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Engineered Mosquitoes Could Wipe Out Dengue Fever
Christina Valencia points us to a Wired story about scientists who plan to use genetically modified mosquitoes to reduce the population of Dengue-carrying insects. The altered genes cause newly born mosquitoes to die before they are able to breed if they are not supplied with a crucial antibiotic. This is a more aggressive approach than the anti-Malaria work we discussed last year. From Wired:
"Mosquitoes pass dengue fever to up to 100 million people each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Up to 5 million die. If the scientists can replicate their results in real field conditions, their technology could kill half of the next generation of dengue mosquitoes, which scientists say would significantly reduce the spread of the disease. If all goes well the company envisions releasing the insects in Malaysia on a large scale in three years."
...from Jurassic Park!
A specific protein in the movies vs an anti-biotic in real life!
I guess I welcome our genetically engineered super mosquito overlords!
You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks? -John Searle
Cane Toads
Why am I picturing everyone turning into vampire like creatures???
WTF? I live in Florida. Several, Several years ago a couple of genius scientists at the University of Florida thought it would be a great idea to release Love Bugs into our environment to breed with the mosquitoes and effectively make them sterile. Well, if anyone has ever been to Florida during the summer, then you know that not only are there an ass load of huge fucking mosquitoes but also a shit load of love bugs. Way to go UF~! So now lets releases genetically engineered super mosquitoes into the environment. Things will be much better!
Also all hail our new high powered mosquito overlords!
That's why I always carry an Apple laptop in the event of belligent extra-terrestrials, and why I get off on belittling Bill Murray's accomplishments as an explorer.
Spielberg be my shepherd I heard if there first: "Life will find a way..."
These stories are free but worth money.
Those mosquitoes might suck (pun intended :P), but they're food for a lot of animals that don't suck. If we just eliminate all the mosquitoes, we probably can't tell how we'll affect the rest of the ecosystem. Eliminating the dengue fever germs will have its effect, but I'm not too worried about depriving the worms of the corpses they're used to growing fat on.
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make install -not war
I really don't know enough to speculate, but one question is: what's the long term ecological and biological impact going to be?
:D
If these things don't breed... then they start dying off? Then what happens when the mosquito population severly reduced, will other insects take their place, or will the ones naturally immune to this grow bigger etc...
Although, a world without mosquitos would be nice
Jesus, I hope they don't start raiding pharmacies for their fix!
Am I the only one that's noticed a ton of these "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tags recently. Did the mad scientist class of '07 get to work quickly or what? Who is throwing all this money at applying knowledge we barely have to applications we can't imagine the repercussions of. Some of this stuff could turn out a little worse than introducing cats to Australia, if you catch my meaning.
I have often wondered (living in the mosquito-ridden South), if mosquitoes have any benefit to the ecosystem at all. We often hear about how if you remove one creature from the ecosystem, the whole thing changes. But mosquitoes? I'm not sure they would be missed by any creature.
expandfairuse.org
what will they come up with next? Maybe they can genetically alter the mosquitos to carry our flu shots.
Lots of people worried about birds or "The Ecosystem". Very few seem to be worried about the millions of PEOPLE who die HORRIBLE DEATHS thanks to Dengue fever.
I guess it's to be expected from the "Silent Spring" crowd, who refuse to acknowledge that the REAL effect of banning DDT has been millions of deaths from malaria, against a hypothetical doomsday scenario. Sound familiar?
I guess they didn't see 'I Am Legend.' Way, way too much opportunity for disaster here. Anybody here hear of the Australian Cane Toad disaster?
"Engineered Mosquitoes Could Wipe Out Human Race"
There... fixed that for ya. Now queue overlord-welcoming comments....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Nile_virus
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Charles Darwin thinks that this idea is probably dumb.
Unless they manage to release some critical number of mosquitoes, the faulty ones will die and the normal ones will pass on their undamaged genes.
The scary thing is that there are many a Mosquito's in Canada in Alberta where I will go for the summer. I once pinched a mosquito on my arm and almost got it to explode.....but it didn't.
