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Google Has a Plan to Eliminate Mosquitoes

87 points by hourislate 8y ago

cultus 8y ago
I've been hearing about this. What are the chances of resistance developing? In Australia, the introduction of myxomatosis almost wiped out rabbits, but sure enough they developed resistance and now it's just an endemic disease on par with smallpox. If the mosquitoes are all raised in a lab environment, and they are not descended from mosquitoes from areas that have been subject to this control, I feel like the risk would be significantly mitigated.
_red 8y ago
I'm 100% sure that such worldwide environmental changes will have no negative effects. There is no hubris involved here, future humans will look back with nothing but thanks. Thank you search engine company! Silicon Valley / PHP engineers really will save the world!
- deleted 8y ago
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- b_b 8y ago
  Instead of the sarcasm, please elaborate on the harmful effects of complete mosquito removal (those that carry diseases) from the ecosystem. These bugs cause an immense number of death and suffering every year, and eliminating them seems a good solution in that it removes the carrier of the diseases, eliminating the disease without having to worry about finding cures and expanding health care access in a lot of the impoverished places where these diseases strike the hardest.
  - ris 8y ago
    It would have disastrous consequences for the food chain - the bird population in particular being hit hard.
    - privateSFacct 8y ago
      These mosquitoes are non-native in the areas they are being removed. Can you walk us through the "disastrous" consequences of removing them. Why is introducing non-native wildlife OK, but removing nonnative species not OK?
      - ris 8y ago
        "Non-native" is a much fuzzier term than it seems. There wasn't really any absolute blessed state of perfection that populations were in before humans started having an impact on the world, you know.
    - galangalalgol 8y ago
      All the reports I have read indicated no species has mosquito's or their larva as its primary or even a significant food source. So the impact of wiping out only one species of the thousands of mosquito species as alphabet is planning seems very low risk indeed. This species doesn't even live in the far north where birds eat the larva in the tundra as a part of their diet, so it wouldn't affect birds at all.
  - melling 8y ago
    You want someone to elaborate on the unintended consequences? To explain what we don’t know? Can you prove there will be no negative consequences?
  - Flavius 8y ago
    Fair enough, I will elaborate on this: we have no idea what the effects will be. It could be anything from "nothing bad happens" to apocalypse. Maybe we shouldn't do things that have such a wide range of possible outcomes. Maybe.
    - jjjensen90 8y ago
      If you look into it a bit, you'll find that the article title I assume you are reacting to isn't quite right. They are targeting a very tiny slice of mosquito species that both bite humans and carry malaria. The scientists involved (who are world-class in this field) have run the numbers on the effects of eliminating these species. This isn't childsplay, and at risk are millions of human lives. Mosquitos reproduce very quickly and if these species are removed then another will easily take their places. This is not like someone deleting all files of a certain extension in an OS directory to just see what happens, this is careful and researched biotechnology being put to use to end suffering.
      - docdeek 8y ago
        >> The scientists involved (who are world-class in this field) have run the numbers on the effects of eliminating these species. FTA: "It’s unclear what would happen if the world’s disease-causing mosquitoes were done away with. The ecological role that mosquitoes play hasn’t been thoroughly studied, though some scientists suggest we might be just fine without them.” At least as reported in this article there seems to be a lot more doubt about what could/would happen than you suggest.
    - deleted 8y ago
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  - orbifold 8y ago
    Insects get eaten by all kinds of other animals as food. In Germany insecticide contributes to a decline in the song bird population.
  - bad_user 8y ago
    Changing the ecosystem can have ripple effects that we cannot foresee due to our limited knowledge. The so called butterfly effect. Throughout history there are plenty of cases of humans changing the ecosystem with disastrous consequences for local wildlife. Case in point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia I don't know if exterminating mosquitoes will be good or bad for us. What I am saying is that we've got far bigger problems to solve first and in this case priorities do matter. What if exterminating mosquitoes will also exterminate various bird species? Well, some people might be willing to pay that price, but thinking of the butterfly effect, this being in the context of global warming and human driven mass extinction of animals, so can we really afford to exterminate animal species right now? And I think the answer to that question is no. So eliminating mosquito might be a great idea, but I hope the people responsible for it will do their homework.
  - corodra 8y ago
    Male mosquitoes pollinate many plants that keep ecosystems in balance. Plants that bees normally don't pollinate. Plus they are a food source for many other animals, including birds. In Florida, the state uses university researchers to try estimating populations of mosquitoes that can keep ecosystems mostly in balance, along with prevent too much outbreak in disease. Hell, a lot of the state workers are uni grads that deal with mosquito populations. Since the 90s, they've been doing pretty well with all the research gathered since the 1920s. In this case, I bet we're going to get something similar to Mao's great ecological experiment with eradicating sparrows and whatever the other pests were. Not as severe. But, in a few years, "Yea, that was really stupid". Humans have a very good history of fucking up ecosystems. We think "we know better" or "I have this great idea!" or even "I have this totally under control". No. We don't. We're morons when it comes to controlling ecosystems. I also find "I don't see how this can go wrong" to be a fault in logic. Just because YOU can't figure out how something can go wrong, doesn't mean it will not go wrong. Everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth.
