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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."
What could possibly go wrong?
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
What about species (bats, for one) which feed on mosquitoes, or otherwise somehow rely on them in their ecosystem?
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.
Or maybe not. Actually I would be more in favor of releasing wave after wave of bats. Fruit bats preferably, they're cute!
Kill 'em all.
Sock Puppets: damn_registrars=pudge_confirmer=jimmy_slimmy=raiigunner=cml4524=a_klavan=red4men=ronpaulisanidiot
You would think that some organization like the UN would step in and tell the US that genocide of an entire species is not a good thing.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
SO were gonna end up with mosquito's that now can crawl and bite us. Also how many other species need those mosquito's to survive?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Anyone else start to itch while reading this article?
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
The mosquito could become extinct in a few generations. Here's how this could play out:
Mosquitoes usually fly when fleeing danger. These flightless mosquitoes will not be in position to flee! In a situation where they could survive a whack by flying away, they will surely be killed!
Killed in enough numbers, there will be no female mosquitoes to produce the 'next generation!'
Result: Males will find it difficult to find a mate, resulting in fewer mosquitoes all together.
Folks, the mosquito could get extinct in a few years. Scary indeed.
The effort to warm the planet will increase the population of mosquitos. We have to eradicate them to enjoy our swan song.
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"
I think as long as humans aren't part of that chain then we're all good. And we can make sure that we won't by making our own food source, which we already do.
Instead of eradicating them, why not impose a strong selection just against the ones we don't like, namely, the ones that can carry yellow fever, dengue, etc.
If we start imposing a strong selection pressure against mosquitoes that carry disease, but leave the ones that DON'T carry disease alone, we wipe out the disease a lot more selectively. And we don't leave an open niche for something else (possibly worse) to occupy.
--PM
I tend to think that the whole chain converges rather than diverges as you claim. Otherwise, I'd be hard pressed to explain how the whole thing worked so far.
That said, I completely agree that the harm done by eradication could very well outweigh the harm mosquitoes are doing right now.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
I assume that other flies (that don't carry the disease that these mosquitoes do) will fill in the population gap and provide food for low-level predators.
-d
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
This type of stuff is what leads to huge problems.
Any time it seems that humans interfere in nature without looking at all the repercussions. We screw it up worse than if we would have left it alone. Just look where we have screwed with species before like the cane toad in Australia. There are many more examples as well.
Would it not be better to modify the mosquitoes so the pathogens cant survive in there body's. Do the light touch rather than really screw things up? Oh but that would actually require more thought.
Stupid Humans....
Partially agreed but...at the same time... who knows what doesn't mean it wont work...or will result in problems later, just that we don't fully know...and I might argue, can't fully know until we try.
That said, I think it has a real chance of working, mostly because of how drastic of an effect this could have by shifting the reproductive cycle in such a way as to massively overpopulate males vs females. If this works for the first few generations, it could quickly put a hurting on their numbers. This leaves a couple of possibilities.
Actually.... this reminds me of some of the talk of cancer evolution....in fact, its probably a good model here. To go from being a human cell to a cancer cell generally takes not just one, but several evolutionary steps. At each of those steps, a cell line could die off (either via chance or via a cleaning mechanism designed to take out mutated cells). Chances are, if you have cancer, your body came close to cancer several times before one cell finally finds the right mutated configuration.
So the chance of developing cancer actually is dependent on the number of steps required to become cancerous, down all of the paths that it can. This is an identical situation here.... it comes down to how close the populations genetic makeup is to being able to circumvent this. If it only takes one or two mutations to make females who avoid GM males, or to produce something which compensates for the change, then.... this is unlikely to work. Similarly, if they already have the genes required to make females that are not susceptible, then this will simply make sure that they dominate.
That said, if there are no coping mechanisms already in their population, and if developing them is more than a few mutations away.... it could come damned close to eradicating them. Once their numbers are vastly smaller, it would also slow the rate of total mutations in their population, making them less likely to make it over the hurdles.
It could work.... but... what that will mean in the long term is unclear.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I believe there was a science fiction story that once something like this:
Some super space aliens/God came to earth and after seeing what Man had done to the planet gathered up all the animals and asked:
"If two of you will say that Man was good to you, I will spare him, otherwise he will be made extinct like he has done to so many of you."
The dog, stood next to his master, loyal in his hour of need. The cat on the other hand merely licked his paws and sauntered away.
"Is there no-one else who will vouch for Man?". Just silence. Finally, the mosquito came, remembering all the juicy meals it had sucked from that soft, hairless flesh.
THAT SAID I REALLY HATE THE BUGGERS. (I live in Vietnam and I had Dengue fever last year, horrific.) Where, oh where is that mosquito vaporizing laser demonstrated at TED? Can't someone buy the patent rights fom Paul Allen and develop it already?!
Think of the children!