To see a few of my Android apps goto: www.hartwired.com
In the early 1950's, the Dayak people of Borneo suffered a malarial outbreak. The World Health Organisation (WHO) had a solution: to spray large amounts of DDT to kill the mosquitoes that carried the malaria. The mosquitoes died; the malaria declined; so far so good. But there were unexpected side effects. Amongst the first was that the roofs of the people's houses began to fall down on their heads. It seemed that the DDT had also killed a parasitic wasp which had previously controlled thatch-eating caterpillars. Worse, the DDT-poisoned insects were eaten by geckoes, which were eaten by cats. The cats started to die, the rats flourished, and the people were threatened by outbreaks of typhus and plague. To cope with these problems, which it had itself created, the WHO was obliged to parachute 14 000 live cats into Borneo. Operation Cat Drop, now almost forgotten at the WHO, is a graphic illustration of the interconnectedness of life, and of the fact that the root of problems often stems from their purported solutions.
I know it's probably an insensitive question to someone living in a dengue fever infested area, but which higher link in the food chain suffers if we eliminate mosquitoes? Bats? Birds? Does it risk toppling the ecosystem in those areas? How do you get this many mosquitoes disseminated into the wild? What happens when they mutate into some genetically modified disease carrying mosquito that causes more damage than before?
Other than this text, there is no discernible information contained in this sig.
On a bad side, if the mosquitoes adapt to reproduce prior to their sudden kill time, this could severely increase the problem as they would be able to reproduce in even smaller and shorter lasting pools of water.
I've acquired scientific knowledge from a movie. Like, you're going to turn a bad guy in a highway into cop, end up turning the hosts into zombies, right?
That's bad enough, imagine all those hairless mosquitoes flying around hungering for blood......oh wait.
(Man how I love shooting on good idea as it's much easier than making a genetically modified mosquitoe)
They've tried this before, I think...
Why dont we just do it right and remove the real problem species
lets wipe out "MAN" no more problems with bugs, weeds, you name it all cured at once
The summary implies that this idea is a bit more elegant than it actually appears to be. Essentially it's mosquitoes with a genetic 'kill switch' which is suppressed by a specific antibiotic. When they're released they mate with female mosquitoes but the offspring of those mosquitoes die soon after, along with the GE mosquitoes. In theory.
So it's not really 'controlling the spread of dengue fever' or whatever. It's just reducing the population of mosquitoes, and it's completely indiscriminate in the way that it works, wiping out both carriers and non-carriers of the virus. Aside from the obvious potential implications that destroying a chunk of the mosquito population would have on the ecosystem, you've got to wonder whether the suppression mechanism is even workable. The antibiotic is apparently used in agriculture a lot, so it's possible that they could get access to it anyway. In fact this could potentially just move the problem out of the urban areas.
Additionally there's the fact that this is really only a short-term solution. In order to have any real effect you'd need to be constantly releasing more Terminator Mosquitoes into the ecosystem. The instant your government stops paying whatever company is producing the things, the population of unaffected mosquitoes is going to bounce back again, and one assumes that they'd bring their various viruses with them.
Having read the article, it sounds like they'd just be releasing these Genetically Modified Anti Mosquitoes (GMAM) near urban areas with dense populations. Basically, these are places where the ecosystem is likely to be severely diminished already due to humans moving in. It's doubtful that using this technique to control mosquito populations in relatively small pockets is going to have any additional impact outside of those areas. Also, you can't really assume that this technique will eliminate 100% of the population. For one thing, there will always be new individuals from outside the affected area moving in. The cost of producing enough of these mosquitoes to guarantee the death of the whole population would be a bit prohibitive. Especially considering that it would likely be a recurring cost. The article pretty much says that this is to control mosquito populations, so it sounds to me as if they don't anticipate any possibility for this technique to eradicate entire populations of the target insect. So, from that point of view, it doesn't sound all that risky.
From the other perspective though, controlling the mosquito population in this way will definitely impact the ecosystem. If Dengue is no longer a problem, human populations will rise faster than it otherwise would have. More people means more ecological damage. Of course I'm not saying we shouldn't save the people, because I know if it were me living in an area with Dengue and my friends and family were getting sick from it, I'd want a solution no matter what the cost to the environment is.
Fine,
When the mosquitoes are gone what are the
Bats
Birds
Fish
going to eat.
Oh yeah, the needle snakes will feed them gorillas.
