Mutant Mosquitos

guacamolefoo writes "Get me Stryker now! Mutant mosquitos are spreading West Nile Virus and malaria! And to think you thought that X-men 3 would be a rehash of the Dark Phoenix saga. Real life is much more interesting."

Comments

Re:I'm not uber enough, apparently

[aldousd666]

This could be a direct side-effect of overuse of a pesticide.

It means that the superbugs, which are harder to kill now, can still pass on the regular bugs to us. We just have to find a new way to kill them.

This is the kind of thing that is feared will happen as doctors continue to over-prescribe anti-biotics. The anti-biotics will expose small numbers bacteria in people (though not necessarily enough to cause a disease) to a selective factor: either they die, or they don't. If they don't that means they are resistant by some sort of mutation, and will pass this resistence on to any sort of offspring they produce. Someday, when one of these resistant bacteria infect a receptive host, and someone does get sick, the normal anti-biotics we use to treat them won't work. And the deadly cycle continues.

People didn't actually cause this problem, rather, they accelerate it by introducing the selective factor (the pesticide in this case) where it otherwise wouldn't have been.

It's kind of a catch 22, you use pesticides to prevent disease by killing bugs. At the same time, you may be encouraging a superbug to emerge.

Doctors give people pills to shut them up. For example, if you have a cold, you may wind up with a script for amoxil, even though it doesn't affect the virus causing your symptoms. You may have a small amount of strep lurking in your system that's not enough to get you sick, but can still be transmitted. Maybe one of those (or god forbid more than one) are resistant. The amoxil kills all the normal bacteria, and you're left with only a resistant strain. You can still pass them on and get someone else sick, even though you didn't get sick yourself. They will now go to the same doctor, and get a useless script for amoxil, etc... Sorry if I'm insulting your intelligence.

Farmers spray their crops because they think they are being preventative. I don't think that people should stop using pesticides, but only in the event that bugs are a problem. Using deadly poison 'just in case' only invites trouble sooner than later.

So the next time you're upset that the doctor doesn't give you anti-biotics for your cold symptoms, remember, the life they save may be your grandchild['s|rens'].

surprise?

[rumpledstiltskin]

does this surprise anyone? Darwin's natural selection at work maybe? the obvrious answer's in the article anyway:

Developing new insecticides that can specifically inhibit the mutant form of the enzyme could be crucial in overcoming the spread of resistance, they added.

of course, that doesn't necessarily protect against a different mutation. it's a never ending battle. Perhaps a better solution: mutating humans so our blood is poison to the mosquito?

Re:surprise?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

does this surprise anyone? Darwin's natural selection at work maybe?

Well, it may come as a surprise to the creationists. One of their standard canards is that "mutations are invariably harmful, so how could complex organisms evolve through a series of mutations?" Well, here ya go -- a simple and obviously useful mutation with far-reaching consequences.

Re:surprise?

[VendingMenace]

It may come as a suprise to the creationists?

It may come as a suprise to you that not all creationists deny that evolution happens. I believe that their main problem is how this whole deal got started. They claim that science has no good explination as to how the first life form came to be (let alone all the complex chemicals needed!). And as far as this claim goes, it is quite valid. Anyone that belives that science has explained this fundamental problem is just deluding themselves and (sadly) is just as religious as those whom he critizises for being religious.

Anyways, i suppose you were trolling by lumping together all creationists into the same camp, but alas, you got one bite.

Big surprize?

[Muhammar]

Just induced resistance like with pathogens. This mutation confers resistance to only one common insecticide (Malathion) - so they will use another one.

In the end, they have to remove breeding ponds, like they have done when building Panama Canal.
Moskyto swamp solution: Nuke and pave.