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
...having read the follow-on article suggesting that wiping out mosquitoes might not result in a significant change in the overall environment, I thought of the butterfly effect. It is hubris to expect that we could foresee myriad bad possibilities.
they are hardly overlords. They are being modified to die faster, not modified to kill.
Just put the California Department of Fish and Game in charge of maintaining a self-sustaining breeding population of mosquitoes.
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
I wonder how they "genetically modified" their mosquitos? Did they use a viral vector? In TFA they didn't say.
There was a book a while ago called "The White Plague" and then the movie "Children of Men" in which a virus(?) is unleashed that made WOMEN sterile. I guess this is their way of doing the same thing; they (might) use viruses to change the male Mosquitos which would THEN create flightless (unable to breed) female mosquitos.
Now with the recent revelation that scientists have made a very lethal virus (50%! fatality rate) by making Avian Flu H5N1 more transmissible (the previous "problem" was that it didn't spread human to human; fixed that) it doesn't seem that far fetched that what they did to mosquitos could be done to us.
All said, I'd rather "die" by not reproducing than from a horrible virus but I've got to ask: Is this the answer to the Fermi paradox?
Just like what, the super weed? Or just like what, dying bees?
So the flightless females will just sit around the house, eating cake and watching soap operas. While the males go out and work to support the family, eventually dying at their desks from massive coronaries.
Whew! That certainly was cathartic.
Have gnu, will travel.
and then records a new movie called "The Mosquito". Guess what happens when his girlfriend finds out she's pregnant in the script.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Well, if I got a choice between my kids dying of malaria this year, or potential deaths by starvation in the next 10 years, I'd say killing the mosquitoes would help my family! Unless you have a peculiarly fatalistic definition of "help".
GM used to make good mosquitos a generation ago- but to be perfectly honest, the Japanese, and lately the Koreans make better Mosquitos.
Now if only Ferrari made Mosquitos.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I won't post again why wiping out mosquitoes is a terrible idea, someone else has already done that but ill link to a paper in nature from the lab my partner works in. They are infecting mosquitoes with a naturally occurring bacteria called Wolbachia that prevents the spread of Dengue but doesnt harm mosquito populations. There are ongoing field trials going on here in Australia and similar research in Vietnam. Seems like a much safer option to me... http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10355.html
Every comment here should begin and end with "How can I help?"
The attitude that we should just say "oh they say it helps people so we should help them do it" is incredibly naive, and in fact a very dangerous idea to have. If someone is proposing to eradicate an entire species, then we really SHOULD think about if it's a good idea, not just say "well it will fix some problems so lets do it!"
I have no problem telling that to a victim. I fully agree that we need to find some way to deal with the malaria and West Nile and all the other horrible things mosquitoes carry, but I think we can find a way to do that without ripping apart the food chain and doing God knows what to the ecology.
And don't use "think of the children" as a defense. Around here that's just going to get you mocked, at at best ignored.
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
A bit of trivia. The genus name for malaria's primary mosquito vector, Anopheles, translates from Greek as "useless" or "good for nothing".
Given that malaria has probably killed more humans than any other single pathogen, historically -- I will not be sorry to see it go, regardless of any environmental collateral damage.
C'mon everyone, this is a news for (mainly) tech nerds into hardware/software not wetware (sorry biologists).
We should be demanding progress on that mosquito vaporizing laser demonstrated at TED by Paul Allen's company. It seemed remarkably free of "side effects" and would not put a dent in the overall mosquito population (at least not until the "Star Wars" space based global anti-mosquito laser netwok is set up). They claimed that they could manufacture it (in quantity) for $50.
I had Dengue fever last year and I'd buy one for ten times the price (I know that won't work for the developing world but hey, what can I say? I'm selfish and one less food source available for mosquitos the better for everyone).
Anyone out there know how to get this thing "kickstarted"? How much would Paul Allen ask for the rights?
MALARIA FACTS Of the 300-500 million clinical cases of malaria that occur globally each year, 90 percent of them are in Africa. Malaria is endemic in more than 90 countries. Forty percent of the world population is at risk for malaria. Ten percent of world population gets sick each year with malaria. DEATH BY MALARIA Number of fatal cases of malaria each year: over 1 million Most common age at death: 4 years Every 30 seconds, a child dies of malaria Five percent of African children are killed by malaria, almost 3,000 each day, or the equivalent of seven jumbo jets full of children crashing every day. Up to 23 percent of African infants are born with the malaria parasite.
(http://malaria.jhsph.edu/about_malaria/)
Personally, I think killing large numbers of mosquitoes is a good thing, especially considering malaria is quickly becoming resistant to the drugs used to treat it. A reduction in mosquito numbers would greatly reduce the transmission of this disease.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
There are 3500 species of mosquito. You are asserting that if you eradicate ONE none of the other 3500 will fill in that niche, that even though things that "depend on mosquitoes" typically eat almost entirely non-mosquito insects, they will nevertheless also be eradicated.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
And sharks..and rats. Really, what would go wrong if we got rid of rats and sharks?
