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Fighting Mosquitoes With GM Mosquitoes
doug141 writes "Scientists are releasing genetically modified male mosquitoes that produce flightless female offspring. The male offspring go on to wipe out another generation of females. This is similar to the way screwworms were eradicated in the U.S., except with nature itself making more of the modified males. Field trials are already underway."
Sorry to break up this anti-mosquito party, but don't mosquitos serve a useful purpose in nature?
Is it OK for us to blindly eradicate them just because they cause disease in humans? It's not like mosquitos are going to kill us off or anything.
While fruit bats certainly are cute, I don't think they'll be very effective at eating mosquitoes. ;)
Much as humans hate them, mosquitoes constitute a potent food source to smaller vertebrates. Mammals represent massive concentrations of energy, and blood is a high energy substrate. Mosquitoes are a huge power source of fish, bats, etc. when they're caught still full of blood, and they're easy to catch.
I read in the one of the article links that the ecological impact isn't expected to be a serious problem, but I find that difficult to accept. And there are certainly detractors to that theory in the scientific community.
Is eradicating malaria, West Nile, etc. really worth the risks? They may be highly threatening to humans, but ultimately we still have to live here after the mosquitoes are gone...
Your comment is difficult to understand, but I'm pretty sure you are implying that the GM mosquitoes will mutate and become some kind of super-bug.
However it is a non-problem. The modified flies have defective offspring, who also have defective offspring. The population will soon go extinct, long before there have been enough generations to mutate into something else. That whole extinction thing is the whole point of releasing these bugs!
-d
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
It saves human lives. fsck the mosquitoes. Did you complain when they eradicated small pox?
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
Indeed. Without a vector for malaria, what will we do about all those poor brown people?
So, for instance, we could create a way to selectively wipe out just the one species of mosquitoes that carry these diseases, while leaving other closely related species unharmed. Perhaps we could make it so that their females can't feed or flee from predators.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
Ignorance and superstition. Bats eat insects -- LOTS of insects. They do no harm to society, other animals, or anything else. Little brown bats are insectivores, eating moths, wasps, beetles, gnats,
mosquitoes, midges and mayflies, among others. You like mosquitos, cockroaches, flies, and moths?
You wouldn't like your neighborhood without bats.
Free Martian Whores!
No,. What he is saying is:
"I don't understand the scary science or evolution, therefore bad stuff will happen"
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
We shouldn't eradicate them. We should keep thousands of samples from all over the world frozen and maintain a limited breeding population in zoos.
But the wild population? The one that keeps killing HUMANS? We should probably get rid of that. We do a ton of damage to the environment and wipe out a great many species just by existing as is. We can worry about mosquitoes after we solve all the other problems.
Be careful what you wish for. There was an article - google it - regarding the number of bats killed by wind turbines and the direct cost increase to farmers who had to increase their pesticide usage in response. Food prices, of course, also go up. Just as killing mosquitoes wholesale would be "bad" for the "cycle of life," killing off bats would be about as bad, I'd guess.
Personal anecdote: one night earlier this summer, my grand-daughter and I watched a flock of bats at dusk and, though they swooped and came close a few times - we were standing near the pool where the bats would dive bomb to get a drink - they never once threatened us. In addition to being a fascinating show, it was a good lesson for her: bats may -look- scary, but are usually harmless; no need to panic. I'm trying to get her - and her grandmother, and her mother - not to be so frightened by spiders, too, though less successfully.
None. No species eats only one specific species of the 3500 different kinds of mosquito.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
We need a way to mod someone 'Actually read the article'
The irony when I contast your sig and your sudden approval of mass consensus has literally blown my mind. Fortunately, my muscles remained able to type this in the absence of centralized motor control.
Then you release owls to eat the bats. If the owls get out of control, we'll need to GM a fox into a flying fox to eat the owls. Then GM a flying mountain lion to take care of the flying foxes. Not sure if you can GM a flying bear, though.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Is this a bot posting in response to the word "fungible"?