    - JacobJans 8y ago
      Nobody is trying to eliminate all mosquitoes. Just a tiny fraction of mosquito species.
      - corodra 8y ago
        And infecting one species with a bacteria that alter's their reproductive system could never transfer to animals that consumes them? Before reinventing the wheel, why not look at Florida's century long research into controlling mosquito transmitted diseases? All the failures and successes. The chemicals used only affect certain hormones that occur in mosquito life cycles and have not been found in other critters. Even with that, they use it as sparingly as possible. Only if larva and pupa populations are in excess of normal levels. "Outbreaks" are considered in the single digits in a week's span. And when they do occur, they're dealt with swiftly. Just because you can't see the domino at the end of the line, doesn't mean it won't fall. I have no faith in silicon valley corporations. They've built themselves up on the platform that "We know best". What's worse, they believe their own bullshit.
- wufufufu 8y ago
  Have humans ever had a positive effect on the environment? I feel like it's just a negative outlook that believes humans can only do wrong.
- bitlax 8y ago
  You actually sound like you've put much less thought into it than they have.
  - Flavius 8y ago
    Sure thing. He didn't write an article and doesn't have a plan on how NOT to eliminate all the mosquitoes around the world. That makes him a bad person who doesn't think enough about things.
- snaky 8y ago
  The real genius of the plan is in its' second phase - dragonflies who will have nothing to eat will be hired by Google to fly around people with nano billboards.
  - RobertoG 8y ago
    Nope, Google have to drop dragonfly too.
  - social_quotient 8y ago
    No, only two things would come of this They would be used somehow for better google maps data. They carry p2p mesh network to deliver internet everywhere.
    - snaky 8y ago
      Delivering internet to the frogs would be groundbreaking.
- chrisan 8y ago
  I think you mean C++, Objective-C, Java, Python, R, and Go engineers
- imgabe 8y ago
  Species go extinct all the time, and always have since the beginning of life.
- nindalf 8y ago
  You can accuse Google/Alphabet of many things, but using PHP is not one of them. (Not that there's anything wrong with using PHP, I tell myself, while I author more PHP code)
- dang 8y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN. Even if you're right, this is just the sort of shallow dismissal the site guidelines ask you not to post, because it degrades discussion badly. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
jaysonelliot 8y ago
This story sits side-by-side with the recent reporting by the NY Times that we're facing potential biosphere-level effects from an unprecedented die-off of insect life. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalypse.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalyps...
- sxates 8y ago
  That struck me as well. However I have to wonder how many insects in the 'Armageddon' are just caught in the crossfire in our battle with a handful of harmful species like these mosquitos. For example, you can buy yard spray to eliminate mosquitos in your yard for a day or so, which people use all the time, but which also kill all the other insects in your yard. So if we could target single species like this, maybe it would actually be beneficial for all the other species that are collateral damage in our current wars.
sambull 8y ago
Stupid idea with massive impact, now that it's pretty obvious in they they are a utilized food for many organisms [0]. [0] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2180055-mosquitoes-are-eating-plastic-and-spreading-it-to-new-food-chains/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2180055-mosquitoes-are-...
- emeraldd 8y ago
  They also act as pollinators. http://www.mosquitoreviews.com/mosquitoes-niche-pollinate.html http://www.mosquitoreviews.com/mosquitoes-niche-pollinate.ht...
- JacobJans 8y ago
  There are many, many species of mosquitoes. Just a few of the species carry malaria. If you kill those species, they will quickly be replaced by the other species in the ecosystem. There would be no negative effect on the ecosystem and countless lives would be saved.
  - pwython 8y ago
    Yup. Of the 3,500 species of mosquitoes, only ~200 suck human blood. And Google is only targeting a couple of species.
    - bun_at_work 8y ago
      Google isn't targeting anything, but yes, Verily is targeting ones non-native to the area.
      - pwython 8y ago
        > "On December 7, 2015, Google Life Sciences was renamed Verily."
        bun_at_work 8y ago
        Right, when the whole company was restructured for the explicit purpose of allowing independent parts of the massive Google to operate independently and efficiently with respect to their different business models.
lightedman 8y ago
Google is the mosquito and should be the one eliminated.
bun_at_work 8y ago
Before people go too far with not actually reading the article, here are the main points to actually understand: 1. This is Verily, not Google, owned by Alphabet. 2. They are releasing male mosquitoes (that don't bite) in the area, where the species is not native. They are attempting to remove the species only from their unnatural habitat. 3. The headline is clickbait, as Google is not involved and no one is trying to eliminate mosquitoes "around the world." In all cases I've seen of countering mosquitoes in any way, all researchers are aware of risks and take them very seriously. The goals tend to be similar to this one or have to do with eliminating the spread of malaria and other mosquito-transmitted disease.
- ardy42 8y ago
  > This is Verily, not Google, owned by Alphabet. That's a minor distinction without a difference in the public's mind. Alphabet == Google unless you care an unusual amount about that corporation's org charts.
  - bun_at_work 8y ago
    It's very different. They are literally different companies with different mission statements. Just because you don't want to take the time to understand, being content to become outraged whenever you read a specific six letters in sequence, doesn't mean everyone else should, or that you should contribute to FUD.
    - sooheon 8y ago
