16 ms·
Whenever this comes up I always find it interesting that nobody comments on the now 60-year ongoing program that eradicated the screwworm fly from the US by doi
by Fwirt 6y ago
Whenever this comes up I always find it interesting that nobody comments on the now 60-year ongoing program that eradicated the screwworm fly from the US by doing pretty much the same thing: releasing millions of genetically altered (sterilized by radiation!) screwworms that mate with the native population. I have no comment on the positive or negative outcomes of the environmental modifications that both programs cause, just that it's interesting that there's so much visible backlash against the mosquito program while nobody mentions the screwworm one.
- pabs3 6y agoI wonder what the trade-offs are for genetic engineering vs radiation sterilization for the mosquito situation.
- virtue3 6y ago"The sterile insect technique was proposed by scientists Edward F. Knipling and Raymond C. Bushland, and was rapidly adopted by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1958. The technique centers on a unique reproductive handicap that prevents female C. hominivorax flies from mating more than once." From wikipedia. So, probably not effective for mosquitos.
- scarier 6y agoTangentially related: "The Screwfly Solution" by Raccoona Sheldon is a fantastic (but pretty dark) short story.
- chrisweekly 6y agoI couldn't not look up "Racoona Sheldon" and found: Alice Bradley Sheldon (August 24, 1915 – May 19, 1987) was an American science fiction author better known as James Tiptree Jr., a pen name she used from 1967 to her death. It was not publicly known until 1977 that James Tiptree Jr. was a woman. From 1974 to 1977 she also used the pen name Raccoona Sheldon. Sheldon was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2012.[2]
- 8bitsrule 6y agoWow, what a bio. 1941: Chicago Sun art critic. WW2: WAAC major. 1952-55 CIA. 1967 PhD from GWU in experimental psychology.
- macintux 6y agoIt hasn’t come up often, but it’s certainly not true that it doesn’t come up at all. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=screwworm&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- chrisweekly 6y agoThanks for that hn.algolia.com search link; scanned it and found this gem that summarizes the screwworms story concisely: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23377636 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23377636
- k8ram 6y agoIsn't there a difference between sterilization, and genetic intervention, on potential unknowns? I am not saying that the first one was entirely safe, but explicit gene editing seems to be much more risky than sterilizing.
- magoghm 6y agoSterilized by radiation sounds much more risky to me. You don't know what else was changed by the radiation. With gene editing at least you know what you changed.
- michaelmrose 6y agoIf you sterilize an animal it doesn't reproduce. These insects only don't reproduce well.
- zaarn 6y agoHow would you check millions of insects for actually being sterile? Considering it cost 100M$, I assume they established a non-lethal dose of radiation and then just blasted the insects. Could easily be that one develops beneficial mutations.
- PopeDotNinja 6y agoI'm imagining a lab where how effectively mosquitos are humping in measured after blasting their naughty bits with radiation. That is amazing. "What do you do for a living?" "Have you ever heard of PornHub? Well, I'm a contributor to MosquitoHub. It sucks less and less everyday!"
- Knufen 6y agoNot to sound condescending but I think we have yet to observe radiation leading to useful mutation. Radiation does not lead to 'mutation' in the sense of what you are implying. Rather it leads to DNA damages (breakage of chemical bonds) which usually leads to cancer.
- raducu 6y agoCould we do the same for ticks?
- jobigoud 6y agoShould we? What is normally eating the ticks or living off of them?
- stinos 6y agoCertain ant species can eat ticks, but as far as I'm aware there's no species feeding only off ticks, and Lyme and Encephalitis are really nasty. But it's an interesting question: suppose we can somehow erradicate all ticks, what effect would that have? How much do they matter for the food chain or on ecosystems in general?
- shellfishgene 6y agoYou also have to ask the other way around: What do ticks do to their hosts? Animals such as moose or reindeer can suffer greatly from heavy tick infestations. Depending on the death rate this causes removing the ticks could have similar effects to removing predators such as wolves from the ecosystem. However there are many tick species, and I doubt the impact would be that strong, but who knows.
- jdhawk 6y agoGround birds as well. Chicken's (and Guinea Fowl) will eat large amounts of ticks if present.
- beauzero 6y agoIt is a part of the possum diet. They eat upwards of 5k per year.
- wmil 6y agoI can see a couple of problems... Male ticks still bite, so they'd still cause problems. Although presumably lab ticks would be disease free. A bigger issue is spread. Mosquitoes fly so you can do a release and they'll spread over a large area. Ticks walk. They can't travel as far. I suppose you could drop them from drones or a plane.
- reedf1 6y agoI briefly worked in a leading Biology lab as an undergrad - and this sort of work came up. Genetic modification considered alone is not scary. Gene drives designed for sterilization on the other hand - are. I was given a long explanation about how gene drives worked and was filled with mild existential terror at how easy it would be to replace "mosquito" with "human". I knew many biologists capable of performing these procedures. It would only take one disgruntled post-doc to really cause humanity existential damage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive
- mattmanser 6y agoOne post-doc could release 750 million genetically altered humans and we'd be doomed.
- niea_11 6y agoI think @reedf1 is talking about the long term damage to a population. With the gene drive technology, the modified gene is always inherited. the 750 million number is there to speed up the process. (This my understanding from reading the first few paragraphs from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive)
- Dylan16807 6y agoBeing always inherited, in humans, is no danger at all. Someone can develop a deactivation shot before the first generation to inherit the gene hits puberty.
- CGamesPlay 6y agoAnd then sell it, so only the wealthy can reproduce!
- yowlingcat 6y agoWhy do I get the sinking feeling that this will be commercialized "first as tragedy, then as farce"
- StreamBright 6y agoI was not aware of this. For those who are unfamiliar with the screwworm program: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/internationalservices/sterile_fly_release_programs/screwworm/screwworm_history https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/internationalservi...
- tyingq 6y agoOff the top of my head, the general public hears "genetically modified mosquitoes" and immediately thinks of how mosquitoes suck their blood. Cue zombie movie plots, etc.