
Let's Kill All the Mosquitoes - wwilson
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2016/01/zika_carrying_mosquitoes_are_a_global_scourge_and_must_be_stopped.html
======
alwaysdoit
We've done this lots[1] of[2] times[3] when it threatens agriculture, but when
it threatens the lives of poor people in third world countries, suddenly we're
worried about the ecosystem?

There will be an environmental impact, but it will be from hundreds of
millions of humans not getting malaria and climbing their way out of property,
not from the lack of mosquitoes in the ecosystem. It's still a significant
problem, but our current solution of "let all the poor people die" is not a
good one.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochliomyia_hominivorax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochliomyia_hominivorax)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceratitis_capitata](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceratitis_capitata)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastrepha_ludens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastrepha_ludens)

~~~
maaku
Those eradications were paid for by the Department of Agriculture (and
equivalent organizations in other regions). Who is going to pay for the
mosquito?

I'm not objecting. I think we should eradicate the mosquito. But as someone
who has worked for the government (albeit a different branch) I know that
bureaucrats are not being evil or heartless when they don't allocate funds for
necessary work that falls outside of their mandate: they could go to jail for
misallocation of taxpayer funds. So whose mandate is this?

~~~
Avshalom
As an Alaskan AND a Floridian: If they wanna auction/raffle off the privilege
of throwing the switch I would attempt to give them all my money.

~~~
kls
I am pretty much ground zero of where they want to release them down here in
the FL Keys and I am all for it. The amount of chemicals they pump out in the
summer months is enough to sway me towards the belief that it can not be much
if any riskier. When we hear the hum of the mosquito truck we have to yell, to
our kids playing outside, to get in the house and stay out of the mist. Most
of the other locals are vehemently opposed to their release. I say they cannot
release them fast enough.

~~~
dmd
When my mom was little, "it was very exciting when we heard the DDT truck
coming and all the kids would run out of their houses or off the beach and run
behind the fogging truck...the smell was kind of sweet and running in the DDT
fog was fun."

~~~
hoorayimhelping
My mother and aunt both have fond memories of doing this - apparently the mist
was really cool and refreshing. Also they're both breast cancer survivors.

------
hellbanner
On reddit, I remember seeing something like "Research assures government that
killing mosquitos would have no negative effect on world ecology"... right
above another thread titled "Scientists underestimate ecological impact of
species destruction"...

Do we _actually understand_ Mosquitos role in the planet's eco system?

~~~
ethanbond
No, but that isn't even the million dollar question because the answer will
never be "yes."

The real question is how certain do we have to be about their role before we
decide the gamble is worth it?

In this thread you see wealthy westerners complaining that mosquitos are a
nuisance. In many parts of the world they are holocaust-scale killers. It gets
to an age old question re: the precautionary principle, and a lot of
philosophers have spent a lot of time reasoning about it. No one has a
generalizable answer.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Even more on point:

Which is likely to cause more ecological damgage:

1) Wipe out two (of over 3,500) species of mosquito

2) Spray poisons indiscriminately, wiping out many different species of
insect, both mosquitos and non-mosquitos?

~~~
TheCondor
Don't things eat mosquitos? Do any of those things matter?

~~~
Turing_Machine
No one is talking about wiping out all mosquitos.

~~~
kristiandupont
It's literally the title of the article

~~~
Turing_Machine
The title is wrong.

------
mikestew
This is one of those ideas that sounds genius on its face, until it's actually
implemented. Kudzu? Grows fast, prevents erosion, let's _pay_ farmers to till
it into the top soil. MTBE? Prevents engine knock, makes for cleaner air,
let's mandate its use at the federal level. Whoopsie, once it's in the water
we can't get it out, and its a carcinogen.

Let's kill all of the mosquitos because we find their presence unpleasant.
Well, that's done and...oh, shit. Turns out there was a value to mosquitos
after all. Anyone think to save some of that DNA?

~~~
hibikir
Mosquitos aren't about unpleasantness though: It is a vector for deadly
disease in the tropics. We are talking hundreds of thousands of deaths a year.

Now, getting rid of all of them might not be the smartest idea: it carries
plenty of risk, but to say that they are just unpleasant is a major
understatement.

~~~
astazangasta
We should just cure these diseases. Vector control is fucking hard, we've been
trying it for a century without really fixing the problem. That isn't likely
to change; therapeutic interventions, however, can keep getting better and
cheaper.

~~~
Turing_Machine
" Vector control is fucking hard, we've been trying it for a century without
really fixing the problem. That isn't likely to change"

With CRISPR and gene drive, it changes from "fucking hard" to "trivial", so it
is not only likely to change, it's already changed.

~~~
astazangasta
Can you show me an actual program using CRISPR and gene drive that's produced
some effective changes? As far as I know this is still in the realm of theory.
And given that we're talking about a single resistance mechanism, I'm going to
guess that it will very quickly be defeated by evolution.

DDT was the "perfect" mosquito killer, as well. It didn't last - resistance
inevitably follows these attempts in wild populations.

~~~
Turing_Machine
_Can you show me an actual program using CRISPR and gene drive that 's
produced some effective changes?_

So your argument is that it can't be done because no one has done it?

No one has released gene drive systems to the wild, but there is every reason
to believe that it will work fine, and no credible reason to believe that it
won't.

~~~
astazangasta
Err, I can give you a credible reason to believe that it won't: the parasite
will inevitably develop resistance.

Here is the paper where they talk about the mechanism of resistance being
conferred on the mosquito:
[http://www.pnas.org/content/109/28/E1922.abstract](http://www.pnas.org/content/109/28/E1922.abstract)

The mechanism is this: "These scFvs are derived from antibodies specific to a
parasite chitinase, the 25 kDa protein and the circumsporozoite protein,
respectively."

