.com]...
Re:Obligatory turd in punchbowl (Score:4, Informative)
I found this on the Internet.
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html
[[Ecology: A world without mosquitoes
Eradicating any organism would have serious consequences for ecosystems — wouldn't it? Not when it comes to mosquitoes, finds Janet Fang.]]
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Nothing, until you need a lawyer. But sense all the judges and prosecutors would be gone too.
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Banning the harvest of sharks in these reefs resulted in much greater biomass for the
Science fiction story (Score:3)
I believe there was a science fiction story that once something like this:
Some super space aliens/God came to earth and after seeing what Man had done to the planet gathered up all the animals and asked:
"If two of you will say that Man was good to you, I will spare him, otherwise he will be made extinct like he has done to so many of you."
The dog, stood next to his master, loyal in his hour of need. The cat on the other hand merely licked his paws and sauntered away.
"Is there no-one else who will vouch for
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Nature can survive without this particular species of mosquito. There are hundreds of other flies that fill the same niche.
Re:Obligatory turd in punchbowl (Score:4, Informative)
The article links to this Nature story [nature.com] that asserts that completely eradicating mosquitos would have no measurable effect on the environment. They don't really do anything but spread disease. They might have a role as a food source for other animals, but they don't appear to be very significant.
But we might be missing an important part of the chain, and wiping out the mosquitos might throw the world completely out of balance. Then again, humans have so many reasons to hate the little buggers that it still might be worth it.
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Less than 10% of mosquito species carry plasmodium. It's about 100% certain that killing off the species that do will result in the other non-lethal mosquito species filling their niche.
Re:Obligatory turd in punchbowl (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-wipeout-gene&page=6 [scientificamerican.com]
"Some people wonder if it is ethical—or safe—to eliminate an organism, even in just a small geographic area. Proponents argue that A. aegypti is an invasive species that has evolved to exploit a solely human niche. “Urban A. aegypti is not part of any significant food chain,” says Phil Lounibos, a mosquito ecologist at the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory. Yet Lounibos doubts whether eliminating A. aegypti would stop dengue transmission permanently. “A previous campaign to eradicate this species from the Americas in the 1950s and 1960s, when it was the primary vector of urban yellow fever, failed miserably,” he says. The invasive Asian tiger mosquito—another good dengue vector—readily occupies niches vacated by A. aegypti. Moreover, both the Cayman and Tapachula mosquito strains, even if successful, are not permanent. Migration of mosquitoes from neighboring regions into Tapachula could foil eradication attempts and mandate frequent releases of the modified males to keep the population in check."
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But the question is not "are they harmful to humans" but rather "will the harm done by their eradication be worse or not?"
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You say that as if human deaths are a bad thing, you know we're in the middle of a major population and food crisis right?
Actually, we're in no such middle, at least in terms of population. Those areas with food issues are victims of politics, mostly, or economics.
When food aid to drought-stricken areas is stolen by gangs (government-affiliated and otherwise), are those people left hungry because of the world population?
When the USA is afflicted with inner city 'food deserts' with bodegas and fast food joints only serving over processed fats and salt in the shape of food and no access to markets with real food, is that becaus
Re:Obligatory turd in punchbowl (Score:4, Insightful)
Typically specist human thinks all creatures exist to serve him, hmm?
Well, yes, the entire point of the human intelligence is that we survived by mastering our environment. I suppose you would also protest lions eating deer?
Part of that mastery, of course, is to care for the environment and not destroy it.
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Well, we are. To us.
If we were to die off, why would we care about anything else? We are not subservient to anything else.
That doesn't mean we have to be dicks about it, but being overly self-sacrificing is just doing ourselves a disservice.
Re:Obligatory turd in punchbowl (Score:4, Funny)
I suspect this is what God is doing.
Genocide (Score:5, Interesting)
You would think that some organization like the UN would step in and tell the US that genocide of an entire species is not a good thing.
Re:Genocide (Score:5, Insightful)
It saves human lives. fsck the mosquitoes. Did you complain when they eradicated small pox?
Re:Genocide (Score:4, Insightful)
We shouldn't eradicate them. We should keep thousands of samples from all over the world frozen and maintain a limited breeding population in zoos.
But the wild population? The one that keeps killing HUMANS? We should probably get rid of that. We do a ton of damage to the environment and wipe out a great many species just by existing as is. We can worry about mosquitoes after we solve all the other problems.
Re:Genocide (Score:5, Informative)
It's a new disease, so I expect you haven't heard of it: Malaria.
malaria accounts for 2% of deaths worldwide. most of which are children.
and secondly:RTFuckingA. the discuss that specific topic.
