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Australian Experiment Wipes Out Over 80% of Disease-Carrying Mosquitoes (cnn.com)
schwit1 quotes CNN: In an experiment with global implications, Australian scientists have successfully wiped out more than 80% of disease-carrying mosquitoes in trial locations across north Queensland.
The experiment, conducted by scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and James Cook University (JCU), targeted Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which spread deadly diseases such as dengue fever and Zika. In JCU laboratories, researchers bred almost 20 million mosquitoes, infecting males with bacteria that made them sterile. Then, last summer, they released over three million of them in three towns on the Cassowary Coast.
The sterile male mosquitoes didn't bite or spread disease, but when they mated with wild females, the resulting eggs didn't hatch, and the population crashed.
The experiment, conducted by scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and James Cook University (JCU), targeted Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which spread deadly diseases such as dengue fever and Zika. In JCU laboratories, researchers bred almost 20 million mosquitoes, infecting males with bacteria that made them sterile. Then, last summer, they released over three million of them in three towns on the Cassowary Coast.
The sterile male mosquitoes didn't bite or spread disease, but when they mated with wild females, the resulting eggs didn't hatch, and the population crashed.
The sterile male mosquitoes didn't bite or spread disease, but when they mated with wild females, the resulting eggs didn't hatch, and the population crashed.
A secret organization I cannot name is trying the same thing right now, in western countries we're releasing a bunch of liberal males into the populace - They just yell a lot and while not sterile, are so unpleasant they make breeding pretty much impossible so the result is the same - population crashing.
It's working far better than we had hoped!
So this year the population is down 80%, the next year it'll be down another 60%... but the following year 100% of the mosquito population will be immune, and there will be 10000% more of them because the bird population decreased 80% from starvation. To challenge nature on it's own terms is generally futile in the long run.
I no want
I do hope smart people with no vested interest asked this question before this project was funded.
I hope smart peole keep asking it.
This doesn't mean the project should be scrapped. It does mean people should not be surprised if and when something goes wrong, because the decision-makers and oversight people already knews the risks.
Commiting genocide on an entire species because you consider them to be a nuisance and diseased. You sick sons of b's disgust me.
Something similar was done in Brazil before, so this is not the source of the "global implications": https://g1.globo.com/google/amp/g1.globo.com/sp/piracicaba-regiao/noticia/mosquito-transgenico-reduz-em-81-populacao-de-aedes-em-bairro-de-piracicaba.ghtml
Australian Scientists Baffled As Small Bird Populations Crash; Climate Change Blamed.
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I, for one, welcome our soon-to-arrive super mosquito overlords.
This sounds just like antibiotics - a trial-by-fire for creating superbugs.
Sorry this is memory without citation, but I recall reading some news a few years ago that mosquitoes are not the sole or primary food source for anything. All mosquito-eaters are generalized insectivores which have many alternate food sources.
The discussion was specifically about the ecological consequences of a hypothetical extinction of mosquitoes, and the conclusion that nothing particularly bad would happen if the family Culicidae were exterminated.
That said, I agree that 80% will only get worse, as females learn to avoid the sterile males, or mate multiple times, or whatever it takes to be among the 20%.
The term "wild females" is sexist and paints an unfavourable image of Australian women. I demand this study be thrown out, all paper copies destroyed, all backups erased and all the scientists who worked on it should lose their jobs. This is unacceptable behaviour in the #MeToo age.
THIS!
Mosquitoes are food. Kill them, we starve the animals that eat them.
Instead of genetically modifying the mosquitoes to be sterile, they should figure out how to make them ineffective carriers of disease. That would leave their population levels unchanged, but would still protect people against infection.
Decimating the mosquito population is like trying to tap in a picture-hanging nail with a sledgehammer and instead taking down the entire wall.
Don't want to be harsh but vast tracts of land, including valuable rainforest, will be deserts and tarmac without mosquitoes. Stopping malaria will trigger some severe unintended consequences.
>Jan 20, 2019
GREAT SCOTT!! Marty, we have to go back!
but I'm kinda bummed they used a biological method instead of the laser cannon that was discussed here a few years ago
Guess who brought those mosquitoes there.
Guess which planetary pathogen would be a far better target of getting exterminated.
The sad thing is that "nature... finds way" is true for humans too.
I bathe in their tears...
Three words: Trump. Is. President.
Seriously, if a screen writer came up with it, they would laugh him out of the office. Even the fantasy office!
This has been practiced by vector control authorities for decades in the U.S.
When it's out of the news for so long, a repeat of the past becomes novel for a new generation.
What eats the mosquitoes? Because whatever it is, you just wiped out a major food source for them.
Cannot wait to find out what these will be ...
Whatever you incels have to tell yourselves...
Whilst it might be a promising contribution to global health (Hey, I'm an Australian), it's the other 20% we need to worry about. One step forwards, two steps back.
Hey how come we are not hearing any protests from animal rights people from Florida? This happens to be their state bird,you know.Just sayin
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
The sterile insect technique has been used since the 1950s. In Florida, in my living memory, it eliminated the dreadful screwworm (the males were sterilized by X-radiation), and even stopped a re-infestation in the Florida Keys in 2016.
There is nothing new about this technique, except perhaps the method by which the males were made sterile. If you're concerned about ecological implications, the technique has a 60-year history covering many insects around the world for you to study.
Before you dismiss the technique out of hand, however, I suggest that you spend time with patients (quite literally) suffering from Dengue, with mothers having given birth to babies with Microcephaly due to Zika, or those owning dogs, cats, or farm animals agonizing from screwworm infections, and get their viewpoint.
the technique had been used multiple times before, starting decades ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
do you want killer mosquitos? because this is how you get killer mosquitos...
What could go wrong?