So you'll spend a ton of money building a fancy CRISPR system in your
mosquitoes, release them into the wild, and in a matter of months you will
have parasites with on-target mutations in these proteins that will allow them
to evade your resistance mechanism. I'd lay $1000 on this without blinking.

You're basically talking about curing malaria in mosquitoes. Why not, instead,
just cure malaria in humans?

~~~
Turing_Machine
First, you're confusing wiping out the mosquito species with giving the
mosquitos resistance to the malaria parasite. Those are two different things.

Second, there is no reason that a CRISPR-based system is limited to a single
target. Will you also lay $1,000 against a system that targets ten species-
unique sequences at once?

 _You 're basically talking about curing malaria in mosquitoes._

Neither I nor the article is talking about that. It's a discussion of making
the mosquito species itself extinct.

~~~
astazangasta
> First, you're confusing wiping out the mosquito species with giving the
> mosquitos resistance to the malaria parasite. Those are two different
> things.

You're the one who brought up CRISPR and gene drive. Perhaps you should read
the actual paper:
[http://www.pnas.org/content/112/49/E6736.full;](http://www.pnas.org/content/112/49/E6736.full;)
you'll see that the proposal is entirely about giving mosquitoes resistance to
the malaria parasite, not about eradication. That is, the goal is to eliminate
the parasite in mosquito populations (i.e., cure malaria in mosquitoes), not
to kill mosquitoes.

>Second, there is no reason that a CRISPR-based system is limited to a single
target. Will you also lay $1,000 against a system that targets ten species-
unique sequences at once?

Yes. On-target mutations are trivial to produce, and alleles segregate
independently.

~~~
Turing_Machine
"You're the one who brought up CRISPR and gene drive. "

Which can be targeted to eliminate the mosquitos themselves.

"Perhaps you should read the actual paper"

 _The_ actual paper? Like there's only one? Hint: there's more than one way to
use this technology, and more than one group working with it.

"On-target mutations are trivial to produce, and alleles segregate
independently."

I think you're misunderstanding what "independently" means in this context.

If the probability of a mutation that will get around one targeted sequence is
(say) 1 in a million, that's almost certainly going to happen, just because
there are billions of mosquitos.

However, if you target (say) ten independent sequences, the probability of any
one organism having resistance to all of them is going to be 1 in (1
million)^10 = 1 in 10^60 and that is basically _not going to happen_. It does
no good in this case for one organism to be resistant with respect to one
target, while another organism is resistant with respect to another target,
because all of the targets will have fatal outcomes. The only way for the
organism to survive would be for it to be resistant to all of them _at the
same time_ , from the beginning.

And there's no reason why you'd have to stop at 10, either.

~~~
astazangasta
You should go read about MRSA, which shouldn't exist according to your logic.
You also are misunderstanding how independent assortment of alleles work.

Because plasmodium is a eukaryotic species which reproduces sexually, on-
target resistance mutations to any number of mechanisms can arise
independently in a bunch of different organisms and accumulate through
selection + allele segregation. It's also very easy to produce these sorts of
mutations, since it is trivial to change an amino acid to disrupt antibody
binding/recognition without altering the function of the protein.

>Which can be targeted to eliminate the mosquitos themselves.

This is incorrect; the whole point of a gene drive is that it causes increased
propagation of a trait in the mosquito population. What you're describing is a
very different strategy, since a trait that kills the mosquito obviously
cannot propagate. It can also be achieved much more simply by using sterile
males to outcompete fertile males and reduce the population ('sterile insect'
technique); however, this technique only works on small populations and almost
certainly wouldn't work in Anopheles or some such.

------
rm_-rf_slash
Sometimes I wonder if the relentless human intervention in every aspect of
nature will create or leave only life that has a value to people, like cows
and wheat, or that which can resist domination or destruction by humans, like
HIV, treatment-resistant bacteria, and the unassailable cockroach.

Perhaps after a period of rapid upheaval, humanity develops the technology to
capture and control those super powerful flora and fauna, and use them for our
own devices.

Then we can finally become Pokemon trainers.

~~~
ars
> create or leave only life that has a value to people

There is a Jewish creation story (Rashi, Genesis 1:11) that God told the trees
to make their bark (or the wood itself) edible to humans. The trees refused
because "if we did that humans would eat all of us, leaving none behind".

It seems to me that the trees got it wrong: Plants that are valuable to humans
exist in far greater numbers than those that are not.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Fascinating. Maybe that's the point of the story? It's not as if the ancient
Hebrews were unfamiliar with agriculture. Perhaps the meaning is that people
should listen to God even if it seems counterintuitive, because you could be
more wrong than you (a puny mortal) could possibly understand.

That was really interesting. Thanks for that.

~~~
qb45
The meaning to you or the meaning to the ancient?

If the latter, I'm not sure if people back then were so megalomaniac to
consider being useful to humans as an advantage. The world was much less
developed before steam engines gave us craploads of energy for free.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
I'm pretty sure that people back then were rather clear on the idea that if
something you put in the ground makes food and seeds you're gonna want to keep
the seeds to make more.

~~~
qb45
But then you become a slave of those pesky humans and their whims, while trees
grow freely in forests where they didn't face much danger from humans before
the industrial revolution.

~~~
ajuc
Actually in Europe there was heavy deforestation between 1100 and 1500
already.

~~~
qb45
Yeah, I was looking for information on pre-industrial deforestation and found
that too. Apparently, deforestation was also a problem in the vicinity of some
ancient cities.

------
sametmax
Mosquitoes is not just about the macro-ecosystem. Blood sucking animals
actually help micro-organism maintain their biodiversity by allowing DNA from
very different environment to mixup. Killing mosquitos would be like killing
bees (which we are).

Also you may think that most organism causing diseases are bad, but they can
be actually useful in your own organism most of the time, and only trigger a
disease once their population is out of control or when your body is not tuned
correctly anymore.

Killing everything that seems to affect us in a bad way could snow ball into
terrible consequences. Not to say I'm not glad that the plague is out of the
picture, but everything is not "plague-level".

BTW: I have malaria. I hate mosquitos. I still believe we should not eradicate
mosquitos.

