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We're hiring! [0] At Verily we have a project that is doing exactly that called Debug [1] where we are initially focused on Aedes aegypti. We already have start

We're hiring! [0] At Verily we have a project that is doing exactly that called Debug [1] where we are initially focused on Aedes aegypti. We already have started deploying our mosquitoes out in the field. Disclaimer: I'm a Software Engineer at Verily, though my main focus is on Baseline / Clinical Studies, however I helped build the website for Debug which was fun. Let me know if you have any questions! [0]: https://verily.com/roles/#open-roles https://verily.com/roles/#open-roles [1]: https://debug.com/ https://debug.com/

samstave 8y ago
What function in the general food-chain do these critters fulfill? What are the implications upstream in the chain should that, perhaps, food-base cause to the rest should they be eradicated. They suck for humans, but what % of a critical link are they to their immediate neighbors along the chain?
- zaroth 8y ago
  The vast majority of mosquito species do not eat humans. The 1% of mosquito species which do can fuck off and die, as they’re literally responsible for killing tens of billions of humans. Seriously, we do a lot of damage to this world, but eradicating human blood suckers wouldn’t be one of them.
  - newnewpdro 8y ago
    You could just move somewhere mosquitoes don't thrive. Being regularly annoyed by mosquitoes is personally a distant memory, and I would not be in support of any attempt to eradicate them.
    - Retric 8y ago
      Mosquitoes thrive as far north as Alaska. The risks drop outside the tropics, but essentially every human on the planet gets bitten at some point.
    - kbutler 8y ago
      Where do you live? I've been bitten by mosquitoes in tropical, temperate, and near-polar zones, and at low, high, and mid elevation, in forests, deserts, jungles, and grasslands. And in cities, too, though maybe that's where they don't thrive, because if they do, they get "treated."
      - newnewpdro 8y ago
        California I have never been bitten by a mosquito anywhere along the coast near the ocean and certainly not in any of the dryer/desert areas. I've spent a lot of time in the Mojave and other parts of SoCal, it's far too dry. Rattlesnake bites while hiking are a far greater concern of mine than mosquito bites, there are simply _zero_ mosquitoes in my daily life, it's a complete non-issue. The midwest is where I grew up, so I know what it means to have the outdoors made hostile by mosquitoes. It was relatively trivial to move to greener pastures, and I'm glad to have found absence of mosquitoes was one of the rewards.
        saiya-jin 8y ago
        Not everybody has option to move, nor everybody should, just because 'there are invasive mosquitoes but we shouldn't touch them'. Plus they spread. In Europe for example I can't think of a single place that doesn't have them - have been bitten in southern Portugal and in northest part of Norway (actually there one could have easily 100 bites on one hand). Maybe Iceland, haven't been there in the summer though
        inteleng 8y ago
        Talk about anecdata. Some people simply don't react to bites; you could easily be one of them.
        newnewpdro 8y ago
        How would I appreciate mosquitoes making the outdoors of the midwest hostile without reacting to mosquito bites? I react awfully to mosquito bites, and absolutely detest them and it's a big part of what keeps me from visiting home now that I prefer to spend so much time outdoors. The simple fact is there are pros to California's perma-drought condition.
    - atomical 8y ago
      Killing off a species so we can enjoy the planet a little bit more shouldn't be a big deal.
- ryanseys 8y ago