Idiots
I believe that dengue fever can be eradicated with this approach at least on an area basis IF DONE RIGHT ... but as I understand it, it's going to fairly difficult practically.
They are preventing the female mosquitoes from mating with the "normal" males, and at the same time (via mutant offspring) increasing competition for resources needed by "normal" offspring. This _should_ cause a reduction in the dengue fever mosquito (aedes aegypti) population. The question is, given there will always be a small percentage of normal males who will mate with the females, can they eradicate dengue 100% at least within a given isolated area?
I think so yes.
What they want is to release their mutants so they outnumber the normals by a MASSIVE ratio -this is key. Since their offspring die, this will ultimately reduce the number of female aedes aegypti mosquitoes. The actual percentage of dengue carrying mosquitoes (had to have gotten unlucky and bitten an infected person) is a sub fraction of the dengue carry capable mosquitoes. In turn, there will be a quick dramatic decline in infected people because the chance of a normal aedes aegypti mosquito actually biting a dengue infected person and then giving it to a normal person will become lower and lower.
However I think the public will oppose this for a few reasons:
1. Irrational paranoia about the G word (genetically modified), thousands of genetically modified mosquitoes (even if they are non biting males) being released OMG.
2. The reduction in aedes aegypti females may cause an increase in other mosquito species that compete with it (increase in anopheles (malaria)?).
3. Male mutant mosquitoes will have to be introduced in large numbers to the environment until either aedes aegypti or dengue fever is 100% eradicated (but mad profits if you own the company selling them).
4. Public may get pissed off at the sight of mosquitoes getting released in their neighborhood.
Probably they need to combine this with introducing a harmless (non disease vector) mosquito species suited to a given environment (for example some places may suit aedes albopictus).
Oh if I had mod points....
That's the funniest thing I've read in ages. It's like the whole argument that the economy is more important than the environment while completely ignoring the fact that the economy can't exist without the environment - but taken to a new ridiculous level.
Well done!! Hahahahaha!
I don't therefore I'm not.
I, for one, welcome our new genetically modified insect overlords.
This just in... engineered mosquitoes could wipe out Goatse
News at 11
Everyones a troll, I just have the balls to admit it!
So, release the mosquitoes in 3 years, 2011, which puts us on track for the end of the world in 2012 (according to the Mayan calendar).
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
Australia introduced rabbits into the wild too, now a major problem together with wild ex-domenstic cats.
Sounds like another cloned story in I am legend
Would it be accurate to refer to these insects as "Africanized Mosquitos"?
;)
whatcouldpossiblygowrong, indeed.
The environment? Pah.
You can't take the sky from me...
I Am Legend
The book, not the movie. I am about as pro-science and innovation as you can get, but this is some scary shit. Pandora's Box times 1e80.
The thing that annoys me about the concern over certain mosquito species (some which aren't native) is that this ignores that poor people have the heaviest environmental impact. I doubt even a disruption of the local food chain is comparable. And what's one of the many ways to make lots of poor people? Sick people. Sick people miss work and incur health costs. They often get permanent disabilities. And that adds up especially when 100 million people get sick each year. And everyone that dies is someone who could have contributed to raising themselves and others out of poverty. And in case people have forgotten why poor people contribute more to environment problems, keep in mind that poor people cause more environmental damage both through lack of education, apathy, and because the small economic gain from considerable environmental damage can pay for food and such things. Further, they have a higher reproduction rate than wealthier people.
While disruption of food chains are well known, the current argument seems to be that we don't "know" what effects the proposed strategy will have on the environment. As I see it, the effects of poverty and overpopulation are well understood while the effects of food chain disruptions are also well understood. What else is there? And more importantly, if one were rational about it, how would you rank the potential for environmental damage either way? What mitigating factors can you use? As I see it, the effects of poverty and the role of disease in perpetuating that are clearly harmful in an environmental sense. The effects of food chain disruption are pretty clear as well. Keep in mind that humans have been killing mosquitos wholesale for quite some time and disrupting food chains when they do so. Finally, there seems to be unfounded concerns about the modified mosquitos with no justification given for that. Name the danger, the unintended consequence not some vague concern because humans did some unrelated and that had unintended consequences.