~~~
zamalek
Why haven't we talked about possibly engineering Aedes that cannot carry the
virus and release those into the wild to spread their resistant genes to other
Aedes? I don't know if this is practical, or even possible - I just have yet
to see any solution other than the typical human "kill the threat" response.

------
quotemstr
I'm disappointed that the prevailing sentiment is applying the precautionary
principle. We didn't create a technological civilization by being absolutely
sure of all possible consequences before acting. That approach would have
paralyzed us. Technology is a boon. It's done some harm, but a whole lot of
good. Let's not throw up our hands and decide that we're no longer comfortable
modifying our environment to suit us.

~~~
aethertap
There is a long list of things about our technological civilization that would
have benefited from applying the precautionary principle a little more. We're
in damage control mode right now for a large number of environmental
catastrophes, our agricultural techniques of the last half-century or so have
depleted and desertified a large amount of prime arable land, we're rapidly
shooting ourselves in the foot by abusing antibiotics, and we have some huge
problems with war, poverty, and other kinds of social strife. In my opinion,
we should be learning to think deeply through consequences instead of looking
at our track record and saying "let's do more of that." We don't need to be
absolutely sure, but given our history I think we could probably strive to be
/more/ sure before we make irreversible changes.

~~~
quotemstr
I see where you'd coming from, but it's easy to see the costs now that we're
so utterly used to the benefits. Use of filthy, polluting energy sources was a
necessary stepping stone for the industrial revolution. There was no way to go
directly from Newcomen's engine to ITER. Sure, the process left us with some
problems to solve, but compared to the alternative, they're good problems to
have. If we'd applied the precautionary principle, knowing what we know now,
we'd never have had an industrial revolution, nor a green revolution, and we
wouldn't be here to talk about it.

~~~
aethertap
(upvoted) It's hard to predict the alternate present from a notional past. I
agree that the things we did were necessary stepping stones on the path to
technology that likely could not have been avoided. We might have done it more
slowly and with more limited scale and still made it to where we are now (over
a longer time span), and I have no idea if that would have had better results
or not. The real question for me is, now that we do have this perspective, can
we make our future decisions better than our past decisions? We're now at a
point where the global system has far less excess capacity to absorb our
blunders. In resilience speak[1], it seems to me like we're in the late
conservation phase, which typically precedes rapid release (collapse) and
reorganization. We have evidence of this in the critical slowing down[2] of
adaptive responses from a variety of present-day systems ranging from corals
to economies. From my perspective, provoking a system in that condition feels
a lot like playing with a doomsday footgun.

I don't think that killing off mosquitoes will be the final insult that causes
cataclysmic ecosystem collapse; that seems pretty far-fetched. However, I
don't _know_ that, and I do think we should strive to have strong evidence for
the costs and benefits of any irreversible change we make to our world at this
point.

1\. [http://www.resalliance.org/adaptive-
cycle](http://www.resalliance.org/adaptive-cycle)

2\. [https://www.quantamagazine.org/20151117-natures-critical-
war...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/20151117-natures-critical-warning-
system/)

------
jessaustin
Eventually, a researcher who is genuinely responsible instead of merely
professionally so will conduct the X-chromosome shredding experiment in the
wild. There won't be publicity at first, but if it works as well as the
Chickens Little fear then eventually, after the hymns of praise to the heavens
have resounded for a few years, the researcher will reveal the key to a hash
she had published years earlier. That hash will be found to be of her lab
notes on the day she released the selfish gene into the wild and destroyed a
scourge upon humanity for good.

Not only will this be good for the millions of human children who _won 't
die_, but we'll gain a better understanding of ecological principles at which
we can now only guess. This isn't the last species we'll want to change, but
there may only be a few we want to eliminate this way. The knowledge gained in
the anti- _Anopheles_ project will be useful for less destructive efforts as
well.

------
justsaysmthng
I'm a vegetarian for spiritual reasons and also because I don't agree with
causing suffering to other species.

If there's a fly in my room, buzzing on the window, I would open the window
and let it fly away. If there's a big ant or a spider or a bee on my foot, I'd
wait for it to explore me and then go on its way (although I'm scared of
spiders and allergic to bee stings).

But even a hardcore flower sniffing fly kissing hippy like myself has his
limit. And that limit is called The Mosquito.

I've sent so many bad vibes towards this species that they'd stopped biting me
years ago. Even so, I still hate them for the sleepless nights and for the
crazy, bad, aggressive thoughts that they've spawned inside my mind with their
evil buzz.

One of the worst things about them is that it takes just one slap - 50 ms - to
transform a living, buzzing mosquito into a bloody spot on the wall. They
don't even have time to understand wtf has happened to them !

One moment she's like "Yeah! Who I should suck next?!" and next moment she's
mush.

No pain, no regrets, no suffering. Nothing !

Yet I have to live with the memory of the suffering it has caused me my entire
life.

Maybe we should design mosquitoes with more advanced nervous systems -
optimized for feeling pain and suffering - and make their bodies more
resistant and stronger, so that humans can torture them properly.

This "let's interbreed them with sterile males" sounds like a really soft and
humane (?) punishment - give them lab grown mosquito studs so that those
bloodsucking bitches can have a good sex life ? What kind of revenge is that ?

No! They must suffer !

Oh my, you see what thoughts they've spawned in me ? Otherwise, I'm pretty
peaceful..

/humor

~~~
dingo_bat
>Maybe we should design mosquitoes with more advanced nervous systems -
optimized for feeling pain and suffering - and make their bodies more
resistant and stronger, so that humans can torture them properly.