      The immediate jump to assuming outrage and FUD in others strange. I associate Alphabet as ~= Google and I am not outraged that they're researching this topic. Why the overeager apologia?
      - bun_at_work 8y ago
        I'm not particularly interested in defending anyone here, but I am very concerned with how easy it is to lead online opinion by misrepresenting the facts. The article is clickbait, the comment I responded to is misdirected outrage without a genuine effort to understand the context. This is a problem that is plaguing our society, and therefore gets me a bit worked up. It's so much easier to drop a snarky remark that is irrelevant to the conversation or doesn't actually refute any point than it is to engage with the context, but that's bad for society and the current conversation. I generally associate Alphabet and Google because they are related. However, only through a parent relationship are Verily and Google related - and there is no "ad company" trying to "eliminate" mosquitos.
losvedir 8y ago
Sigh, I knew before clicking that the comments would all be low effort "ho ho - but unintended consequences!" snark. Yes, everyone knows about that risk. At least two points are important: they're not eliminating all mosquitoes, just aedes aegypti, which are the disease carrying ones, and there's a huge opportunity cost in not doing something here. There's always the risk of unintended consequences, but you really have to have extremely severe ones in order to offset the known cost of this species of mosquitoes. I'm actually very interested in hearing concrete ideas of what the unintended consequences could be and their cost, from actual experts.
- bun_at_work 8y ago
  > but I know that I'll be unlikely to get that from HN This is super unfortunate, because it's why I came to HN in the first place. But unfortunately the site is becoming more twitter and less serious discussion.
  - ben_jones 8y ago
    Just because people aren't discussing this the way you want them to doesn't make it Twitter.
    - dymk 8y ago
      No, the constant spreading of FUD around the hivemind-identified “bad” companies, semi-intentional misunderstanding of how they operate, and general pessimistic vibe make it Twitter.
  - losvedir 8y ago
    I ended up editing that out since it was unnecessary. I've been here for 10 years and HN often has commenters with amazing domain expertise in tech things, but outside of tech it's hit or miss.
- pvaldes 8y ago
  Expecting free consultings in a very delicate and complex environmental theme wouldn't be realistic. If they want a specialist they could just try to hire her/him. We had explained here (many times) what type of unintended consequences we could expect. Superficially of course (Don't expect a free 40 pages report about basic autoecology of mosquitoes here, this is not the place for that). It seems that a lot of people just do not want to hear about it. There are entire books written about this theme.
goda90 8y ago
We hear about these mosquito eradication plans a lot, but why haven't I seen much about developing new repellents? Perhaps we could come up with pills that make our sweat repulsive to them without having to use tons of gross, poisonous sprays.
- appleiigs 8y ago
  I'm not convinced on your repellant idea, but generally agree with the approach. Vaccine research (eg. malaria) would be better than messing with the environment.
  - joshuamorton 8y ago
    The Gates foundation alone has granted more than $2 Billion on Malaria vaccine, control, and protection research. Vaccines, in general, make a lot more sense for diseases spread by human to human contact due to herd immunity. Since malaria isn't spread that way, vaccines in general would be much less effective. And the number of people you would need to vaccinate is massive (north of one billion), as well as any new children who are born (infants make up a significant number of Malaria deaths).
chicob 8y ago
The fact that no one can remember a reason for why mosquitoes should not be exterminated is not a reason in favor of total extermination. The Four Pests Campaign is thought to have contributed significantly for the death of around 30 million people in China. And fish eat mosquito larvae. So there's that. Anyone observing larvae in a pond's surface will notice that they will shake and dive whenever a change in lighting occurs. That tells me that they probably have non-aquatic predators. I'm gessing dragonflies, although I suspect these insects only prey on adult mosquitos. I'm not sure of this. And that is exactly the point, because Google must be completely sure of what is doing.
post_break 8y ago
Who gives anyone the right to try to wipe out a species? Generally speaking of course. I mean even something as annoying as mosquitoes, ticks, lice, fleas, bed bugs. I just can't fathom the idea of someone coming along, deciding for the whole world, that they need to do something like this, and the whole world can just accept it. As much as I hate mosquitoes, the diseases, etc, I can't make that call for the rest of the world to try to kill them all, or even a large portion of them.
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  The same thing that gives anyone the right to pollute and bring down rain forests and destroy sea life. Might makes right.
- deckar01 8y ago
  State and federal governments around the world allow species to be hunted for public safety and preventing disease transmission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunting_license#Purposes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunting_license#Purposes
- saiya-jin 8y ago
  Well, those few hundred thousands dead every effin' year give a lot of right for this. You are writing this on your computer, so you are among the privileged ones of this world and most probably not in any direct threat by malaria. You for sure have access to proper medicine in case you would get infected. The people worst hit by malaria don't have any of this luxury. You don't have to vouch for them, thats OK, I will do that for you, and so will others. And of course, as many have mentioned here - this is not about wiping out every single species of mosquitoes on the planet. Just those few that transfer malaria, just in places they invaded recently. It is a good move.
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lxcid 8y ago
Well, they already running trial by the government in Singapore… https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/nea-release-more-wolbachia-infected-mosquitoes-tampines-yishun-9992592 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/nea-release-m...