Crawling moquitos (Score:2)
SO were gonna end up with mosquito's that now can crawl and bite us. Also how many other species need those mosquito's to survive?
Re:Crawling moquitos (Score:4, Insightful)
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We have killed ..., beavers, ...
I always knew shaving them would lead to problems in the long run.
Itchy (Score:3, Funny)
That's nuts.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I read in the one of the article links that the ecological impact isn't expected to be a serious problem, but I find that difficult to accept. And there are certainly detractors to that theory in the scientific community.
Is eradicating malaria, West Nile, etc. really worth the risks? They may be highly threatening to humans, but ultimately we still have to live here after the mosquitoes are gone...
Re:That's nuts.... (Score:5, Interesting)
"The humble mosquito, and the deadly diseases it carries, is estimated to have been responsible for as many as 46 billion deaths over the history of our species. That staggering number is even more frightening in context - it means that mosquitoes are alleged to have killed more than half the humans that ever lived."
Besides eliminating one species of Mosquito isn't going to affect the others that live in the same places. (like eliminating Chihuahuas won't affect other dogs species much)
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You are being stupid. Stop being stupid. RTFA and you will see why your post is a very stupid post.
It's 1(one) species of mosquito.
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Every comment here should begin and end with "How can I help?"
The attitude that we should just say "oh they say it helps people so we should help them do it" is incredibly naive, and in fact a very dangerous idea to have. If someone is proposing to eradicate an entire species, then we really SHOULD think about if it's a good idea, not just say "well it will fix some problems so lets do it!"
I have no problem telling that to a victim. I fully agree that we need to find some way to deal with the malaria and West Nile and all the other horrible things mosquitoes carry,
How about driving their evolution instead? (Score:2)
Instead of eradicating them, why not impose a strong selection just against the ones we don't like, namely, the ones that can carry yellow fever, dengue, etc.
If we start imposing a strong selection pressure against mosquitoes that carry disease, but leave the ones that DON'T carry disease alone, we wipe out the disease a lot more selectively. And we don't leave an open niche for something else (possibly worse) to occupy.
--PM
Re:How about driving their evolution instead? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, for instance, we could create a way to selectively wipe out just the one species of mosquitoes that carry these diseases, while leaving other closely related species unharmed. Perhaps we could make it so that their females can't feed or flee from predators.
Re:How about driving their evolution instead? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Simpler solution (Score:3)
Just put the California Department of Fish and Game in charge of maintaining a self-sustaining breeding population of mosquitoes.
Evolution (Score:3)
So the flightless females will just sit around the house, eating cake and watching soap operas. While the males go out and work to support the family, eventually dying at their desks from massive coronaries.
Whew! That certainly was cathartic.
GM Mosquitos (Score:3)
GM used to make good mosquitos a generation ago- but to be perfectly honest, the Japanese, and lately the Koreans make better Mosquitos.
Now if only Ferrari made Mosquitos.
WHERE'S THE MOSQUITO VAPORIZING LASER? (Score:3)
C'mon everyone, this is a news for (mainly) tech nerds into hardware/software not wetware (sorry biologists).
We should be demanding progress on that mosquito vaporizing laser demonstrated at TED by Paul Allen's company. It seemed remarkably free of "side effects" and would not put a dent in the overall mosquito population (at least not until the "Star Wars" space based global anti-mosquito laser netwok is set up). They claimed that they could manufacture it (in quantity) for $50.
I had Dengue fever last year and I'd buy one for ten times the price (I know that won't work for the developing world but hey, what can I say? I'm selfish and one less food source available for mosquitos the better for everyone).
Anyone out there know how to get this thing "kickstarted"? How much would Paul Allen ask for the rights?
Some info on malaria (Score:4, Informative)
MALARIA FACTS Of the 300-500 million clinical cases of malaria that occur globally each year, 90 percent of them are in Africa. Malaria is endemic in more than 90 countries. Forty percent of the world population is at risk for malaria. Ten percent of world population gets sick each year with malaria. DEATH BY MALARIA Number of fatal cases of malaria each year: over 1 million Most common age at death: 4 years Every 30 seconds, a child dies of malaria Five percent of African children are killed by malaria, almost 3,000 each day, or the equivalent of seven jumbo jets full of children crashing every day. Up to 23 percent of African infants are born with the malaria parasite.
(http://malaria.jhsph.edu/about_malaria/)
Personally, I think killing large numbers of mosquitoes is a good thing, especially considering malaria is quickly becoming resistant to the drugs used to treat it. A reduction in mosquito numbers would greatly reduce the transmission of this disease.