You're scaring me (wo)man!

------
jonahrd
I remember reading some old tale about all the animals gathering to decide
what to do about humanity. Every animal hated humans, so they all voted to
destroy us. Except the mosquito, which was the only one to stand up for us
because they needed food. The moral of the story was that in return for
looking out for us, we should let mosquitoes drink what they need from us.

(not my story, I read it in a history book about India)

~~~
StavrosK
So if I steal food from you every day and some of my friends want to kill you,
and I say "no, don't kill him, I need him so I can steal food", you should
give me food every day as thanks?

~~~
castis
Well in order for this comparison to work, you'd be programmed on a deep level
to take from him in order to sustain your own life. Your choice of the word
'steal' implies that the mosquito understands the morality of theft but just
doesn't care.

Then again I tend to read way too far into things, my bad.

------
mgberlin
Seems like it would be relatively easy to preserve large captive populations
of existing mosquito species, then kill everything in the wild. If we notice
some tragic consequence, ctrl+z.

~~~
mark-r
There's no guarantee that re-releasing the mosquitos would undo the damage. If
wiping out mosquitos causes some other species that relies on them to go
extinct, we might not notice until another species that relies on _them_
starts suffering too.

------
degenerate
There's an excellent 20min Radiolab you can listen to that was released in
2014, explaining how the genetically modified male mosquitos work:
[http://www.radiolab.org/story/kill-em-
all/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/kill-em-all/)

One (single) notable role mosquitos played was stopping early settlements from
inhabiting and destroying much of the world's rainforests... _" nature's Viet
Cong"_.

------
OneTwoFree
Probably I'm biased because I had a dengue fever infection a few years ago,
but I don't understand the commenters here. Humanity as a whole burns millions
of tonnes of coal, manufacturing millions of tonnes of products which are just
thrown away, releasing who knows what chemicals into the rivers and oceans,
not to mention the radioactive waste. And seriously you are worried about
killing mosquitos?

------
mc32
Sounds good, but afaik only a few mosquito species actually are spreaders of
diseases affecting humans. I suppose I don't know if those pathogens can
mutate to use other mosquitoes as hosts.

While we're at it, get rid of ticks.

~~~
mod
+chiggers

~~~
Turing_Machine
We've already got a good start on guinea worms (they'd already be gone if it
weren't for a set of superstitious, fuckface warlords in certain African
countries).

Other prime candidates:

Pediculus humanus (human louse, including the head and body subspecies).

Pthirus pubis (crab louse)

Onchocerca volvulus (causes river blindness)

Trichomonas vaginalis (causes nasty vaginal infections, and can be carried and
spread by men)

Ascaris lumbricoides (giant human roundworm)

I believe all of these are parasites specific to human beings, and find it
highly unlikely that wiping them out would cause any significant ecological
catastrophe.

Those who disagree would be welcome to serve as hosts a fallback population,
so we could restore them if it became necessary. Concerned about Aedes aegypti
mosquitos? Sign up to serve as a blood donor for them. You can help save the
species, at the small cost of yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya, and
(apparently) zika.

What, that doesn't sound like a good deal? Then why are you willing to wish
that fate on others? Especially unwilling others?

Sorry for any sarcasm, but it's quite disturbing to see First Worlders
condemning Third Worlders to horrible deaths because of ecowhacko _"
concerns"_ about friggin' _mosquitos_.

~~~
yourapostasy
As long as we're making lists, add Cimex lectularius (common bed bugs). I'm
tempted to toss the entire Cimicidae family into a gene incinerator from the
outset, but I'll settle for wiping them out one species at a time. But nuke
the mosquitoes that are proven viral vectors first; Cimicidae species if they
transmit at all, transmit in very rare instances.

------
Dove
I am astonished by the comments in this thread. Many people seem to assume
that the chance of disaster as a result of wiping out mosquitoes is high - a
sentiment I can only assume arises from having watched a lot of movies with
the Arrogant And Foolish Scientist's Ill-Thought-Out Plan Backfires plot. It
_is_ good to think through consequences, but supposing that real world
scientists acting deliberately and collaboratively will make the same mistakes
that movie scientists make for the sake of drama - I find that a concerningly
distorted perception of reality.

It's sort of like the people who react to robotics with concerns that the
robots will go rogue and turn on their creators. Yeah, this is like a 90%
probability event in movies, but that does not make it a reasonable thing to
worry about in the real world.

Yeah, of course we should carefully think through the consequences before
acting. _That 's what is happening._ But if the mosquito experts say the
ecological impact is likely to be negligible, then it probably will be. These
guys are experts. Species go extinct all the time, and life goes on because
it's pretty robust.

I'm not saying scientists are all knowing and can foresee all side effects,
though I suspect if they are willing to state a view like that with
confidence, they won't be far off. What I'm saying is the ZOMG BIRDS EAT
MOSQUITOS and WHAT IF WE INFECT OURSELVES AND GET WIPED OUT talk is a little
silly. Cool it there, Spielberg. ;)

~~~
givan
1 mosquitos only carries diseases, many other species do this, for example
rats spread the plague in the dark ages, even infected humans spread diseases.

2 there is no expert or science that can fully understand the whole ecosystem
and how it works, mosquitos and many insects are at the base of the food
chain, the impact will probably be a domino effect that will make many other
species extinct, where will this lead? nobody knows, it's like playing with
fire.

Wiping out entire species to solve the spread of a virus is not only
inefficient (there are other ways it can spread) and dumb but also dangerous,
it's like a solution of an infant that can only think destroy destroy.

We need creative and intelligent ideas for hard problems, not simple and
stupid infant like ideas, and hn is a place where people with such ideas
gather this is why you see more of these comments.

