8 ms·
Singapore rears moquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria to combat dengue
- bujak300 6y agoWolbachia is one of the most fascinating and scariest life forms on earth
- tines 6y agoTruly a weapon to surpass Metal Gear.
- Lucasoato 6y agoPsycho mantis?
- paweladamczuk 6y agoYou're that ninja!
- baxtr 6y agoWhy so?
- bujak300 6y agoIt's a parasite that lives inside the cells of the host (if you can call it a parasite)
- hikerclimb 6y agoHopefully this doesn’t work and creates a deadly bacteria that kills all the people in the world.
- TooSmugToFail 6y agoTruly a fascinating method. Apparently, the most effective mosquito population control technique. The counter-point argument offered at the end of the article/video is totally lame. I find it slightly annoying when journos feel compelled to seek contrarian positions just for the sake of form, regardless of the quality of the arguments.
- mlinksva 6y agoFor the counter-point to be meaningful, people would have to individually kill a lot of mosquitoes. Made me wonder, what fraction of mosquitoes are killed by humans in a city setting? I'd guess it's very small. 1/1000? Has anyone tried to measure this?
- jMyles 6y agoI too am curious, but I think it's way, way more than you're guessing. I imagine humans are the single biggest threat to mosquitoes in a city (and also the single biggest source of sustenance).
- howlgarnish 6y agoDirect kills are probably pretty marginal, but Singapore employs insecticides in prodigious quantities. It's almost eerie how eg hawker centres have no flies and outdoor gardens are almost entirely devoid of insects (whereas if you cross the border to Malaysia, both can be found in abundance).
- bobthepanda 6y agoHuh. Does Singapore not need insect pollinators?
- maffydub 6y agoI believe there's very little agriculture in Singapore - almost all food is imported.
- Yeri 6y agoSingapore has some limited 'agriculture' (and a big shift to industrialised hydroponics and stuff); but most is outside the city. It's indeed quite scary how much pesticides are currently used and how a lot of the green patches and parks have little flies, butterflies, and other insects.
- hatsunearu 6y ago"in rare cases" My mom nearly died to Dengue fever. Twice. This shit is incredibly dangerous.
- howlgarnish 6y agoDengue is odd in that surviving an attack of one strain makes you immune to that strain, but increases the odds of getting severe complications if you catch one of the other ones. Which is which dengue vaccine is only recommended for people who have already had it once!
- hatsunearu 6y agoOh shit, this explains why my mom got severely sick on her second round.
- klipt 6y agoOne theory why that happens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-dependent_enhancement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-dependent_enhancement
- bjarneh 6y agoHard not to think about that Simpsons episode when you read about stuff like this...
- Wolfenstein98k 6y agoUhhh has no one in Singapore played MGSV?
- mdturnerphys 6y agoI've had dengue fever. There are a few different strains and I had one of the milder ones but it was still enough to put me in the hospital for dehydration as an otherwise healthy 20yo. In Thai it's known as hemorrhagic fever, but unlike in English, where "hemorrhagic" is a technical term where the meaning isn't clear or is softened, in Thai it's just three simple Thai words: ไข้เลือดออก, "fever [that makes] blood [come] out". Luckily I didn't have any hemorrhaging.
- fleetingmemory 6y ago> where "hemorrhagic" is a technical term where the meaning isn't clear [...] in Thai it's just three simple Thai words: ไข้เลือดออก, "fever [that makes] blood [come] out" Well, you still had to add extra words to make the meaning clear enough.
- mdturnerphys 6y agoFair enough. I did that because the grammars of Thai and English are quite different, in noun-modifier order, distinction between verbs and adjectives, and verb conjugation (those are just the relevant differences here). I could have said "blood-exiting fever" but that changes the word order.
- fleetingmemory 6y agoDoes it still express faithfully the full sentence you needed to use to describe it? I understand that you feel that it does, it's just that I don't see it in how you translate it word for word. Anyway, I don't speak Thai, so it's very probable that I cannot appreciate this quality even if you tried to explain it a thousand time.
- andi999 6y agoAs far as I was told, it is not the strains are mild or not, there are in total 4 strains, you get immune with each one you get, but each it will be worse.
- muterad_murilax 6y agoPlease fix the typo in the title.
- sohkamyung 6y agoFor those looking for more info on the project, here's the local agency's website on the project [1] [1] https://www.nea.gov.sg/corporate-functions/resources/research/wolbachia-aedes-mosquito-suppression-strategy https://www.nea.gov.sg/corporate-functions/resources/researc...