Re:Wait a second... (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as I know, there aren't too many actual horror stories about GM animals messing up ecosystems.
However, there are hundreds of years worth of horror stories from introducing some species of animal or plant to help control another bothersome species. Plus many accidental, but no less problematic, introductions.
I'm not saying that GM as a species control is safe, but I am saying we've tried it that your way and it doesn't work well.
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Oops, ignore that. I misread the parent's point.
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Vampire frogs. Awesome.
Re:Lets fuck it up. (Score:4, Insightful)
Your comment is difficult to understand, but I'm pretty sure you are implying that the GM mosquitoes will mutate and become some kind of super-bug.
However it is a non-problem. The modified flies have defective offspring, who also have defective offspring. The population will soon go extinct, long before there have been enough generations to mutate into something else. That whole extinction thing is the whole point of releasing these bugs!
-d
Re:Lets fuck it up. (Score:4, Insightful)
No,. What he is saying is:
"I don't understand the scary science or evolution, therefore bad stuff will happen"
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No, what he is saying is:
"Many times before we've seen people do things on this scale that supposedly would only have benefits with no downside. And many times before we've seen there were in fact downsides. Why is this the exception?"
In other words, TANSTAAFL. Tell me the side effects are minor or are out-weighed by the potential benefits, I may be convinced. Tell me there are no side effects, then I know either you are lying or haven't thought this through all the way.
Re:Lets fuck it up. (Score:5, Informative)
The immediate side effect is that there will not be any mosquitoes.
No serious negative repercussions are known to exist for such an event beyond that the diet of certain types of insect predators would be affected (fortunately for such predators, their diet is not exclusively dependent on the species of mosquito that this concept intends to render extinct). The net effect upon mankind should be positive, other than possibly causing companies that make mosquito repellent to possibly go out of business.
But seriously.... did you *NEED* somebody to have to spell that all out for you? They're mosquitoes, for crying out loud... and not some vital part of the food chain on which we ourselves are part of.
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I wasn't pretending to know anything... if you re-read what I said above, I stated that there are absolutely no known adverse effects to the elimination of the mosquito on mankind, other than the possible implications it might have for people who work for companies that make mosquito repellant. This much is entirely true.
Again, though... that is based only on what we know so far... if we always procrastinated with everything that we tried just because we were afraid of things that we might not happen t
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If you're trying to imply that GE mosquitoes will have some sort of crazy unforeseen consequences, those are pretty bad examples to make your point with. Neither of those really have much to do with genetic engineering. As far as I know there are a handful of theories for CCD, but no one has linked it to GE crop in any way (besides the typical crazies who blame GE crops for animal sterility, autism, cancer, droughts, missing socks, ect).
As for the so-called superweeds, there is no such thing. Maybe you w
Re:Lets fuck it up. (Score:4, Informative)
Partially agreed but...at the same time... who knows what doesn't mean it wont work...or will result in problems later, just that we don't fully know...and I might argue, can't fully know until we try.
That said, I think it has a real chance of working, mostly because of how drastic of an effect this could have by shifting the reproductive cycle in such a way as to massively overpopulate males vs females. If this works for the first few generations, it could quickly put a hurting on their numbers. This leaves a couple of possibilities.
Actually.... this reminds me of some of the talk of cancer evolution....in fact, its probably a good model here. To go from being a human cell to a cancer cell generally takes not just one, but several evolutionary steps. At each of those steps, a cell line could die off (either via chance or via a cleaning mechanism designed to take out mutated cells). Chances are, if you have cancer, your body came close to cancer several times before one cell finally finds the right mutated configuration.
So the chance of developing cancer actually is dependent on the number of steps required to become cancerous, down all of the paths that it can. This is an identical situation here.... it comes down to how close the populations genetic makeup is to being able to circumvent this. If it only takes one or two mutations to make females who avoid GM males, or to produce something which compensates for the change, then.... this is unlikely to work. Similarly, if they already have the genes required to make females that are not susceptible, then this will simply make sure that they dominate.
That said, if there are no coping mechanisms already in their population, and if developing them is more than a few mutations away.... it could come damned close to eradicating them. Once their numbers are vastly smaller, it would also slow the rate of total mutations in their population, making them less likely to make it over the hurdles.
It could work.... but... what that will mean in the long term is unclear.
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I tend to think that the whole chain converges rather than diverges as you claim. Otherwise, I'd be hard pressed to explain how the whole thing worked so far.
That said, I completely agree that the harm done by eradication could very well outweigh the harm mosquitoes are doing right now.
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I assume that other flies (that don't carry the disease that these mosquitoes do) will fill in the population gap and provide food for low-level predators.
-d
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