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Why if instead of spending money researching the diseases that mosquitos could transmit to humans on the future we spend all that money into figuring out a way
by otto_ortega 10y ago
Why if instead of spending money researching the diseases that mosquitos could transmit to humans on the future we spend all that money into figuring out a way to exterminate all mosquitos from the surface of earth once and for all?
As someone who lives on a tropical country and had have both Dengue and Chikungunya I can attest mosquitos are pure evil, and there are several researchs suggesting they serve no purpose on keeping the enviromental equilibrium (if they are gone, they won't be missed, the enviroment will be fine...)
On a side note, reading "U.S. Army Medical Research" , "Infectious Diseases", "new virus" and "mosquitos" in the same article makes no good to my paranoia...
- DicksenZuider 10y agoExterminating all mosquitoes could doom the animals that eat them. Birds, insects, spiders, salamanders, lizards and frogs could lose their primary food source. Wiping out a large part of the ecology could be a disaster.
- johnmaguire2013 10y agoThe parent specifically noted: > [...] and there are several researchs suggesting they serve no purpose on keeping the enviromental equilibrium (if they are gone, they won't be missed, the enviroment will be fine...) I'd love to see a source on this. The best I can find is this, which does indicate that some species could go extinct as a result: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html
- Symmetry 10y agoWhat I've read on the topic is that animals that eat mosquitos have lots of small flying insects to choose from if they disappear, so much so that you'd never notice the difference. Their role as pollinators is a bit more fraught but again there are still a few replacements standing by in pretty much every case.
- lowpro 10y agoAlthough he's missing references to the studies he mentioned, the point was animals that eat mosquitos would be fine without them, as they also eat other insects. Spiders come to mind.
- Myztiq 10y agoThere is a method for doing this. I can't seem to find the original article where I heard about this, but it was tested in some remote area in Africa and had a 90% reduction in mosquito population with just one application. Here is a more updated Zika flavored article about the same technique: http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/07/health/zika-florida-gmo-mosquito/ http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/07/health/zika-florida-gmo-mosqui...
- kafkaesq 10y agoI'm only aware of the test conducted in Brazil, which had a claimed 80% reduction rate: Oxitec, which is owned by Maryland-based Intrexon Corporation, tested its mosquitoes in the small Brazilian city of Piracicaba and said the reduced the number of mosquito larvae by 80 percent in one area.
- SomeCallMeTim 10y agoOR maybe killing all the blood-sucking mosquitoes would actually just be a net benefit. [1] [1] http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2010/07/scientists-go-ahead-kill-all-the-mosquitoes-the-world-will-be-better-for-it/ http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2010/07/scientists-go-ahead-kil...
- kin 10y agoAlthough I remember reading somewhere that mosquitos have a negative footprint on ecology. There's definitely a ton of research at the moment on mosquito control. There was another article on HN a few years ago on a device that tracks and kills mosquitos w/ tiny lasers that can't harm humans. Apologize for lack of source, I'll try and dig them up. EDIT: found it! wasn't too hard to find haha. And it seems other replies have already provided source on mosquitos and their net benefit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser
- DicksenZuider 10y agoWhat does "negative footprint" mean?
- kin 10y agoAs in the do more harm than good to the ecosystem.
- huherto 10y agoSadly the mosquito laser is not happening yet.
- kin 10y agoBut a man can dream. It would be so nice to mount one on my shoulder as I travel through Southeast Asia
- notduncansmith 10y agoOther commenters have noted that there are enough replacements that these animals won't miss them. I'm curious, though, if the subsequent decrease in those species' populations (from making up a larger percentage of prey than when mosquitoes were available) would have negative effects.
- Brybry 10y agoBirds, insects, spiders, etc would probably benefit a lot more from humans no longer needing to spray insecticide to control mosquitoes. And mosquitoes would still exist -- just not the species that are regionally eradicated because they spread diseases (and many of which are invasive species such as Aedes aegypti).
- latj 10y agoWe generally arent trying to cure diseases. I mean, individual researchers want to find cures (e.g. the dedicated clinician who went to med school because her mother had breast cancer, the passionate hacker who eschewed private buses and free lunches at some startup to work at a research institute) Generally though, the pressure of the overall system is to make as much money as possible. If you cure someone's disease, they pay once. If your goal is to make money the optimal path is to manage symptoms but keep customers (i.e. patients) reliant on your treatments, ideally with their life depending on them. Having said that, there are many people working to find new ways to control mosquito populations, especially with zika being in the news, especially with zika starting to affect the continental U.S. (No one cares when its just American Samoa and Hawaii but Florida is a little too close to home). I just read an article last week where essentially researchers had designed frankenstein gigolo mosquitoes that would steal your lady, impregnate her, but the resulting bastard frankensteins would die before reaching maturity.
- marxidad 10y agoDoes anyone actually make the conscious decision to avoid curing diseases because of its limited profitability?