  The general understanding is that these creatures, at least far as the U.S. ecosystem is concerned, is that they are an invasive species and provide very little value to the rest of the ecosystem. The Debug FAQ [1] under "Challenges and Impact" actually has a good answer on this that I'll copy below: > What’s the ecological impact of reducing Aedes aegypti mosquito populations? > Globally, there are already extensive attempts underway to reduce Aedes aegypti populations in urban environments to protect human health. Aedes aegypti is an invasive species that almost exclusively feeds on humans in order to reproduce. They are native to some parts of Africa, but international trade and other human activity have allowed Aedes aegypti to spread widely. These mosquitoes invade and proliferate in new communities every year, putting more and more people at risk for mosquito-borne diseases. > The general consensus among scientists is that the ecological impact of removing Aedes aegypti mosquitoes from urban environment would be small. They are not a significant food source for other animals and don't help pollinate crops. The main ecological impact would be to restore the ecosystem to how it was before the mosquitoes invaded. > For these reasons, the ecological risk of this project is low, particularly when compared to the impact of existing control methods that can be broadly toxic to humans and the environment, and the Debug team is committed to working with communities and regulators to ensure the safety and acceptability of our field trials and releases. [1]: https://debug.com/faqs/ https://debug.com/faqs/
  - samstave 8y ago
    Thank you for that. Would introducing bat colonies - kind of like bee hives, which could be moved around serve to help eat some mosquitos?
    - adrianN 8y ago
      I've heard that bats prefer bigger insects and don't eat all that many mosquitoes.
    - pvaldes 8y ago
      The problem is that most cities are too noisy for them (and that agriculture uses a lot of biocides). To put some things in context also, there are 34 millions of new citizens in USA since 2004. We can expected some increase in people bitten just by this. The population had increased therefore the cases also did (but does not explain all the increase) Some bats are good to hunt mosquitos, some birds are good also, but there are other options. One of them is well known, easy to manage, hard (can starve for weeks), totally silent, harmless and can adapt easily to a human environment: spiders. Would be much much easier to promote than bats. The other big group is inexplicably neglected, their real role and statistics as mosquito predators are poorly studied, and most people is not even aware of their existence even if they are 100% designed to overpower mosquitoes in its own game. They can fight them in the open air where spiders can't. I'm talking of flies. Some flies are big mosquito killers. But I bet that most experts on Asilidae struggle each month to find enough funds for keeping their research alive.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  My understanding is that mosquitoes (in general, not limited to the human-biting species) aren't a critical link in any ecosystem. They are pollinators, but all mosquito-pollinated species are also pollinated by other insects; they are prey for insectivores, but aren't the primary food source for anything. There still could be knock-on effects from removing them, but restricting it to the human-biting species might mitigate that.
  - kbutler 8y ago
    Hmm. They're a pretty major food source for bats. https://www.myutahparks.com/things-to-do/bats https://www.myutahparks.com/things-to-do/bats
    - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
      I've only done a bit of research, but my understand was that while bats eat a lot of mosquitoes, they're so tiny that even a bat doesn't get much out of each one. The stomach contents of a tropical bat are less than 25% mosquitoes by mass after a night of feeding, IIRC. I admit I don't know if that's true of all species or in all locations.
eat_veggies 8y ago
Are you willing to hire interns?
- ryanseys 8y ago
  Yes! Though I don't see any positions open on our website which is interesting. Send me an email (see my profile for my contact info) and I'll be in touch!
  - eat_veggies 8y ago
    radical--I just sent you an email!
epmaybe 8y ago
Sidenote: I think project baseline is awesome work. Looking forward to getting access to that data.