sigi45 8y ago
We killed so much already, pls let us kill Mosquitoes on purpose. Not that i hate them but they like me way more than lots of other people :| Am i selfish about this? Fuck yeah! I hate them.
- stronglikedan 8y ago
  Wasps and hornets too, please, while we're at it.
FiatLuxDave 8y ago
Floridian here. For all those people who are concerned about the environmental impact of eliminating these species, I suggest you take a closer look at how mosquitoes are currently controlled. Maybe they don't have mosquito control where you live? When the mosquito-spray truck comes by, it doesn't just kill mosquitoes. It kills all kinds of flying insects. That includes thousands of species which cause no harm to humans, but also provide pollination and food for birds, frogs, etc. Before you object to this plan, please realize that this plan is replacing a sledgehammer with a scapel. All the things you are worried about happening are already happening right now, but effecting many more species! If that's the status quo you want, by all means keep objecting, or come up with a better plan. I should also note that samples of the eradicated species will be kept, so if it does turn out that it is a mistake, they can be re-introduced.
- andrewmcwatters 8y ago
  > mosquito-spray truck I wasn't even aware this was a thing. I live in Phoenix. I thought you meant some sort of pest control, like a company coming out to a house to give a quote on an isolated problem. Instead, a truck literally "comes by" and sprays the area, like a bug street-sweeper. Fascinating.
  - stronglikedan 8y ago
    They even use planes in more rural areas - like the little planes that pull banners and whatnot.
- ralmeida 8y ago
  Yep, happens in Brazil as well, where it’s called a “fumacê” [1] (roughly “smoke galore”), especially when Dengue fever cases are high. Probably happens in other tropical, poor countries as well. [1] http://g1.globo.com/sp/vale-do-paraiba-regiao/noticia/2013/02/prefeitura-intensifica-fumace-para-combater-pernilongos-em-sao-jose.html http://g1.globo.com/sp/vale-do-paraiba-regiao/noticia/2013/0...
  - newyankee 8y ago
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alsadi 8y ago
Start feeling sad for the birds that eat them.
- robbrown451 8y ago
  Which ones? Are there any birds that have mosquitos as a major part of their diet? (and how does this compared to hundreds of thousands of human deaths caused by malaria?)
rurban 8y ago
Nonsense. These plans do exist for decades, and there already have been wide and successful field trials in Australia and Brazil. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3128286/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3128286/ (2011 - Australia) What Google is doing now is to try the same scheme in California, on a much smaller scale, but with the hopeful option to go wide. The target is South-East Asia and Africa.
kingston 8y ago
As far as ecosystem impact goes, it seems Verily's approach can be easily controlled as they releasing roughly the same number of mosquitoes as they are eliminating from the fertile population. This contrasts with the gene drive approach, which has recently been shown to be successful at eliminating populations albeit in an experimental setting [1]. Given their theoretical ability to spread throughout an entire ecosystem within only a few generations, it seems like that is a potential panacea though with a much higher risk of unintended consequences. [1] https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/study--gene-drive-wipes-out-lab-mosquitoes-64849 https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/study--gene-drive...
rdl 8y ago
Can a company win the Nobel Peace Prize, the Nobel for Economics, and for Medicine, simultaneously?
cmroanirgo 8y ago
Is it only me that did a double take: "Google" (Technically, it's Alphabet Inc)? What is a tech company doing in the field of pest control? Are not the big pharmas, the big chemical companies a better fit? The article states how Verily Life Sciences is a 'unit of Alphabet' and whose mission statement is: "We are builders. We create tools that put health data into action." ~ https://verily.com/ https://verily.com/ I did not realise that Alphabet was into everything. No wonder they've been lobbying for military projects...Now I truly understand how distanced they are from their old Google roots.
kazinator 8y ago
How about a modest goal first: eliminate the vast amounts of crap from the search engine results.
- dang 8y ago
  This isn't helping. Could you please follow the site guidelines instead of blatantly breaking them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
vmware505 8y ago
As I remember, there was not any mosquito in Dublin, Ireland and there is not any mosquito in Wellington, New Zealand. Move in these cities and you will have really nice dreams. ;)
- muro 8y ago
  Aren't there sandflies around Wellington (I'm sure they are around Nelson)? Those buggers are worse than mosquitoes.
pgnas 8y ago
The law of unintended consequences will prevail as it does with most attmempts of man intervening in complex eco systems. This will more than likely not be serendipitous, but more of a drawback. We have caused famines messing with little things like this. Just my 2 cents. I think it is a noble idea, I find it hard to believe that alphabet Inc is in it for all the reasons they state, but I will have to take them at face value. There are other ways, the reason you don't see them is because they more than likely require too much work, too much change or don't turn a profit.
lawrenceyan 8y ago
Technology is a force multiplier.
oflannabhra 8y ago
While Google (and Verily) are getting a lot of the credit here, the underlying technology was developed by entomological researchers at the University of Kentucky [0] and the resulting company, MosquitoMate [1] partnered with Verily [2] to automate and scale the breeding of the sterilized male mosquitoes. [0] - https://uknow.uky.edu/research/uk-research-spinoff-company-mosquitomate-expands-lexington-operations https://uknow.uky.edu/research/uk-research-spinoff-company-m... [1] - https://mosquitomate.com/about-us/ https://mosquitomate.com/about-us/ [2] - https://blog.verily.com/2017/07/debug-fresno-our-first-us-field-study.html https://blog.verily.com/2017/07/debug-fresno-our-first-us-fi...
blue4 8y ago
This plan seems like a rebrand of Rachel Carson's, Silent Spring.