They are going to be so pissed.
these mosquitoes to "eat shit", or "suck shit", we could rid the world of diseases associated with human fecal pollution. Now, if they gain (or, umm, display) sentience, and "evaluate the shit they're in", WE will be in a world of shit. Especially if they start to sting us. It'll be a real stinker.
Is that argument enough to not breed engineered mosquitoes? This shit could literally come back to bite us in our asses.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Programmers beware! You're next! This is only the tip of the iceburg:
IMHO I do not believe this program will either completely eradicate mosquitoes or damage the environment. It may even be good for both.
This program is fairly similar to a mosquito control program used in Alaska for many years. In that system, male mosquitoes are irradiated to destroy their sperm and released back into the environment. they eventually die from it of course, but not before they mate with thousands of female mosquitoes which are the only ones that bite. Since the females only mate once (or used to anyway, see evolution for further details..) They would go off to lay infertile eggs.
As anyone in Alaska is likely to be willing to attest, there are still a lot of mosquitoes in Alaska.
The older process, while a bit expensive, does help with the mosquitoes, and the new one may save lives, I suspect the main advantage to this procedure is that they are not throwing chemicals all over the place. To give an example, one of the more effective strategies for mosquitoes if you can't afford good chemicals (like most of Africa) and aren't too worried about the environment (like most of Africa) is to spray swamps with used motor oil.
Environment or no environment, If I had no money and I thought my little girl was likely to die this spring if nothing was being done about the mosquitoes you might very well get in the car one morning to see a little red light blinking on your dash. This program seems to solve both problems
Instead of wrecking the swamps with oil, why not drain them and put the land to good use? Drained swamps provide some of the most fertile farmland around.
The relationship between a population of creates and a population of predators that feed on that creature can be modeled by a nonlinear differential equation. I can't remember the specifics but the basic idea is that both populations experience periodic oscillations in their population. When there are a lot of mosquitoes, the creatures that eat them experience population growth because there's plenty of food around. When the predators population grows too large, they eat all the mosquitoes and then die off because there's nothing left to eat.
The bottom line is that we can likely expect a huge mosquito rebound at some point.
A friend of a friend of mine got dengue in Indonesia. I was there after he had gotten over it, but from second-hand accounts it didn't sound like much fun. I think he had a mild form, where he ran a horrendous fever for about a week, and then had a full-body painful rash for about a week, and then had some serious depression for a few months until he figured out that you can take pills to counteract the neurological aftereffects (which I hear tend to last about a year). I'm not sure if he had to be hooked up to an IV during the fever, but I hear that's common practice.
I don't know what the right solution is, but I'm glad people are working on it.
About 5 years ago I drove to Nicaragua (from Costa Rica, where I live now). Being a weak European flesh and bone human I got sick as hell in the middle of nowhere, and survived on expired painkillers and fever reducing pills.
No one is sure what happened, many frineds and even doctors told, that I probably had a strong case of dengue. I had extremely bad bone pain and so high fever I spent a day hallucinating in bed, waking up almost totally OK the day after.
Anyway, I prefer an occasional case of these other than some other bio-engineered horror that will possibly wipe out human kind.
No, seriously, I fear nature, especially because I see 6 ants attacking my fingers who are extremely interested in my mac keyboard. Ants never gave a damn about my keyboard, but since I got this sleek, sexy mac aluminum thing they are around it wanting to mate with me or something......
Here is my message: mess with bugs, cancer, dengue, and you will land humanity in resident evil, i am legend, or some other freaky shit! Remember my words!!!
Looks like the world ended up with a nice sustainable green society in the end.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
What would really impress me would be if scientists engineered a Dengue Fever virus that killed mosquitoes, but which is immunologically recognized by the same systems in the mosquitoes. Then release that virus into the mosquito population. And watch the mosquitoes evolve to no longer carry the virus.
If we want to get rid of the mosquitoes because they're annoying and disgusting, we can also encourage the bird, fish and reptiles/amphibians that eat them.
Those are ways to work with the creatures we have to share the ecosystem with, not to work against them. And, because we're actually more familiar with success from husbandry than from extermination, we'll probably manage it better.
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make install -not war
well, the way it goes with diseases is,
random mutations cause some to be immune, they remain alive
the next year only the immune creatures breed and they fill the void made by the lack of breeding of the then dead ones
in 3 years time the population is back to the old level, but now the creatures have immunity for this affliction
i can't see why this wouldn't happen with an engineered disease or disorder, but then i'm no biologist either, so fee lfree to correct me
seriously, why is evolution that hard to believe for some people (religious fanatics mostly) ?