- S_Daedalus 10y agoIt's just, "How business is done" and it's rarely if ever questioned.
- bsenftner 10y agoDoubtful one person, but a board of directors choosing where to maintain, increase, or reduce investment does. And their legal fiduciary duty is to maximize profits. That is the system's design right there.
- D-Coder 10y ago"their legal fiduciary duty is to maximize profits" actually is not true. Although it's of course a very common motive.
- jpfed 10y agoYou don't even need to wipe out all mosquitoes - just a few species (something like 6 out of 300) account for the vast majority of disease transmitted.
- axonic 10y agoAgreed. Mosquitoes are important pollinators and necessary members of our food chain, we would be hurting without their help. Only reproducing females require a blood meal, further complicating the issue. To that end, check out this [0] anti-mosquito laser weapon, which they claim can be tuned to target only females based on wing beat frequencies. While I disagree with the principal, a laser mosquito defense system gets cool points from me for creativity. [0] http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/military/laser-bug-zapper-inches-to-market- http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/military/laser-...
- otto_ortega 10y agoAgree with that, if the day comes I will like to see the Aedes Aegypti to be on top of the list, that little bastard needs to dissapear.
- tim333 10y agoThe tech is almost there - "Three U.S. labs that handle mosquitoes, two in California and one in Virginia, say they are already working toward a gene drive for Aedes aegypti" https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600689/we-have-the-technology-to-destroy-all-zika-mosquitoes/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600689/we-have-the-techno...
- kafkaesq 10y agoWhy if instead of spending money researching the diseases that mosquitos could transmit to humans on the future we spend all that money into figuring out a way to exterminate all mosquitos from the surface of earth once and for all? As if that were somehow... easier, or even more tractable? They're arguably (much) better optimized for long-term survival than we are, you know.
- otto_ortega 10y agoIt doesn't have to be easier, if progress in science were dictated based on what's easier to do, there wouldn't be much progress (if any) at all. It's a matter of what's better for our suvival as a specie.
- kafkaesq 10y agoI was referring to the fact that no one even knows if it's possible to do this yet. Not whether it would be easy or hard (or ethical) to do so.
- onewaystreet 10y agoThe how already exists (genetic engineering) but it will probably never be done due to political reasons.
- kafkaesq 10y agoUmm, it's hypothesized that it can be done. It's not like we "know" it can be done, but the politicians won't let us.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- roywiggins 10y agoIt has been tried, and works. http://www.popsci.com/genetically-modified-mosquito-knocks-out-dengue-brazilian-neighborhood http://www.popsci.com/genetically-modified-mosquito-knocks-o...
- kafkaesq 10y agoThere have only been a handful of small-scale field studies conducted so far; whether it will "work" regionally and long-term is another matter. So while the idea looks promising, objectively speaking, it's still a work in progress.
- thaumasiotes 10y agoHeh. Politics is never going to stand in the way of mosquito elimination. Mosquitoes are more unpopular than child pornography.
- stcredzero 10y agoNeighbors whose property breeds mosquitos aren't as universally shunned as sex offenders.
- bluejekyll 10y agoPolitical? Or just money? Obviously politics exist around the way govt spends money, but are you suggesting some more sinister than that?
- nicolas_t 10y agoYes, after the War on Drugs and the War on Terror, we need a War on Mosquitoes. It'd be a much better allocation than the other wars and much more beneficial for humanity. I can already picture the SWAT teams running with their electrical mosquito swatters :-)
- otto_ortega 10y agoYeah... SWAT tems aren't good enough to combat this pest, we need genetically modified biological weapons: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/05/florida-genetically-modified-mosquitoes-zika https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/05/florida-geneti...
- rbobby 10y agoI think we already had one... back in the 60's. DDT use was widespread worldwide. My Dad even used it at our cottage... best summer ever, next to no mosquitoes. Unfortunately DDT has a big impact on birds... softens the eggshell such that eggs don't hatch/grow. DDT is outlawed in a lot of places... but by no means all. We almost won the war on mosquitoes but our allies the birds would have been wiped out if we'd kept fighting :)
- reddytowns 10y agoThis isn't on topic and has been discussed many times before
- chillwaves 10y agoThis comment is also off-topic.
- reddytowns 10y agoIndeed. But I'm not derailing an entire conversation. The conversation has been derailed already. I'm just pointing out that these comments about hot button issues, that rehash the same stuff again and again, are annoying to some users, especially since they appear quite unpredictably.
- reddytowns 10y agoThis isn't on topic
- nkrisc 10y agoMosquitos aren't evil. Don't assign morality to amoral creatures.
- adrianratnapala 10y agoIf we had a sound theory of what morality is and where it comes from, then we could judge the truth of of your first sentence. As it is, I will suspend judgment on the moral status of the little bloodsuckers.