Remoras would lose cool points because they can no longer brag about riding sharks.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
People like you don't seem to realise that eco-systems are constantly changing. If a species is removed, something else takes its place. "It won't happen over night, but it will happen"
Whether it's bad for the environment or not is highly controversial...most of the "silent spring" scare stuff from crusty hippies has been discredited, but there is not much fresh research because we stopped using it.
Looking for a job in Portland, Oregon?
No, what he is saying is:
"Many times before we've seen people do things on this scale that supposedly would only have benefits with no downside. And many times before we've seen there were in fact downsides. Why is this the exception?"
In other words, TANSTAAFL. Tell me the side effects are minor or are out-weighed by the potential benefits, I may be convinced. Tell me there are no side effects, then I know either you are lying or haven't thought this through all the way.
wouldn't wiping off mosquitoes will help to make future generations of humans even weaker?, as enemies will disappear, immune gets weak?
as George Carlin would say, "[because] I grew up swimming in raw shit... and my immune system is equipped with fully automatic assault riffles.. and ready to [deal] with the mother fucker [germ]"
Is this your favorite movie?
If you're trying to imply that GE mosquitoes will have some sort of crazy unforeseen consequences, those are pretty bad examples to make your point with. Neither of those really have much to do with genetic engineering. As far as I know there are a handful of theories for CCD, but no one has linked it to GE crop in any way (besides the typical crazies who blame GE crops for animal sterility, autism, cancer, droughts, missing socks, ect).
As for the so-called superweeds, there is no such thing. Maybe you were talking about glyphosate resistant weeds? That's certainty a topic worth discussing, but ultimately when you apply selection pressure to a fast reproducing population (like weeds) eventually you see a genetic shift, and it doesn't matter how. Resistant weeds have emerged in the past with previously used systems (if you think herbicide resistance in crops didn't exist until the advent of genetic engineering then you've got a lot to learn), they will emerge in future systems (although hopefully the new ideas of using a good multi-year rotation using numerous different herbicides with varying modes of action will help prevent this as it is mostly over-reliance a particular herbicide not over-use of the herbicide that creates resistance), and the fact that a transgene was involved doesn't change how population genetics works (although it has suddenly made it somehow controversial).
The immediate side effect is that there will not be any mosquitoes.
No serious negative repercussions are known to exist for such an event beyond that the diet of certain types of insect predators would be affected (fortunately for such predators, their diet is not exclusively dependent on the species of mosquito that this concept intends to render extinct). The net effect upon mankind should be positive, other than possibly causing companies that make mosquito repellent to possibly go out of business.
But seriously.... did you *NEED* somebody to have to spell that all out for you? They're mosquitoes, for crying out loud... and not some vital part of the food chain on which we ourselves are part of.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Not enough to allow mosquitoes to continue existing...
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
This article asks the correct question:
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html
The real question is not how to eradicate mosquitoes, but how do we regulate human population on a world scale ?
Frankly, mosquitoes are small killers, and are a way to regulate population without too much damage, most notably where human's density is exploding.
People reproduce themselves at an alarming rate, without bothering about resources, which is a short-sighted view.
I'm not a religious nut, but I'm pretty sure that if we kill mosquitoes, another bigger danger might appear, like a very dangerous virus, or more probably a massive famine.
As resources will get scarce, their price will increase so much that only rich people will be able to eat normally, and when you have hunger, violence and war are not too far (I won't elaborate on human exploitation).
If you see earth as a giant living organism, you should realize that we are merely fleas, and we procreate at an unsustainable rate for the planet, doing a lot of damage. Somebody will have to pay the price, and it will be our grand-children.
The worst enemy of humanity is humanity itself !
Just asking.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
You have it?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
All that will happen is within in a few weeks, mosquitoes will develop two extra legs and learn to run really fast.
Privacy is terrorism.
I honestly don't understand how this supposed to work. If you introduce some unfit mutant males into the population, the unfit strain will die out in one generation or so. That's natural selection. And then you are left where you started. It seems like you would have to release a number of unfit males which is comparable (or perhaps larger than) the number of fit males already present in nature in order to really effect genocide. I don't see how that is possible.
Nothing is stopping you from simply killing one child yourself if that's what you want to happen.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
The immediate side effect is that there will not be any mosquitoes.
No serious negative repercussions are known to exist for such an event beyond that the diet of certain types of insect predators would be affected (fortunately for such predators, their diet is not exclusively dependent on the species of mosquito that this concept intends to render extinct). The net effect upon mankind should be positive, other than possibly causing companies that make mosquito repellent to possibly go out of business.
