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Sex-Switched Mosquitoes May Help In Fight Against Diseases

Posted by samzenpus on from the no-girls-allowed dept.

cstacy writes: Only the female mosquitoes bite and transmit viral diseases such as Dengue Fever. Scientists have finally discovered the elusive genetic switch called Nix, that determines the sex of these blood sucking insects, and hope to selectively eliminate females to control the spread of diseases. "Nix provides us with exciting opportunities to harness mosquito sex in the fight against infectious diseases because maleness is the ultimate disease-refractory trait," explained Zhijian Jake Tu, an affiliate of the Fralin Life Science Institute and a biochemistry professor from Virginia Tech's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

4 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. Why not just kill them all? by joetomato · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Am I mistaken, or if you switch off the ability for them to be female, after a single generation, they'll be extinct anyway. So why not just kill them all and be done with it?

    1. Re:Why not just kill them all? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Arctic mosquitos do. In places too cold for most bees or tundra where there are no trees for a hive arctic mosquitos pollinate and drive you batshit insane at the same time.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    2. Re:Why not just kill them all? by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Can't that be said for everything?

      No it can't, you illiterate dickhead relativist. Mosquitoes are genuinely useless.

    3. Re:Why not just kill them all? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      think of the ecological structure as a pyramid pull enough crap from the bottom and the whole thing collapses. Mosquitoes make up a significant portion of the diet of other insects and birds. By removing the mosquitoes you put pressure on other insects that now become food targets who may or may not be as hardy at the breading cycle as mosquitoes. So now we inadvertently destroy another and then another species due to over predation. How long till the pyramid collapses? I think that your powers of observation and logic are in abeyance.