~~~
Dove
_there is no expert or science that can fully understand the whole ecosystem
and how it works, mosquitos and many insects are at the base of the food
chain, the impact will probably be a domino effect that will make many other
species extinct, where will this lead? nobody knows_

Ok, this. This is the chain of reasoning I'm talking about.

It is the very height of hubris to say that the people who manage and study
ecosystems don't understand them, and to imply that they are ignorant of
something so basic as the food chain. I don't understand where this is coming
from.

And there will probably be a domino effect that will wipe out many species?
"Probably"? Like, more than 50% odds? _Really_?

When multiple professionals are willing to go on record saying the impact will
likely be negligible, what makes you so darn sure they're wrong? The only
place I can _imagine_ this is coming from is some combination of "Science is
Hard" and "Nature Messes You Up Whenever You Mess With It In The Movies"!

~~~
givan
Food chain is not something basic or simple, maybe only as a a very abstract
concept, because our lives and of other species depend on it and this makes it
very important and should be treated carefully.

For example another insect that might seem not important to the food chain,
the bee, is crucial for agriculture and for our food.

If you don't understand the domino effect part you should study a little bit
about birds, reptiles and other species that feed on mosquitoes and then you
can look higher in the chain on what other animals feed on that birds and
reptiles and you will understand how many species will be affected.

Scientists unfortunately can't predict effects in very complex systems, not
even the most complex computers can simulate something that looks very simple
like the weather, this is why we can never predict it accurately and for long
periods of time even if we have a lot of data.

As I said effects on complex systems can't be predicted by scientists, maybe
only in a very limited superficial way, if this weren't true we wouldn't have
fukushima, cernobal, oil spills, plastic island in the ocean, increased ocean
acidity etc, scientists would have everything in control.

Science is cool and is a marvelous tool for knowledge but don't underestimate
it's limitations.

------
wambotron
We have a TON of mosquitos in the late spring through late autumn seasons.
Those asian tiger mosquitos. They bite all day long. You can't go out and
expect to avoid them unless you're doused in Off, and even then it's no
guarantee.

Last year my daughter got bit so badly that both of her legs looked like she
had a huge rash. It was just a string of mosquito bites combined with a
sensitivity to them that exaggerated an already rough problem.

All that said, I'm not sure I'm pro-extermination. We have a lot of bats that
come around and eat the mosquitos around dusk. I'm sure they'd find other
things to eat, but I like seeing them skim the pool for a drink and then eat a
few dozen skeeters while they dart around. I also don't like people playing
god with this type of stuff. The butterfly effect is real, and if we
exterminate them all, we won't know what the effect is until it's already too
late. Realistically, the earth adapts to whatever we do to it. Long after
we're gone, there will be tons of interesting life forms. That still doesn't
make me any less uneasy about it.

I don't know.

------
antognini
For the purpose of disease control it's not strictly necessary to exterminate
all mosquitos. Mosquito borne diseases are transmitted when a mosquito bites
an infected person, becomes infected itself, and later bites another person.
So long as mosquitos can be eliminated from the populated areas of a region,
even if only for a couple of months, the infected mosquitos will die off, and
the people infected with the diseases will eventually (hopefully) recover. By
the time new generations of mosquitos reach these populated areas, they will
no longer be infected, there will be no infected people for them to bite, and
the disease will be eradicated.

Such a strategy might be more feasible than total extermination anyway since
eliminating mosquitos in unpopulated regions would probably be the most
expensive part of such a project due to the lack of infrastructure in those
areas.

Of course, once the mosquitos return, you still have to deal with those
annoying bites....

~~~
palunon
What do you do when the virus infects reservoir species ? Or when there are
infected people that aren't sick (and so, don't die or recover) ?

------
neaanopri
This article doesn't seem to know what the impact will be and doesn't seem to
care.

Mosquitos are food for birds and bats. I think that talking to bird and bat
biologists would be the best idea.

~~~
toomanythings2
Came here to say this and surprised HN isn't outraged over this obvious
oversight.

------
duncan_bayne
[http://atlassociety.org/commentary/commentary-
blog/3896-deat...](http://atlassociety.org/commentary/commentary-
blog/3896-death-by-environmentalism)

"What does it mean in practice to hold a philosophy that declares that
pristine nature has intrinsic value in itself, and that regards Man and his
activities as intrusive threats to the so-called ecological balance?

I have discussed the history, meaning, and basic premises of environmentalism
previously, in my monograph The Green Machine and in my recorded talk "Green
Cathedrals." I also explore these issues on my ecoNOT.com website.

But here I want to focus on the consequences of accepting core
environmentalist premises—specifically, their deadly impact on human life."

Those who object to the eradication of mosquitoes are stating pretty clearly
the value of human life according to their philosophy.

------
AdmiralAsshat
Interesting that this article shows up now, given that this one just poped up
five days ago: [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3284/what-if-we-
era...](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3284/what-if-we-eradicated-
mosquitoes)

------
outworlder
Do different species of mosquitoes interbreed? I'm guessing not, as this is
the definition of "species".

If so, why do we care about the "ecological" impact of mosquito species that
feed on humans? If anything, the ecosystem is unbalanced given the human
population and the amount of mosquito food sources.

------
saulrh
Most of the "whoops" tales are people that didn't listen to their scientists
telling them not to, didn't have scientists at all, or were from long enough
ago that we can discard their stories as irrelevant in the same way that we'd
discard things like "spaceflight is impossible" and "nukes will end war".
We've now traced the food chain around malaria mosquitoes out to three or four
degrees of separation, including things like the diseases they carry. Their
entire ecological niche is trivially replaced by close relatives that don't
carry malaria. They're not even _common_ enough to have major food-chain or
crowding effects like you'd see with ants, rabbits, kudzu, or sparrows.
Everything that we can find says that the damage from eradication would be
zero. Not "small", or "manageable". None. They're small enough and unimportant
enough that we should be thinking of them as disease organisms rather than
insects. And I'm sure you're _perfectly_ happy with the eradication of bot
flies, polio, and smallpox. Reevaluate your beliefs.

Granted, we can never be certain about it. We're not deities, we're still
limited by information theory and epistemology. But we're pretty damn sure.
Way more than we need to be to go save half a million people a year.

