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Mosquitoes Genetically Modified To Crash Species That Spreads Malaria (npr.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: For the first time, scientists have demonstrated that a controversial new kind of genetic engineering can rapidly spread a self-destructive genetic modification through a complex species. The scientists used the revolutionary gene-editing tool known as CRISPR to engineer mosquitoes with a "gene drive," which rapidly transmitted a sterilizing mutation through other members of the mosquito's species. After mosquitoes carrying the mutation were released into cages filled with unmodified mosquitoes in a high-security basement laboratory in London, virtually all of the insects were wiped out, according to a report in Nature Biotechnology. The mosquitoes were created in the hopes of using them as a potent new weapon in the long, frustrating fight against malaria. Malaria remains one of the world's deadliest diseases, killing more than 400,000 people every year, mostly children younger than 5 years old. What's encouraging is that the mosquitos reportedly did not appear to further mutate in a way that would diminish the effectiveness of the engineered mutation. "But the researchers stressed that many years of additional research are needed to further test the safety and effectiveness of the approach before anyone attempts to release these mosquitos or any other organisms created this way into the wild," reports NPR.
Wow, you sound like every compliance, information security, or risk consultant idiot out there.
Well, you see, this is either good or bad but I have no opinion on it, and I consider this a successful meeting.
I think it's safe to assume the scientists behind this are genuinely interested in saving lives. I think it's also safe to say that the technology, once developed, will be repurposed by someone else (maybe neo-Nazis) to destroy lives.
That's why they're aiming at a small subset of mosquitos rather than the entire family.
I read somewhere, and can't the exact source now, but there are similar sentiments to be found across the web, that the greatest form of contraception for those in great poverty is knowing that your children will survive. I imagine eradication of malaria would go a very long way to reduction of infant mortality in developing nations.
By that the logic anti-vacation folks are the best thing ever. You are not being cold-hearted; merely following the good old “one rule for me, another for thee” hypocrisy.
One of the more popular explanations among economic historians for why regions of Africa are so underdeveloped is specifically malaria. You will notice that countries like Ethiopia that are located in more mountainous regions and thus suffer less from mosquitoes have also always been more developed. Plague and war completely wreck economic development, which ironically also leads to lower populations down the line for all cases studied to date.
As for Malthus being quoted here, cut him some slack. He lived a long time ago and didn’t sufficiently account for productivity growth.
If your or your neighbor's child dies of whatever, then you'll have 2 more just to make sure one survives. Thus why the birth rate is astronomical in places wracked by war/famine/plague/death. The push to eliminate malaria is in large part driven by the fact that doing so will cause the sub-Saharan birth rate to plummet. After lowering infant mortality rates, the next-best ways to lower the birth rate are female empowerment (enough to allow them to choose how many children they bear), sex education, then access to contraception (which is useless if you use it wrong because your instructor was a prude and assumed you would understand).
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Second-gen immigrants have FAR fewer children than first-gen immigrants. Allowing poor people to emigrate to rich countries lowers that family's birth rate compared to keeping them out.
Brazil's government gave out free vasectomies to any man that wanted one, and it was far more successful than expected. Other countries could do the same thing; how many 1st world nations even do that? The world population is expected to level out at ~10billion, FWIW.
I do agree that if every good person flees a country, then who's going to stay behind to rebuild the country or vote in competent/moral leadership?
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Actually, people have thought carefully about the ramifications. Firstly, note that only ~200/3500 mosquito species actually target humans. Probably, not even all these 200 human-biting mosquito types carry malaria, and not all of those carrying malaria have that high risk of transmission. If you drive the specific malaria-carrying human-biting mosquitoes extinct, it's not unlikely that other mosquito species will naturally fill their void, and that most predators will happily eat other mosquitoes too. We could even help them on their way, by releasing "safe mosquitos" in the same regions where we release "sterilized mosquitos".
Secondly, note that for many species, mosquitoes are not as large a part of their diet as people think, it's more of an opportunistic food source since they're slow and stupid. For instance, while many species of bats eat a lot of mosquitoes, it only constitutes ~2% of their food, since moths are larger and more nutritious.
Finally, it's estimated that malaria has killed roughly half of all people that ever lived. And that's just malaria; the same mosquitos tend to spread dengue fever, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis, Rift Valley fever, Chikungunya virus, West Nile virus, and so on. We should also ask how much damage to specific ecosystems we are willing to accept to save a ridiculous number of human lives.