87 points by hourislate 8y ago

I've been hearing about this. What are the chances of resistance developing? In Australia, the introduction of myxomatosis almost wiped out rabbits, but sure enough they developed resistance and now it's just an endemic disease on par with smallpox. If the mosquitoes are all raised in a lab environment, and they are not descended from mosquitoes from areas that have been subject to this control, I feel like the risk would be significantly mitigated.

_red 8y ago

I'm 100% sure that such worldwide environmental changes will have no negative effects. There is no hubris involved here, future humans will look back with nothing but thanks. Thank you search engine company! Silicon Valley / PHP engineers really will save the world!

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b_b 8y ago
Instead of the sarcasm, please elaborate on the harmful effects of complete mosquito removal (those that carry diseases) from the ecosystem. These bugs cause an immense number of death and suffering every year, and eliminating them seems a good solution in that it removes the carrier of the diseases, eliminating the disease without having to worry about finding cures and expanding health care access in a lot of the impoverished places where these diseases strike the hardest.
- ris 8y ago
  It would have disastrous consequences for the food chain - the bird population in particular being hit hard.
  - privateSFacct 8y ago
    These mosquitoes are non-native in the areas they are being removed. Can you walk us through the "disastrous" consequences of removing them. Why is introducing non-native wildlife OK, but removing nonnative species not OK?
    - ris 8y ago
      "Non-native" is a much fuzzier term than it seems. There wasn't really any absolute blessed state of perfection that populations were in before humans started having an impact on the world, you know.
  - galangalalgol 8y ago
    All the reports I have read indicated no species has mosquito's or their larva as its primary or even a significant food source. So the impact of wiping out only one species of the thousands of mosquito species as alphabet is planning seems very low risk indeed. This species doesn't even live in the far north where birds eat the larva in the tundra as a part of their diet, so it wouldn't affect birds at all.
- melling 8y ago
  You want someone to elaborate on the unintended consequences? To explain what we don’t know? Can you prove there will be no negative consequences?
- Flavius 8y ago
  Fair enough, I will elaborate on this: we have no idea what the effects will be. It could be anything from "nothing bad happens" to apocalypse. Maybe we shouldn't do things that have such a wide range of possible outcomes. Maybe.
  - jjjensen90 8y ago
    If you look into it a bit, you'll find that the article title I assume you are reacting to isn't quite right. They are targeting a very tiny slice of mosquito species that both bite humans and carry malaria. The scientists involved (who are world-class in this field) have run the numbers on the effects of eliminating these species. This isn't childsplay, and at risk are millions of human lives. Mosquitos reproduce very quickly and if these species are removed then another will easily take their places. This is not like someone deleting all files of a certain extension in an OS directory to just see what happens, this is careful and researched biotechnology being put to use to end suffering.
    - docdeek 8y ago
      >> The scientists involved (who are world-class in this field) have run the numbers on the effects of eliminating these species. FTA: "It’s unclear what would happen if the world’s disease-causing mosquitoes were done away with. The ecological role that mosquitoes play hasn’t been thoroughly studied, though some scientists suggest we might be just fine without them.” At least as reported in this article there seems to be a lot more doubt about what could/would happen than you suggest.
  - deleted 8y ago
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- orbifold 8y ago
  Insects get eaten by all kinds of other animals as food. In Germany insecticide contributes to a decline in the song bird population.
- bad_user 8y ago
  Changing the ecosystem can have ripple effects that we cannot foresee due to our limited knowledge. The so called butterfly effect. Throughout history there are plenty of cases of humans changing the ecosystem with disastrous consequences for local wildlife. Case in point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia I don't know if exterminating mosquitoes will be good or bad for us. What I am saying is that we've got far bigger problems to solve first and in this case priorities do matter. What if exterminating mosquitoes will also exterminate various bird species? Well, some people might be willing to pay that price, but thinking of the butterfly effect, this being in the context of global warming and human driven mass extinction of animals, so can we really afford to exterminate animal species right now? And I think the answer to that question is no. So eliminating mosquito might be a great idea, but I hope the people responsible for it will do their homework.
- corodra 8y ago
  Male mosquitoes pollinate many plants that keep ecosystems in balance. Plants that bees normally don't pollinate. Plus they are a food source for many other animals, including birds. In Florida, the state uses university researchers to try estimating populations of mosquitoes that can keep ecosystems mostly in balance, along with prevent too much outbreak in disease. Hell, a lot of the state workers are uni grads that deal with mosquito populations. Since the 90s, they've been doing pretty well with all the research gathered since the 1920s. In this case, I bet we're going to get something similar to Mao's great ecological experiment with eradicating sparrows and whatever the other pests were. Not as severe. But, in a few years, "Yea, that was really stupid". Humans have a very good history of fucking up ecosystems. We think "we know better" or "I have this great idea!" or even "I have this totally under control". No. We don't. We're morons when it comes to controlling ecosystems. I also find "I don't see how this can go wrong" to be a fault in logic. Just because YOU can't figure out how something can go wrong, doesn't mean it will not go wrong. Everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth.
  - JacobJans 8y ago
    Nobody is trying to eliminate all mosquitoes. Just a tiny fraction of mosquito species.
    - corodra 8y ago
      And infecting one species with a bacteria that alter's their reproductive system could never transfer to animals that consumes them? Before reinventing the wheel, why not look at Florida's century long research into controlling mosquito transmitted diseases? All the failures and successes. The chemicals used only affect certain hormones that occur in mosquito life cycles and have not been found in other critters. Even with that, they use it as sparingly as possible. Only if larva and pupa populations are in excess of normal levels. "Outbreaks" are considered in the single digits in a week's span. And when they do occur, they're dealt with swiftly. Just because you can't see the domino at the end of the line, doesn't mean it won't fall. I have no faith in silicon valley corporations. They've built themselves up on the platform that "We know best". What's worse, they believe their own bullshit.
wufufufu 8y ago
Have humans ever had a positive effect on the environment? I feel like it's just a negative outlook that believes humans can only do wrong.
bitlax 8y ago
You actually sound like you've put much less thought into it than they have.
- Flavius 8y ago
  Sure thing. He didn't write an article and doesn't have a plan on how NOT to eliminate all the mosquitoes around the world. That makes him a bad person who doesn't think enough about things.
snaky 8y ago
The real genius of the plan is in its' second phase - dragonflies who will have nothing to eat will be hired by Google to fly around people with nano billboards.
- RobertoG 8y ago
  Nope, Google have to drop dragonfly too.
- social_quotient 8y ago
  No, only two things would come of this They would be used somehow for better google maps data. They carry p2p mesh network to deliver internet everywhere.
  - snaky 8y ago
    Delivering internet to the frogs would be groundbreaking.
chrisan 8y ago
I think you mean C++, Objective-C, Java, Python, R, and Go engineers
imgabe 8y ago
Species go extinct all the time, and always have since the beginning of life.
nindalf 8y ago
You can accuse Google/Alphabet of many things, but using PHP is not one of them. (Not that there's anything wrong with using PHP, I tell myself, while I author more PHP code)
dang 8y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN. Even if you're right, this is just the sort of shallow dismissal the site guidelines ask you not to post, because it degrades discussion badly. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