~~~
imakesnowflakes
Layman here.

Even if the impact on the food chain is zero, does it mean that there won't be
other impacts?

For example, on the eradication of mosquitoes, what if the disease that are
currently only spread via mosquitoes mutate/evolve themselves to be airborne?

~~~
slapshot
> what if the disease that are currently only spread via mosquitoes
> mutate/evolve themselves to be airborne?

Evolution doesn't have an intent. Diseases can't "evolve themselves."
Evolution happens through random mutations* and selection of the fittest. If a
mutation makes a virus or bacteria or protozoan more likely to survive, then
the descendants of the mutant tend to multiply more and become more common. If
the mutation makes the organism less likely to survive, descendants of the
mutant tend to die out over time. (In other words, no matter how hard you hope
your offspring will be born with four arms, they never will be.)

If anything, eliminating mosquitoes will make us SAFER from airborne zika or
malaria. Why? Right now, there are tens of millions of infected mosquitoes out
there right now. If airborne malaria is possible, there are tens of millions
of chances for it to occur every day. And that would be such a powerful
disease that it wouldn't matter that there also exists bloodborne malaria. If
we eliminate tens of millions of malaria hosts, we reduce the number of
chances for malaria to mutate into an airborne form.

As it happens, I don't think airborne malaria is likely -- the life cycle of
malaria is way too complex and depends too much on stages that are specific to
mosquitoes.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria)
But the idea is the same.

* And a few other processes, such as DNA exchange, but the effect is the same for this purpose.

~~~
imakesnowflakes
>Evolution doesn't have an intent. Diseases can't "evolve themselves."

I know. But when you remove mosquitoes from the picture, aren't you putting
selection pressure on the diseases to be airborne?

>Evolution happens through random mutations* and selection of the fittest...

Yes. Say a virus of a disease x that normally spreads via mosquitos, gain a
mutation to be airborne. But since there are an abundance of mosquitoes, an
airborne strain does not have an advantage over mosquitoes borne strain. So it
dies off (because of competition)

But when you eradicate the mosquitoes, or reduce their number significantly,
suddenly the airborne strain has a tremendous advantage over the mosquito
borne strain. Hence it can grow in numbers and eventually completely replace
the mosquito borne strain...

Isn't this even remotely possible?

~~~
jonnathanson
(I'm a layperson, too, for the record.)

 _" I know. But when you remove mosquitoes from the picture, aren't you
putting selection pressure on the diseases to be airborne?"_

Not necessarily that specific pressure. Except in carefully controlled
laboratory situations, we can't specify the selection pressure being applied.
There are too many potential pressures at work, and the mutation outcomes are
too stochastic. At best we can force _pressure in general_. The outcome of
that pressure might be entirely different from what we expect it to be.

Let's say we eradicate mosquitos. What other vectors of transmission does a
virus like Zika have? What other hosts? It's possible the virus finds a new
insect-borne transmission pathway: say, ticks instead of mosquitos. It's
possible the virus 'focuses' (to use the term very very loosely) on other
hosts, and effectively ceases to be a human concern. I'd wager that either of
these outcomes is the more likely adaptation case than a leap to airborne
transmission.

Evolving an entirely new means of infectious transmission seems to be a much
rarer adaptation than adapting through other means (increased infectious
potential; severity of infection; adaptation to new host types; etc.). It's
popular in TV and movies to speak about a virus "going airborne," but in
actual record, that's usually not what happens. Evolution doesn't have any
agency or self-direction; it usually arrives at the 'laziest' and least costly
alternative in response to imposed pressures. In this scenario, evolving
airborne survivability and transmissibility is probably more costly than
adapting to whatever enzyme prevents fleas and ticks from being carriers.

Source:
[http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/141003_ebola](http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/141003_ebola)

~~~
inimino
There seems to be a mixup here between "pressure" as in "this organism is
under pressure" (implying an unfavorable environment) and selection pressure,
which acts on genes, not species, and is really more of a filter.

It's not as if an organism can "release" the "pressure" by evolving in a new
direction. In your example, if we eradicate mosquitos, one transmission vector
becoming less viable doesn't make other vectors more likely to arise, as if by
some conservation of total population.

> least costly alternative in response to imposed pressures

Evolution is even lazier, alternatives don't arise in response to imposed
pressures at all, so in this scenario the lazy thing is extinction.

------
MrArtichaut
I'm the only one not comfortable with the idea of wiping whole species just
because we don't like them? I mean, I'm far fromthe Gaia thing, but what
rights do we have to do that? And next? Rats, cockroaches? Hey, this specie of
birds doesn't do anything useful and eat our fruits, why not killing them all?

Mosquitoes aren't even "responsible" for those diseases... Maybe we should
invest in proactive body defenses against virus instead of just killing some
random things.

Even if we just kill those mosquitoes species you know what? Nature evolves.
Other mosquitoes and viruses will come. Do we kill them too?

~~~
nemothekid
> _just because we don 't like them?_

It's bit stronger than "we don't like them"

> _Maybe we should invest in proactive body defenses against virus instead of
> just killing some random things._

Invest more than the billions that billions that Bill Gates has already
invested?

~~~
MrArtichaut
And do you think Bill Gates would approve killing whole species ?