But seriously.... did you *NEED* somebody to have to spell that all out for you? They're mosquitoes, for crying out loud... and not some vital part of the food chain on which we ourselves are part of.
But if all the Mosquitos are dead we will lose our protected planet status.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
...on condition that it's only ever done after careful thought, planning and testing. (Oh, I guess it won't work then. :/ )
But seriously... in Australia we could do with GM solutions like that to fight back against cane toads, imported bees, fire ants, etc., etc., etc.
The Rabbit Calicivirus has already had a massive impact on rabbits in the wild, though being a virus it's a bit more of a loose cannon than hereditary impotence, and the bunnies are now developing resistance.
Personally, I like the idea of hereditary impotence as it can't spread to other spieces, and the only way that it can fail (as far as I can see) is if populations die off before spreading the mutation to other populations.
Of course, these options should only be considered in bounded areas, such continents bounded by water. Thinking that these options will limit themselves is folly. What I mean is... if you have an ant that is native to South America that has invaded North America, and the population seems to span across central America, then this kind of GM option is a bad idea, as the disease/mutation may spread from North America through to South America where it's a natural and important part of the ecology. But applying it to Australia should be fine.
DO not pretend to know exactly how the earths ecosystem works. It is unbelievable arrogance to kill off another species. Even one so hated as the mosquito. Perhaps, especially because its hated, we need to keep it. genetic "engineering".
If i have a nest of mice in the house, i want to kill them. I don't want to kill ALL mice, everywhere.
-
And please figure out a way to take care of ticks too.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I wasn't pretending to know anything... if you re-read what I said above, I stated that there are absolutely no known adverse effects to the elimination of the mosquito on mankind, other than the possible implications it might have for people who work for companies that make mosquito repellant. This much is entirely true.
Again, though... that is based only on what we know so far... if we always procrastinated with everything that we tried just because we were afraid of things that we might not happen to know about yet, we would still be living in caves.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
With all the talking, and thinking, and sentience, and morality...
Technology isn't the problem. The problem is people who think "Nature" is superior to and more important than humans. The moment we started valuing and prioritizing animals and plants over people, we started to undermine society at a fundamental level.
This dehumanizing of humanity leads us down evil paths, and it makes it easier for the selfish and greedy to climb up on top of the good people--after all, they're just animals with tools.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
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
You're assuming 100% accuracy in the GM mosquitoes reproductive defectiveness.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Well historically it seems that when people see a good chance that their children will survive, they'll raise fewer children. So bizarrely: reducing the risk of malaria might reduce population growth at the same time.
The immediate side effect is that there will not be any mosquitoes.
No serious negative repercussions are known to exist for such an event beyond that the diet of certain types of insect predators would be affected (fortunately for such predators, their diet is not exclusively dependent on the species of mosquito that this concept intends to render extinct).
This is wrong. Mosquitoes and like insects (ticks) can spread life-threatening sicknesses to species with a marked lack of natural predators (man or deer (in the Midwestern USA for example)). This helps to keep their populations in check. Removing another check increases the imbalance and leads to a greater consumption of limited natural resources. The over consumption of resources will ultimately balance the scales, but at a much higher cost. Starvation already kills more people than malaria by close to 10x. If the malaria deaths are removed from the equation, does starvation increase by a factor of .1, 2, 10, ...?
Good. Maybe next they can work on eradicating Aedes albopictus (Asian tiger mosquito) and fire ants from the US. Removing fire ants from the ecosystem would only be beneficial since they are an introduced species that do billions of dollars in damage annualy as well as cause several deaths. They didn't even exist in the US until the 1930's!
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
Fuck my morning math. Fuck it so hard. That's roughly one 9/11 every 30 hours.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I can see the Chevy mosquitoes now, like little mosquito Hulks dwarfing the competition in size.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
+1 for this.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
after all, with all the mosquitoes gone I'm sure the rest of the critters that depend on them as a food source will find something else to eat.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
This sounds pretty well wrapped up, but I'm not convinced. Females who choose not to breed with the GM males will have normal healthy offspring. Any mating preference that causes the females to choose non-GM males will become highly successful. It doesn't matter what that mating preference is: if the males have a different colouring, a different smell, if they flap their wings a little too fast...it could be anything. And it doesn't have to apply *only* to the GM males, this trait could cause the females to select against non-GM males as well. The point is that any female with this selection preference will be highly successful since their female offspring will have wings and will thrive in an environment with very little intra-species competition.
This move could, at best, introduce an evolutionary bottleneck (where genetic diversity is suddenly greatly reduced), but I wouldn't expect it to cause extinction. TFA reports an 80% reduction of the A. aegypti population on the Grand Cayman Island in 2009, but I'd be interested to know if the population has bounced back and if the same GM males would have a similar effect again today. I'm guessing that the present population would tend to avoid the GM males next time around.
Wait... we were talking about Wall Street Bankers right?