jaysonelliot 8y ago

This story sits side-by-side with the recent reporting by the NY Times that we're facing potential biosphere-level effects from an unprecedented die-off of insect life. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalypse.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalyps...

sxates 8y ago
That struck me as well. However I have to wonder how many insects in the 'Armageddon' are just caught in the crossfire in our battle with a handful of harmful species like these mosquitos. For example, you can buy yard spray to eliminate mosquitos in your yard for a day or so, which people use all the time, but which also kill all the other insects in your yard. So if we could target single species like this, maybe it would actually be beneficial for all the other species that are collateral damage in our current wars.

sambull 8y ago

Stupid idea with massive impact, now that it's pretty obvious in they they are a utilized food for many organisms [0]. [0] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2180055-mosquitoes-are-eating-plastic-and-spreading-it-to-new-food-chains/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2180055-mosquitoes-are-...

emeraldd 8y ago
They also act as pollinators. http://www.mosquitoreviews.com/mosquitoes-niche-pollinate.html http://www.mosquitoreviews.com/mosquitoes-niche-pollinate.ht...
JacobJans 8y ago
There are many, many species of mosquitoes. Just a few of the species carry malaria. If you kill those species, they will quickly be replaced by the other species in the ecosystem. There would be no negative effect on the ecosystem and countless lives would be saved.
- pwython 8y ago
  Yup. Of the 3,500 species of mosquitoes, only ~200 suck human blood. And Google is only targeting a couple of species.
  - bun_at_work 8y ago
    Google isn't targeting anything, but yes, Verily is targeting ones non-native to the area.
    - pwython 8y ago
      > "On December 7, 2015, Google Life Sciences was renamed Verily."
      - bun_at_work 8y ago
        Right, when the whole company was restructured for the explicit purpose of allowing independent parts of the massive Google to operate independently and efficiently with respect to their different business models.

lightedman 8y ago

Google is the mosquito and should be the one eliminated.

bun_at_work 8y ago

Before people go too far with not actually reading the article, here are the main points to actually understand: 1. This is Verily, not Google, owned by Alphabet. 2. They are releasing male mosquitoes (that don't bite) in the area, where the species is not native. They are attempting to remove the species only from their unnatural habitat. 3. The headline is clickbait, as Google is not involved and no one is trying to eliminate mosquitoes "around the world." In all cases I've seen of countering mosquitoes in any way, all researchers are aware of risks and take them very seriously. The goals tend to be similar to this one or have to do with eliminating the spread of malaria and other mosquito-transmitted disease.

ardy42 8y ago
> This is Verily, not Google, owned by Alphabet. That's a minor distinction without a difference in the public's mind. Alphabet == Google unless you care an unusual amount about that corporation's org charts.
- bun_at_work 8y ago
  It's very different. They are literally different companies with different mission statements. Just because you don't want to take the time to understand, being content to become outraged whenever you read a specific six letters in sequence, doesn't mean everyone else should, or that you should contribute to FUD.
  - sooheon 8y ago
    The immediate jump to assuming outrage and FUD in others strange. I associate Alphabet as ~= Google and I am not outraged that they're researching this topic. Why the overeager apologia?
    - bun_at_work 8y ago
      I'm not particularly interested in defending anyone here, but I am very concerned with how easy it is to lead online opinion by misrepresenting the facts. The article is clickbait, the comment I responded to is misdirected outrage without a genuine effort to understand the context. This is a problem that is plaguing our society, and therefore gets me a bit worked up. It's so much easier to drop a snarky remark that is irrelevant to the conversation or doesn't actually refute any point than it is to engage with the context, but that's bad for society and the current conversation. I generally associate Alphabet and Google because they are related. However, only through a parent relationship are Verily and Google related - and there is no "ad company" trying to "eliminate" mosquitos.