The movie "Mimic".....
You just gots to ding a dang dong their dengue long sting prong.
I'm all about saving lives, even if they're outside of my Monkeysphere. And others have mentioned issues with a mosquito replacement, or the problems with the species that eat the mosquitoes.
But what about the 5 million people per year that suddenly aren't dieing of mosquito transmitted diseases? That's a lot of new people! The people that are making all these new people are going to have to dramatically change their life style. It's no longer "make more babies and hope they life". They'll have to make fewer babies and keep them fed. We went through that in the United States a couple hundred years ago as our medications got profoundly better, but it took time for people to catch on.
The populations in the areas most effected by this big of a change are going to experience HUGE population growth, doubling in years instead of decades or more. Can their cultures support that kind of growth?
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
and the world shall end not with a bang but with a wimper.
If you can't be good, be good at it!
was made of wood, had 2 merlin engines and could do 400mph.
Its not that bad. I'm not sure what the mortality rate is, but my doctors weren't too concerned. It mainly kills in conjunction with malnutrition. I mean its a sucky four weeks in bed feeling like crap, but you get better.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
why are you sniffing and groping them?
All the talk about upsetting the ecosystem has left out one tiny important detail: with less human deaths, there will be more humans. That might sound all nice and cheery at first, but what will those humans eat? Will they need foreign aid for food, shelter, and medicine?
Maybe instead of making sure that there are more humans, we should concentrate our efforts on improving the lives of the humans that we can.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
I'm a monster for bringing this up, but... if you go about curing the diseases that kill 100 million people a year, and you don't provide jobs, housing, food, clothes, education, health care, etc. for these people that would have died but now live, then you have 100 million MORE people in the world that have no jobs, housing, food, clothes, education, health care, AND believe that the Americans are responsible for all the misery in their lives.
Which they are. Especially you, Mr. Gates.
And if the 100 million people who would have died of diseases go on to have ten kids each, then there is another billion dirt-poor people in the world who will come to believe that they will go directly to heaven and have 72 hamburgers, 72 cars, and 72 virgins if they manage to kill an American (like you...walking with your sweetie on your honeymoon on a beautiful third-world unspoiled beach).
So if you're not prepared to provide jobs, housing, food, clothes, education, health care, ect. for the people whose lives that you save by killing mosquitoes, then don't cure the diseases. Because you're not doing these people (or the rest of us) any favors.
Jeez, don't you just hate people like me who say things like this? Why can't we all just, you know, like, good things and shit, man!
And I think rabbits would make a very nice pet in Australia. Rabbits don't cause any harm, do they?
Privacy is terrorism.
Milla Jovovich is naked on the shower floor........
I'm reminded of both Resident Evil and Aeon Flux, in that our arrogance destroyed the world on one hand and our rush to find a solution made us sterile on the other.
At least this company is doing this to save millions of lives. I can respect that and genuinely admire the scientists that have worked hard to do this. Monsanto programs organisms to die to protect intellectual property profits. I condemn that wholeheartedly.
I DO just LOVE these "mad scientists" though. We have been studying genetics, at the DNA and gene level for what.... a few decades? Now we already have the confidence to introduce organisms into the environment with altered genes which program them to die. I guess I have been in cave and missed all those extensive scientific peer-reviewed studies of the mosquitoes effect on those specific environments. Their specific interactions, their exact place in the food chain, etc. We don't need all that. It would take too long, lets just press the button now and find out what happens. We're so smart and capable and our "hairy reasoners" can come up with a solution if something bad happens. If I really have been in a cave and we have all that groundwork done, peer-reviewed, and verified we STILL don't have the experience of "programmed death" out in the open. I really do think that is shortsighted to believe that the world is so huge that we cannot have any large scale impact on the environment and ecosystems. It is even more shortsighted to believe that we fully understand genetics and these altered genes cannot hop from organism to organism. AFAIK genetic alteration can only occur through a few methods and viruses transmitting new codes into existing organism is one of them. I don't know everything about it, but I know enough to be nervous.