I honestly don't known but he seems to be a very clever guy and eradicating
species doesn't sound to be a clever solution and really not a good long term
solution.

What if you break a whole ecosystem ? What if those mosquitoes contain
invaluable genes for future medicine? What if they offer a unique window on
the evolution of insects?

But hey, who care? Kill them all..

~~~
maxerickson
The Gates foundation funds efforts to eradicate polio and malaria.

He's written about it:

[https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/Eradicating-Malaria-in-
a-G...](https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/Eradicating-Malaria-in-a-Generation)

------
jerryhuang100
This author clearly twists the words from that 2010 Nature report[1], as

1) That quote _" Life would continue as before — or even better."_ is not even
the conclusion in the Nature report. It's in the fifth paragraph of the first
part out of the three part report. I guess this author just stopped here and
failed to read the rest parts of the report for his conclusion?

2) The other two parts of the reports talk about the mosquito biomass and its
impact to arctic tundra ecosystem, food chains and even cacao pollination.

3) The original author Janet Fang actually concluded the report by quoting
entomologist Joe Conlon _" If we eradicated them tomorrow, the ecosystems
where they are active will hiccup and then get on with life."_ And the more
important part is the next sentence: _" Something better or worse would take
over."_

The key is that there is a high probability something _worse_ would take over
when you tried to mess Nature's arrangement in the past 100 million years
abruptly. As noted by other HN user, Chairman Mao also thought getting rid of
sparrows was really a good idea.

[1]
[http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html](http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html)

------
ChuckMcM
My friends in Ft. Lauderdale got a couple of CO2 "puffer" traps[1] and it
really cut down the mosquito population and it was "chemical free". (caveat
adding CO2 to the air I suppose) I was really impressed at how well they
worked, my friend calls them the "fake cows". In the Bay Area I've never
really had enough mosquito angst to try to build one. The basic idea is to
lure them into range and then using a fan blow them into a bucket of sugar
water. Something you could easily implement with an Arduino. That said,
killing them with lasers[2] is pretty cool too.

[1] These are some examples, I am not endorsing these guys just found them for
folks who were wondering what I was talking about --
[https://www.megacatch.com/](https://www.megacatch.com/)

[2] [http://www.intellectualventures.com/inventions-
patents/our-i...](http://www.intellectualventures.com/inventions-patents/our-
inventions/photonic-fence/) \-- if only someone other than Intellectual
Ventures had built it ...

------
sirtastic
Why do people think it's a good idea to kill off an insect that's a food
source to thousands of other insects and animals?

~~~
ElijahLynn
Truth. Most of the comments here made me realize that a significant amount of
HN readers are less intelligent than I thought.

~~~
sportanova
Yeah, as long as it's poor black people and South Americans who cares?
</sarcasm>

~~~
sirtastic
Save a hand full of people while potentially dooming billions? I might not be
getting your sarcasm but I'm totally okay with the current situation when the
other presents the possibility of destroying millions of ecosystems which mind
you would effect billions to trillions of animals, insects, and even people
across the globe who are dependent on these functioning ecosystems. Killing
off the primary source of food for a few insects/animals can have cataclysmic
effect.

In addition Mosquitoes do serve a purpose outside of being food. They
introduce many diseases, much of which we developed immunities to and continue
to successfully ward off naturally to this day. They are the worlds natural
vaccination shot so to speak.

Truthfully the idea of killing off all mosquitoes seems so damn absurd I don't
understand why anyone thinks it's a good idea.

~~~
sportanova
While potentially dooming billions - is anyone seriously suggesting that?
Especially if you can target only a handful of the 3500 species.

> They introduce many diseases, much of which we developed immunities to and
> continue to successfully ward off naturally to this day

What diseases are you referring to here?

There are ~200 million cases of malaria a year and about ~500k of those are
fatal. It's a debilitating disease and if it happens to the breadwinners it
can ruin the entire family. Hardly a "handful" of people

------
joeyspn
Looks like someone wants to unleash the CRISPR gods...

\- [http://www.cell.com/cell-
reports/abstract/S2211-1247(15)0026...](http://www.cell.com/cell-
reports/abstract/S2211-1247\(15\)00262-4)

\- [http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/malaria-zika-crispr-gene-editing-
co...](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/malaria-zika-crispr-gene-editing-could-wipe-
out-blood-sucking-female-mosquitos-1544426)

\- [http://phys.org/news/2016-02-crispr-female-
mosquitos.html](http://phys.org/news/2016-02-crispr-female-mosquitos.html)

\- [http://www.nature.com/news/gene-drive-mosquitoes-
engineered-...](http://www.nature.com/news/gene-drive-mosquitoes-engineered-
to-fight-malaria-1.18858)

------
phkahler
Here's a thought. If the people who developed these things spent their own
money to release them worldwide (yep, not just one continent) because they
believe in the safety and importance of it... What would happen to them? And
what would happen if they are right and it works great? Would the public
really allow them to be punished? Would someone not reimburse them? They claim
it's safe and are willing to risk the world, but not willing to risk their own
livelyhood and reputation apparently.

If you believe in such a cause, and honestly believe the downside was zero,
and you have the tool to do the job... What is holding you back? That's an
honest question and I'd love to hear their responses.

------
girishso
This reminds me of GEM Mosquito control. I believe this is the only real eco
friendly solution for mosquitoes menace. But corporates milking money out of
mosquitoes control devices, won't let this be mainstream.

> GEM technology is a process of achieving sustainable mosquito control in an
> eco friendly manner by providing artificial breeding grounds utilizing
> common household utensils and destroying larvae by non-hazardous natural
> means such as throwing them in dry places or feeding them to larvae eating
> fishes.

Process in short -
[http://www.appropedia.org/GEM_mosquito_control#Modus_operand...](http://www.appropedia.org/GEM_mosquito_control#Modus_operandi).

------
canistr
Wouldn't mosquito predators effectively die off as well? Birds, larger bugs,
bats, etc.