losvedir 8y ago

Sigh, I knew before clicking that the comments would all be low effort "ho ho - but unintended consequences!" snark. Yes, everyone knows about that risk. At least two points are important: they're not eliminating all mosquitoes, just aedes aegypti, which are the disease carrying ones, and there's a huge opportunity cost in not doing something here. There's always the risk of unintended consequences, but you really have to have extremely severe ones in order to offset the known cost of this species of mosquitoes. I'm actually very interested in hearing concrete ideas of what the unintended consequences could be and their cost, from actual experts.

bun_at_work 8y ago
> but I know that I'll be unlikely to get that from HN This is super unfortunate, because it's why I came to HN in the first place. But unfortunately the site is becoming more twitter and less serious discussion.
- ben_jones 8y ago
  Just because people aren't discussing this the way you want them to doesn't make it Twitter.
  - dymk 8y ago
    No, the constant spreading of FUD around the hivemind-identified “bad” companies, semi-intentional misunderstanding of how they operate, and general pessimistic vibe make it Twitter.
- losvedir 8y ago
  I ended up editing that out since it was unnecessary. I've been here for 10 years and HN often has commenters with amazing domain expertise in tech things, but outside of tech it's hit or miss.
pvaldes 8y ago
Expecting free consultings in a very delicate and complex environmental theme wouldn't be realistic. If they want a specialist they could just try to hire her/him. We had explained here (many times) what type of unintended consequences we could expect. Superficially of course (Don't expect a free 40 pages report about basic autoecology of mosquitoes here, this is not the place for that). It seems that a lot of people just do not want to hear about it. There are entire books written about this theme.

goda90 8y ago

We hear about these mosquito eradication plans a lot, but why haven't I seen much about developing new repellents? Perhaps we could come up with pills that make our sweat repulsive to them without having to use tons of gross, poisonous sprays.

appleiigs 8y ago
I'm not convinced on your repellant idea, but generally agree with the approach. Vaccine research (eg. malaria) would be better than messing with the environment.
- joshuamorton 8y ago
  The Gates foundation alone has granted more than $2 Billion on Malaria vaccine, control, and protection research. Vaccines, in general, make a lot more sense for diseases spread by human to human contact due to herd immunity. Since malaria isn't spread that way, vaccines in general would be much less effective. And the number of people you would need to vaccinate is massive (north of one billion), as well as any new children who are born (infants make up a significant number of Malaria deaths).

chicob 8y ago

The fact that no one can remember a reason for why mosquitoes should not be exterminated is not a reason in favor of total extermination. The Four Pests Campaign is thought to have contributed significantly for the death of around 30 million people in China. And fish eat mosquito larvae. So there's that. Anyone observing larvae in a pond's surface will notice that they will shake and dive whenever a change in lighting occurs. That tells me that they probably have non-aquatic predators. I'm gessing dragonflies, although I suspect these insects only prey on adult mosquitos. I'm not sure of this. And that is exactly the point, because Google must be completely sure of what is doing.

post_break 8y ago

Who gives anyone the right to try to wipe out a species? Generally speaking of course. I mean even something as annoying as mosquitoes, ticks, lice, fleas, bed bugs. I just can't fathom the idea of someone coming along, deciding for the whole world, that they need to do something like this, and the whole world can just accept it. As much as I hate mosquitoes, the diseases, etc, I can't make that call for the rest of the world to try to kill them all, or even a large portion of them.

lotsofpulp 8y ago
The same thing that gives anyone the right to pollute and bring down rain forests and destroy sea life. Might makes right.
deckar01 8y ago
State and federal governments around the world allow species to be hunted for public safety and preventing disease transmission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunting_license#Purposes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunting_license#Purposes
saiya-jin 8y ago
Well, those few hundred thousands dead every effin' year give a lot of right for this. You are writing this on your computer, so you are among the privileged ones of this world and most probably not in any direct threat by malaria. You for sure have access to proper medicine in case you would get infected. The people worst hit by malaria don't have any of this luxury. You don't have to vouch for them, thats OK, I will do that for you, and so will others. And of course, as many have mentioned here - this is not about wiping out every single species of mosquitoes on the planet. Just those few that transfer malaria, just in places they invaded recently. It is a good move.

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lxcid 8y ago

Well, they already running trial by the government in Singapore… https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/nea-release-more-wolbachia-infected-mosquitoes-tampines-yishun-9992592 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/nea-release-m...

sigi45 8y ago

We killed so much already, pls let us kill Mosquitoes on purpose. Not that i hate them but they like me way more than lots of other people :| Am i selfish about this? Fuck yeah! I hate them.

stronglikedan 8y ago
Wasps and hornets too, please, while we're at it.

