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Scientists genetically engineer a lethal mosquito STD to combat malaria
- User23 1y agoNext do ticks.
- rickydroll 1y agoYes, do ticks like the Asian Longhorn tick. Nasty little fuckers.
- Shellban 1y ago[dead]
- freitasm 1y ago[flagged]
- chasil 1y agoThere is a Kurzgesagt article on the human virome that may provide some background. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbvAaDN1bpE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbvAaDN1bpE
- Gasp0de 1y agoIt is a fungus that is harmless for humans, so I assume not that much. Of course it is always dangerous to artificially mess with an ecosystem. It has backfired more often than it has worked as intended when humans did that.
- ninetyninenine 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Retric 1y agoMost of the time it’s been extremely successful when we mess with ecosystems. We just call it farming, cities, etc.
- parineum 1y agoYeah but if you ignore all the massive successes, it always goes wrong.
- wedn3sday 1y agoMight be a good time to stop having sex with mosquitos.
- frollogaston 1y agoCan't have sex with mosquitos, but they do stick a needle into your blood
- chasil 1y ago"Recently, mosquitoes and mosquito-borne parasites have developed resistance to chemical treatments and antimalarial drugs." This seems similar to phage therapy, in that the treatment continues to evolve along with the target. The treatment in the above article is a fungus. "Despite being lethal to mosquitoes, the transgenic Metarhizium fungus is harmless in humans." https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2104592118 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2104592118
- littlestymaar 1y agoFunny that you mention phage therapy as the first person to implement desease-based pest control for bugs was Félix d'Hérelle, better known for having invented phage therapy a few years later. His biography is definitely worth reading as his life was entertaining to say the least.
- chasil 1y agoI upvoted you, and I think that was quite interesting.
- rcpt 1y agoWe were going to release something like this in California but environmental groups killed it. I've been having some success with "mosquito dunks" in buckets here in Los Angeles but unless the neighbors do it to we still get bit
- frollogaston 1y agoMaybe if they do it in neighboring states, some of the mosquitos will fly over the border.
- tonyedgecombe 1y agoNot if we build a wall, how high can mosquitoes fly?
- notfed 1y agoWhy did they kill it? Were risks identified independent of eliminating mosquitoes, or was it killed due to perceived causal effects of eliminating mosquitoes?
- ItCouldBeWorse 1y agoBecause diseases have a tendency to recombine and jump hosts - it could become a human plague- similar to malaria..
- Teever 1y agoFrom the link provided by user mullingitover: > This initiative introduces X-ray sterilized male mosquitoes in target areas as part of a Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) pilot program It is highly unlikely that x-ray sterilized male mosquitos would cause a human plague similar to malaria.
- daveguy 1y agoThat was a sibling comment of the GP (sterilized mosquitos), the article itself is about a genetically engineered disease. The article has mosquitos "releasing toxic proteins in their semen". Seems like the sterilization is a much better option. "We promise it's not toxic to humans" didn't turn out so well for RoundUp.
- chrisjj 1y ago[flagged]
- recursivedoubts 1y ago"when wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death"
- josefritzishere 1y ago[flagged]
- Retric 1y agoNothing? As in it isn’t used or doesn’t work. Leading questions don’t actually mean something is problematic.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- kypro 1y agoNothing? This helps us in many ways... One way it helps is to kill Mosquitoes, but this technology could be used in all kinds of ways... For example, this STD is targeted to Mosquitoes and designed to be lethal, but you could use the same technology to target other species/populations perhaps to kill or to inflect various other ailments on them. This is the same anti-progress view that cause people oppose things like gain-a-function research. Just because something can be used for various bad things, doesn't mean there aren't a few good things the technology can unlock if we want to use them in that way.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago> “It’s essentially an arms race between the mosquitoes and us," says St. Leger. "Just as they keep adapting to what we create, we have to continuously develop new and creative ways to fight them,” I just had a vision of Jeff Goldblum muttering something...
- pazimzadeh 1y agoI worked in Raymond St. Leger’s lab for a short time in college. I can pass along any questions you have, and will send him the link to this discussion.
