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Google Has a Plan To Eliminate Mosquitoes Around the World (bloombergquint.com)
Zorro shares a report: Silicon Valley researchers are attacking flying bloodsuckers in California's Fresno County. It's the first salvo in an unlikely war for Google parent Alphabet: eradicating mosquito-borne diseases around the world. A white high-top Mercedes van winds its way through the suburban sprawl and strip malls as a swarm of male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes shoot out of a black plastic tube on the passenger-side window. These pests are tiny and, with a wingspan of just a few millimeters, all but invisible. "You hear that little beating sound?" says Kathleen Parkes, a spokesperson for Verily Life Sciences, a unit of Alphabet. She's trailing the van in her car, the windows down. "Like a duh-duh-duh? That's the release of the mosquitoes."
Jacob Crawford, a Verily senior scientist riding with Parkes, begins describing a mosquito-control technique with dazzling potential. These particular vermin, he explains, were bred in the ultra-high-tech surroundings of Verily's automated mosquito rearing system, 200 miles away in South San Francisco. They were infected with Wolbachia, a common bacterium. When those 80,000 lab-bred Wolbachia-infected, male mosquitoes mate with their counterpart females in the wild, the result is stealth annihilation: the offspring never hatch. Better make that 79,999. "One just hit the windshield," says Crawford. Mosquito-borne disease eradication is serious stuff for Alphabet, though it is just one of many of the company's forays into health care and life sciences.
Jacob Crawford, a Verily senior scientist riding with Parkes, begins describing a mosquito-control technique with dazzling potential. These particular vermin, he explains, were bred in the ultra-high-tech surroundings of Verily's automated mosquito rearing system, 200 miles away in South San Francisco. They were infected with Wolbachia, a common bacterium. When those 80,000 lab-bred Wolbachia-infected, male mosquitoes mate with their counterpart females in the wild, the result is stealth annihilation: the offspring never hatch. Better make that 79,999. "One just hit the windshield," says Crawford. Mosquito-borne disease eradication is serious stuff for Alphabet, though it is just one of many of the company's forays into health care and life sciences.
100% agree. China tried this with sparrows and it caused more problems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign
Yes, they thought about it for longer than you did, evidently.
They are wiping out 1 specific species of mosquitoes. Other species are not impacted. Assuming the other species have the same food sources and life cycles, they'll simply replace the species that have been wiped out and no food webs will be wiped out.
You don't have to wipe out all mosquito species to eliminate the ones that spread human disease... I think there are only 6 or so that bite humans. Many of them would be considered invasive species in the Americas. These techniques are actually more selective than spraying and draining wetlands, which are the historical methods of mosquito control.
Zika was first identified in humans in early 50s. It in was identified in South American in 2007, long before the modified mesquito experiment.
I hate fat people.
Has Google given any thought to what eliminating mosquitoes does to the food chain? Bats eat them. Some birds eat them. I'd guess that spiders eat them. What happens to the creatures who have a (potentially) major source of their food just disappear?
There are 3500 known species of mosquito. This plan is going after aedes aegypti, which feeds primarily on humans. Most other species of mosquitos (many of whom cohabitate with aedes aegypti) do not feed on humans. The food chain will do just fine with 3499 species instead of 3500.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
this exactly.
No, not at all. The targeted species, Aedes aegypti, is African, and IS NOT NATIVE TO CALIFORNIA. So there should be no negative repercussions from wiping it out. There are plenty of native species of mosquitoes (which are not disease vectors) that will be happy to fill the vacated niche.
Although the targeted A. aegypti will develop resistance, in the meantime, the temporary drop in their population may be enough to disrupt the spread of diseases. The spread of vector-borne diseases goes down as the reciprocal of the square of the vector population. For many of these diseases, R0 is already less than one, so this may be a way to lick'em for good.
Hawaii and mongoose is a very easy obvious one ...
Before the arrival of Europeans, Hawaii had zero mosquitoes. All the mosquitoes there should be wiped out. Then we can start working on the mongooses.
For the record, they're targeting Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, not Anopheles which is the species which carries malaria. Ae aegypti carry yellow fever virus, dengue virus chikungunya virus and Zika viruses. Interestingly Ae aegypti are considered invasive species originally native to Asia. So eradicating them, really shouldn't impact the environment.
There are so many species that depend on mosquito larvae for survival. Alphabet is being colossally irresponsible here. Are they going to create some alternative food for fish, dragonflies, bird species? Because those will die off, and the species that rely on them for survival will then die off.
Alphabet should be looking to make harmless the mosquito-borne illnesses, and leave the bugs alone.
"Annoying" is not a valid reason to instigate wide-spread species elimination.
You have no idea what you're talking about. Alphabet is not doing what you think they are doing. Inform yourself.