FiatLuxDave 8y ago

Floridian here. For all those people who are concerned about the environmental impact of eliminating these species, I suggest you take a closer look at how mosquitoes are currently controlled. Maybe they don't have mosquito control where you live? When the mosquito-spray truck comes by, it doesn't just kill mosquitoes. It kills all kinds of flying insects. That includes thousands of species which cause no harm to humans, but also provide pollination and food for birds, frogs, etc. Before you object to this plan, please realize that this plan is replacing a sledgehammer with a scapel. All the things you are worried about happening are already happening right now, but effecting many more species! If that's the status quo you want, by all means keep objecting, or come up with a better plan. I should also note that samples of the eradicated species will be kept, so if it does turn out that it is a mistake, they can be re-introduced.

andrewmcwatters 8y ago
> mosquito-spray truck I wasn't even aware this was a thing. I live in Phoenix. I thought you meant some sort of pest control, like a company coming out to a house to give a quote on an isolated problem. Instead, a truck literally "comes by" and sprays the area, like a bug street-sweeper. Fascinating.
- stronglikedan 8y ago
  They even use planes in more rural areas - like the little planes that pull banners and whatnot.
ralmeida 8y ago
Yep, happens in Brazil as well, where it’s called a “fumacê” [1] (roughly “smoke galore”), especially when Dengue fever cases are high. Probably happens in other tropical, poor countries as well. [1] http://g1.globo.com/sp/vale-do-paraiba-regiao/noticia/2013/02/prefeitura-intensifica-fumace-para-combater-pernilongos-em-sao-jose.html http://g1.globo.com/sp/vale-do-paraiba-regiao/noticia/2013/0...
- newyankee 8y ago

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alsadi 8y ago

Start feeling sad for the birds that eat them.

robbrown451 8y ago
Which ones? Are there any birds that have mosquitos as a major part of their diet? (and how does this compared to hundreds of thousands of human deaths caused by malaria?)

rurban 8y ago

Nonsense. These plans do exist for decades, and there already have been wide and successful field trials in Australia and Brazil. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3128286/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3128286/ (2011 - Australia) What Google is doing now is to try the same scheme in California, on a much smaller scale, but with the hopeful option to go wide. The target is South-East Asia and Africa.

kingston 8y ago

As far as ecosystem impact goes, it seems Verily's approach can be easily controlled as they releasing roughly the same number of mosquitoes as they are eliminating from the fertile population. This contrasts with the gene drive approach, which has recently been shown to be successful at eliminating populations albeit in an experimental setting [1]. Given their theoretical ability to spread throughout an entire ecosystem within only a few generations, it seems like that is a potential panacea though with a much higher risk of unintended consequences. [1] https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/study--gene-drive-wipes-out-lab-mosquitoes-64849 https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/study--gene-drive...

rdl 8y ago

Can a company win the Nobel Peace Prize, the Nobel for Economics, and for Medicine, simultaneously?

cmroanirgo 8y ago

Is it only me that did a double take: "Google" (Technically, it's Alphabet Inc)? What is a tech company doing in the field of pest control? Are not the big pharmas, the big chemical companies a better fit? The article states how Verily Life Sciences is a 'unit of Alphabet' and whose mission statement is: "We are builders. We create tools that put health data into action." ~ https://verily.com/ https://verily.com/ I did not realise that Alphabet was into everything. No wonder they've been lobbying for military projects...Now I truly understand how distanced they are from their old Google roots.

kazinator 8y ago

How about a modest goal first: eliminate the vast amounts of crap from the search engine results.

dang 8y ago
This isn't helping. Could you please follow the site guidelines instead of blatantly breaking them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

vmware505 8y ago

As I remember, there was not any mosquito in Dublin, Ireland and there is not any mosquito in Wellington, New Zealand. Move in these cities and you will have really nice dreams. ;)

muro 8y ago
Aren't there sandflies around Wellington (I'm sure they are around Nelson)? Those buggers are worse than mosquitoes.

pgnas 8y ago

The law of unintended consequences will prevail as it does with most attmempts of man intervening in complex eco systems. This will more than likely not be serendipitous, but more of a drawback. We have caused famines messing with little things like this. Just my 2 cents. I think it is a noble idea, I find it hard to believe that alphabet Inc is in it for all the reasons they state, but I will have to take them at face value. There are other ways, the reason you don't see them is because they more than likely require too much work, too much change or don't turn a profit.

lawrenceyan 8y ago

Technology is a force multiplier.

oflannabhra 8y ago

While Google (and Verily) are getting a lot of the credit here, the underlying technology was developed by entomological researchers at the University of Kentucky [0] and the resulting company, MosquitoMate [1] partnered with Verily [2] to automate and scale the breeding of the sterilized male mosquitoes. [0] - https://uknow.uky.edu/research/uk-research-spinoff-company-mosquitomate-expands-lexington-operations https://uknow.uky.edu/research/uk-research-spinoff-company-m... [1] - https://mosquitomate.com/about-us/ https://mosquitomate.com/about-us/ [2] - https://blog.verily.com/2017/07/debug-fresno-our-first-us-field-study.html https://blog.verily.com/2017/07/debug-fresno-our-first-us-fi...

blue4 8y ago

This plan seems like a rebrand of Rachel Carson's, Silent Spring.