samstave 8y ago

What function in the general food-chain do these critters fulfill? What are the implications upstream in the chain should that, perhaps, food-base cause to the rest should they be eradicated. They suck for humans, but what % of a critical link are they to their immediate neighbors along the chain?

zaroth 8y ago
The vast majority of mosquito species do not eat humans. The 1% of mosquito species which do can fuck off and die, as they’re literally responsible for killing tens of billions of humans. Seriously, we do a lot of damage to this world, but eradicating human blood suckers wouldn’t be one of them.
- newnewpdro 8y ago
  You could just move somewhere mosquitoes don't thrive. Being regularly annoyed by mosquitoes is personally a distant memory, and I would not be in support of any attempt to eradicate them.
  - Retric 8y ago
    Mosquitoes thrive as far north as Alaska. The risks drop outside the tropics, but essentially every human on the planet gets bitten at some point.
  - kbutler 8y ago
    Where do you live? I've been bitten by mosquitoes in tropical, temperate, and near-polar zones, and at low, high, and mid elevation, in forests, deserts, jungles, and grasslands. And in cities, too, though maybe that's where they don't thrive, because if they do, they get "treated."
    - newnewpdro 8y ago
      California I have never been bitten by a mosquito anywhere along the coast near the ocean and certainly not in any of the dryer/desert areas. I've spent a lot of time in the Mojave and other parts of SoCal, it's far too dry. Rattlesnake bites while hiking are a far greater concern of mine than mosquito bites, there are simply _zero_ mosquitoes in my daily life, it's a complete non-issue. The midwest is where I grew up, so I know what it means to have the outdoors made hostile by mosquitoes. It was relatively trivial to move to greener pastures, and I'm glad to have found absence of mosquitoes was one of the rewards.
      - saiya-jin 8y ago
        Not everybody has option to move, nor everybody should, just because 'there are invasive mosquitoes but we shouldn't touch them'. Plus they spread. In Europe for example I can't think of a single place that doesn't have them - have been bitten in southern Portugal and in northest part of Norway (actually there one could have easily 100 bites on one hand). Maybe Iceland, haven't been there in the summer though
      - inteleng 8y ago
        Talk about anecdata. Some people simply don't react to bites; you could easily be one of them.
        newnewpdro 8y ago
        How would I appreciate mosquitoes making the outdoors of the midwest hostile without reacting to mosquito bites? I react awfully to mosquito bites, and absolutely detest them and it's a big part of what keeps me from visiting home now that I prefer to spend so much time outdoors. The simple fact is there are pros to California's perma-drought condition.
  - atomical 8y ago
    Killing off a species so we can enjoy the planet a little bit more shouldn't be a big deal.
ryanseys 8y ago
The general understanding is that these creatures, at least far as the U.S. ecosystem is concerned, is that they are an invasive species and provide very little value to the rest of the ecosystem. The Debug FAQ [1] under "Challenges and Impact" actually has a good answer on this that I'll copy below: > What’s the ecological impact of reducing Aedes aegypti mosquito populations? > Globally, there are already extensive attempts underway to reduce Aedes aegypti populations in urban environments to protect human health. Aedes aegypti is an invasive species that almost exclusively feeds on humans in order to reproduce. They are native to some parts of Africa, but international trade and other human activity have allowed Aedes aegypti to spread widely. These mosquitoes invade and proliferate in new communities every year, putting more and more people at risk for mosquito-borne diseases. > The general consensus among scientists is that the ecological impact of removing Aedes aegypti mosquitoes from urban environment would be small. They are not a significant food source for other animals and don't help pollinate crops. The main ecological impact would be to restore the ecosystem to how it was before the mosquitoes invaded. > For these reasons, the ecological risk of this project is low, particularly when compared to the impact of existing control methods that can be broadly toxic to humans and the environment, and the Debug team is committed to working with communities and regulators to ensure the safety and acceptability of our field trials and releases. [1]: https://debug.com/faqs/ https://debug.com/faqs/
- samstave 8y ago
  Thank you for that. Would introducing bat colonies - kind of like bee hives, which could be moved around serve to help eat some mosquitos?
  - adrianN 8y ago
    I've heard that bats prefer bigger insects and don't eat all that many mosquitoes.
  - pvaldes 8y ago
    The problem is that most cities are too noisy for them (and that agriculture uses a lot of biocides). To put some things in context also, there are 34 millions of new citizens in USA since 2004. We can expected some increase in people bitten just by this. The population had increased therefore the cases also did (but does not explain all the increase) Some bats are good to hunt mosquitos, some birds are good also, but there are other options. One of them is well known, easy to manage, hard (can starve for weeks), totally silent, harmless and can adapt easily to a human environment: spiders. Would be much much easier to promote than bats. The other big group is inexplicably neglected, their real role and statistics as mosquito predators are poorly studied, and most people is not even aware of their existence even if they are 100% designed to overpower mosquitoes in its own game. They can fight them in the open air where spiders can't. I'm talking of flies. Some flies are big mosquito killers. But I bet that most experts on Asilidae struggle each month to find enough funds for keeping their research alive.
PhasmaFelis 8y ago
My understanding is that mosquitoes (in general, not limited to the human-biting species) aren't a critical link in any ecosystem. They are pollinators, but all mosquito-pollinated species are also pollinated by other insects; they are prey for insectivores, but aren't the primary food source for anything. There still could be knock-on effects from removing them, but restricting it to the human-biting species might mitigate that.
- kbutler 8y ago
  Hmm. They're a pretty major food source for bats. https://www.myutahparks.com/things-to-do/bats https://www.myutahparks.com/things-to-do/bats
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    I've only done a bit of research, but my understand was that while bats eat a lot of mosquitoes, they're so tiny that even a bat doesn't get much out of each one. The stomach contents of a tropical bat are less than 25% mosquitoes by mass after a night of feeding, IIRC. I admit I don't know if that's true of all species or in all locations.

eat_veggies 8y ago

Are you willing to hire interns?

ryanseys 8y ago
Yes! Though I don't see any positions open on our website which is interesting. Send me an email (see my profile for my contact info) and I'll be in touch!
- eat_veggies 8y ago
  radical--I just sent you an email!

epmaybe 8y ago

Sidenote: I think project baseline is awesome work. Looking forward to getting access to that data.