I appreciate the poster who pointed out that there are so many unknowns on either side, the ignorance of the real longterm effects is not a justification for inaction given the consequences of it. However, I would still point out that we are talking about introducing sterility into a population through a brand new science which is still not largely understood. One could argue otherwise, but I think it is overconfident or downright arrogant to think we have come that far that quickly.
I don't live in a tropical locale and I have tremendous empathy for those populations that do live there and have to watch children die due to these diseases. It's very easy for us to judge from a distance and weigh the pros and cons when our lives are not being weighted and measured. I know at some level I am being hypocritical, since my standard of living in the US DOES help destroy the world on a daily basis.
However, I will risk playing the role of the hypocrite, by asking if we really need to provide the solution in this way? We are not attacking Dengue Fever here. We are attacking its distribution mechanism to get at it indirectly with unforeseen consequences to the ecosystems which we are modifying. I instead favor their other method of developing an inoculation for the mosquitoes against the virus in the first place. A much more sensible and less risky proposal.
I also find it interesting that the discussion seems to have split into the "Eco-Nuts" Vs. "Manifest Destiny Assholes". Question the science and its impact on the environment and your an Eco-Nut, favor the human populations and invoke emotions you are shortsighted and arrogant. Perhaps there is a middle ground.
New Vaccination Technique May Work for Dengue Fever. There's no commercial vaccine yet, but working on one seems a safer bet then mass-releases of genetically modified insects.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
DDT was never banned from being used for mosquito control, which involves spraying small amounts inside houses to repel mosquitoes. It's use was banned for agriculture, which was breeding resistant mosquitoes waaaay back in 1959.
So we've found a solution to keep an additional 5 million people alive in a region of the planet where a majority of the countries are third world. A nice idea but it's going to actually increase the populations of poor and under fed people on the planet. I think someone should probably point that out to the NGO groups that have to feed all these poor.
Considering the amount of damage we have been able to inflict on the planet, shouldn't we be focusing on trying to heal the ecosystems so we'll have the food and materials to feed people without stripping the planet bare?
And for those who are sending food -- it hasn't helped them become self sufficient yet...
Let me find my RID spray, that will help me off those nasty coding moths... ... oh, bad spray? Well atleast I won't have any problems of lice the next few weeks!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
The Gem'Hadar! Weren't they battle field troops totally dependent upon a drug that only their masters could produce? These masters used the drug to ensure loyalty of their troops, then denied it when they no longer wanted the troops to function.
Windows guys please stop pissing on everyone and the Linux guys stop pissing in the wind, hoping to hit Windows guys!
I lived in Puerto Rico and dengue fever and its hemorrhagic variety are a constant danger every summer. I have many good friends and relatives that have died because of it. Although I'm usually leery about genetics manipulation in animals, but if this does succeed it would be a big win for those who live in the tropics at the mercy of this disease.
Vi havas e-poston.
then what good is it? I can only imagine they think these will mate with normal mosquitoes and so the pop will drop because whichever 'normal' ones mate with the GM ones won't produce offspring, but that just means the normal mosquitoes will have a competitive advantage and breed like crazy - are they really going to be able to release so many of these *all the time* so that it actually impacts their population numbers?
My Sig Sucks
Yes either that or the mosquito evolves and becomes immune to your new, more dangerous Dengue Fever virus. Or, since killing the mosquitos is not in the virus best interest, the virus evolves to undo your genetic modification.
If there's anything we can learn from evolution it is that it can (and will) solve problems in rahter creative ways.
I don't know about Dengue, or what the other types of mosquitos actually are, but malaria is only transmitted across humans by one type of mosquito - and even then only one gender - the female anopholes mosquito. This would lessen the environmental impact if this one variant were reduced in numbers when compared to a blanket ban on mosquitos in general.
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
(some links to brazilian sites)
The Aedes aegypti mosquito is the same mosquito that spreads the yellow fever.
Here in Brazil we are now having some yellow fever cases on urban areas (usually we have cases at the forest, but we dont have on urban areas since 1942).
People are getting a little paranoid and running to have the vacinne (which by the way is very effective), since it protects only for ten years and most of population dont have it. I have it because I traveled to north five years ago and it was obligatory.
I don't know about you guys but all this talk about mosquitos is making me itch...