- moffkalast 1y agoTell them to keep up the good work. The only good mosquito is a dead mosquito! I'm doing my part!
- KennyBlanken 1y agoExcept for all the living things that eat mosquitos, and which in turn get eaten by other things, or eat other pests besides mosquitos
- autoexec 1y agoIs there any living thing that eats mosquitos and nothing else? There seems to be no shortage of other tiny flying insects in the world for critters to munch on.
- bobbylarrybobby 1y ago“Is there any living person that eats rice and nothing else? There seems to be no shortage of other grains in the world for humans to munch on.” Obviously then, eliminating rice would have catastrophic consequences.
- moffkalast 1y agoThey can eat something else, we can make them mosquito shaped dietary supplements if they want. We've driven almost a thousand species to extinction so far, we ought to finally do one that actually deserves it.
- littlestymaar 1y agoMosquitoes aren't “one specie” though, but rather several thousands. Also, most of their lives is spent as aquatic larvae, not flying pests.
- mont_tag 1y ago> Scientists genetically engineer a lethal mosquito STD to combat malaria Nothing could possibly go wrong.
- DrNosferatu 1y agoWhat could possibly go wrong?
- thesnide 1y agoNature always finds a way.
- peterlada 1y agoWhy don't we kill off a species at the bottom of a food pyramid. What can go wrong? Who needs frogs and swallows anyway?!?
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> What can go wrong? Not that much [1]. > Who needs frogs and swallows anyway?!? They were fine before we introduced Aedes aegypti to North America in the 17th century [2]. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/466432a https://www.nature.com/articles/466432a [2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5938790/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5938790/
- rendaw 1y agoI'm sure it's controversial, but I think general concern for the environment would increase if we killed off human-biting mosquitos. I and lots of other people avoid going outside for large parts of the year due to mosquitos. Walks, if at all, are brisk. No eating outside, no hanging out in parks, exercise at a gym, run to your car, etc. It's hard to care about the environment when you're never in it. I guess my stance is (maybe) the benefits of getting rid of human-biting mosquitos could outweigh the negatives of the effect it'd have on ecology.
- Voultapher 1y ago> Not that much [1]. Uhh, I read the paper and it's like here is evidence it would be a problem, anyway since there isn't any convincing evidence that it would be a problem let's just go ahead. > “Mosquitoes are delectable things to eat and they’re easy to catch,” says aquatic entomologist Richard Merritt, at Michigan State University in East Lansing. In the absence of their larvae, hundreds of species of fish would have to change their diet to survive. “This may sound simple, but traits such as feeding behaviour are deeply imprinted, genetically, in those fish,” says Harrison. The mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis), for example, is a specialized predator — so effective at killing mosquitoes that it is stocked in rice fields and swimming pools as pest control — that could go extinct. And the loss of these or other fish could have major effects up and down the food chain. Many species of insect, spider, salamander, lizard and frog would also lose a primary food source. In one study published last month, researchers tracked insect-eating house martins at a park in Camargue, France, after the area was sprayed with a microbial mosquito-control agent1 . They found that the birds produced on average two chicks per nest after spraying, compared with three for birds at control sites. Most mosquito-eating birds would probably switch to other insects that, post-mosquitoes, might emerge in large numbers to take their place. Other insectivores might not miss them at all: bats feed mostly on moths, and less than 2% of their gut content is mosquitoes. “If you’re expending energy,” says medical entomologist Janet McAllister of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Fort Collins, Colorado, “are you going to eat the 22-ounce filet-mignon moth or the 6-ounce hamburger mosquito?” With many options on the menu, it seems that most insecteaters would not go hungry in a mosquito-free world. There is not enough evidence of ecosystem disruption here to give the eradicators pause for thought.
- DrNosferatu 1y agoEasy guess: Nature will find a way around this - and - a "rabbits in Australia" outcome is quite possible. Much better to use AI to design a multi-enzyme/protein pill / vaccine to get humans & pets & livestock out of the mosquito food chain.