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
How about the alternatives to this, such as engineering mosquitos that reproduce less, or can't bite through human skin, or cannot carry the disease, or who explode in a hilarious chain reaction upon contact with human blood? How about releasing some that can carry beneficial biological material around (whatever that might mean) instead of deadly diseases?
We've done this kind of thing before by releasing irradiated insects to reduce the population, if I remember correctly. A big risk of this would be the accidental release of swarms of unaltered insects, perhaps if they weren't irradiated strongly enough or if the genetic alterations were half-assed or behaved in unexpected ways in the wild.
Basically, if we're going to mess with nature these days we might as well go crazy with it. I doubt we're able to predict the result on the food chain and ecosystem from even the smallest tweak or change, so I welcome the plagues of exploding, HIV vaccine-injecting super-mosquitos powered by biological ion engines.
...they designed mosquitoes that were sensitive to Dengue Fever?
That way they would die before transmitting the disease, without wiping out the entire mosquito population? I would think that it would be more effective with a lower impact to the environment.
And it would be self-sustaining without requiring repeat releases.
Beny
"I'm a humble person really,
I'm actually much greater than I think I am"
Adding another 5 million humans to the world population total every year. Yep, that's just what we need.
Isn't this a very temporary solution? Let's say we have the three bug types A (natural insects) and B (special killers) and C (special killer offspring). A and B breed to produce C which die off before they can reproduce. This leaves D (normal offspring) to reproduce as per normal and pass on their ok genetic material to future generations. Even worse, some of C genetically mutate to render their killer DNA ineffectual and they pass that on to their progeny.
RTFA is a perfectly acceptable answer in this case as I only skimmed it.
Sorry if this seems like a trolling effort, but I have to ask. If saving 100 million people a year is such a sin, are you suggesting that killing an additional 100 million/year would be doing them a service? After all, that would leave more resources to spread around...
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Wouldn't it be possible for some mosquitoes affected by this attack to happen to also smell/taste tetracyclene in people and animals? And therefore, be able to survive provided they always follow that sensory signal along with whatever they use to find blood? So, then we have mosquitoes that just hover around places w/ lots of antibiotic treated animals, like dairy cows, chickens, etc (I'm actually not sure if these particular animals are treated w/ this particular antibiotic, but the point is the same), or around places w/ antibiotic treated people like hospitals, or people who take prescription antibiotics for acne among other things. Seems to me like nature will correct this man made genetic problem pretty quickly.
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." -Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
DDT works, but it works too well.
However, DDT in combination with good land management (filling in some bodies of water with dirt, better irrigation/drainage, etc.) led to the elimination of malaria in North America. I am sure some people will google to search for a few examples of the legacy of DDT usage in N. America.
For the non-Americans who always complain about the US not helping malaria, a few developing countries have figured out ways to severely reduce Malaria. From the wikipedia article on malaria:
Brazil, Eritrea, India, and Vietnam have, unlike many other developing nations, successfully reduced the malaria burden. Common success factors included conducive country conditions, a targeted technical approach using a package of effective tools, data-driven decision-making, active leadership at all levels of government, involvement of communities, decentralized implementation and control of finances, skilled technical and managerial capacity at national and sub-national levels, hands-on technical and programmatic support from partner agencies, and sufficient and flexible financing.
These are all countries which receive little to no support from the US.
Science nor engineering alone will solve this problem. However, with science, a "best practices" approach, an improved infrastrucute, and the intitiative of the people from within each of their own countries will eliminate malaria.
On one hand, scientists say the world is overpopulated, and on the other they do this.
Whatever brings in the grant money I guess.
I have had dengue fever when I was a kid- it almost killed me.
As long as it doesn't mutate like 'I am Legend'. Anyway, we cannot even make safe code (programming). Let alone the consequences on humanity. I agree there should be research on this issue, but it must not be spread. There are too many variables we do not know about.
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The reason the countries that you mention have solved the problem is, at least in part, that they USE DDT. Since they aren't dependent on aid from the US, they aren't stuck with the condition that they not use DDT that goes along with US aid.
Lest the Eco-Nuts post Lambert's screeds in reply: the requirement that no USAID funds be used for DDT is an effective ban, since the record keeping required if you DO use DDT anywhere to prove no US funds were used for it is onerous beyond all reason for a third world country.