~~~
noir_lord
Not necessarily, Mosquito's are not primary prey for any species and the niche
they occupy would likely be filled rapidly by similar species that don't tend
to spread horrific diseases.

------
mirimir
Do we really know biological systems well enough to globalize code that nukes
all X chromosomes in sperm? Maybe there are unknown mechanisms for cross-
species sequence transfer. That could end up being quite the Darwin award ;)

~~~
ommunist
If there is simultaneously released artificial retrovirus, carried with
Plasmodium, that will transfer gene to human blood from now sterile mosquito,
than we are doomed. And from what I know about the US and current state of
pharma research, that is entirely technically possible and application only
depends from a certain political will.

Discl. a good friend of mine developed biological weapons in late 80-ies. In
40 years there has been significant progress in the field.

~~~
mirimir
Sure.

But then, anyone who'd do that could just include the code in the retrovirus
;)

There's a trope in dystopian SF (and maybe first, in Burroughs' _Cities of the
Red Night_ ) about specifically targeting particular races.

~~~
ommunist
Reality is always way stranger than fiction.

------
rmallol
There are other way to control the diseases. There's even a startup called
AIME ([http://www.aime.life](http://www.aime.life)) that focuses on using
machine learning to predict the next mosquito borne disease outbreak. They
claim to have pretty good accuracy too. The truth is though, that as the
diseases mainly originate in "developing countries", no one seems care enough
to even financially support them (not even YC). Still, they've made a lot of
progress in the past months, even supporting the state of Sao Paulo in Brazil.

------
ant6n
Whatever happened to those mosquito laser zappers?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKm8FolQ7jw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKm8FolQ7jw)

~~~
acdha
According to an acquaintance who worked there, the original research was
funded by the Gates Foundation’s anti-malaria R&D program. Intellectual
Ventures developed the prototype Photonic Fence
([http://www.intellectualventures.com/inventions-
patents/our-i...](http://www.intellectualventures.com/inventions-patents/our-
inventions/photonic-fence/)) but concluded that low-tech things like bed nets
had higher benefit per dollar for malaria prevention, particularly when you
factor in the challenge of powering the device in areas without reliable
electricity (the kill laser requires enough power to make solar non-trivial).

The good news is that they licensed it to a company for commercialization last
year:

[http://www.intellectualventureslab.com/invent/new-
collaborat...](http://www.intellectualventureslab.com/invent/new-collaborator-
for-photonic-fence-research)

The business plan I'd like to see would be selling it as a luxury for the
relatively affluent and use that sales volume to drive the manufacturing costs
down. I live in Washington DC and it'd have to be _really_ expensive compared
to the cost of real-estate which is unpleasant to use from May to November due
to mosquitoes, not to mention the growing number of people who will pay a
premium not to spray pesticides around their children and pets. Diseases like
Zika, Dengue, etc. should boost that even higher.

~~~
ant6n
Definitely agree with the idea that it should be sold in the first world to
get economies of scale. How much would these things cost, like 300$ a pop?

~~~
ojii
According to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser)
it would cost $50. They deliberately built it using already available parts
(the laser is the same as used for bluray for example) to keep cost down. The
problem seems to be (as parent pointed out) reliable electricity.

~~~
acdha
If I'm remembering the conversation correctly, the most expensive component
was the kill laser (it uses a lower-power laser to track flying things & match
the mosquito size / wing frequency and then fired up one strong enough to fry
an insect) but that hopefully has been going down since those figures were
calculated years ago.

------
itsananderson
The only comments I see here seem to be taking the the article literally, but
I have a strong suspicion that it's largely a parody of the Trump/Cruz talk
talk on the Middle East, ISIS, and Islam.

> The ugly situation on the ground does not call for Integrated Mosquito
> Management; it demands a program of Total Mosquito Destruction.

and

> we’re left to wait and watch swarms of evil on the wing, mating in midair,
> and landing on our shores. An enemy has made its way to the nation’s
> borders. Now is not the time for soft responses.

(and more)

------
lunchTime42
Can we do this systematic?

First massive reduction, to test wether the Eco-System can handle it short
term.

If yes, eradication until the diseases have vannished.

Measurement if the ecosystem handles it. Reintroduction if needed.

------
gtirloni
From the article: _But New Yorkers, like everyone else in the United States,
can take solace in two simple facts. The first is that Zika virus can’t easily
be transmitted from one person to another_

"Zika virus can be spread during sex by a man infected with Zika to his
partners."

[http://www.cdc.gov/zika/transmission/sexual-
transmission.htm...](http://www.cdc.gov/zika/transmission/sexual-
transmission.html)

------
graham1776
Is there any website/service that allows US citizens to sign and send a pre-
written letter to their congressman to address this issue, specifically
pertaining to the Zika Virus and/or killing mosquitoes? Change.org campaign?

My wife is pregnant now, we live in Southern California, and I feel fairly
powerless to do anything except ask my wife to DEET up, be on the lookout for
freestanding water, add screens, and pray.

~~~
cpeterso
DEET has its own health risks.

------
NoGravitas
Not strictly on topic, but the discussion of screwfly eradication made me
think of [this brilliant and chilling short story][0].

[0]:
[https://lexal.net/scifi/scifiction/classics/classics_archive...](https://lexal.net/scifi/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/sheldon/sheldon1.html)

------
esaym
Next up is the "kissing bug" [http://pvangels.com/news-mexico/176714/us-and-
mexico-must-jo...](http://pvangels.com/news-mexico/176714/us-and-mexico-must-
jointly-combat-chagas-disease)

Possibly responsible for most heart failures in people under the age of 50.

------
marcell
Aside from the question of whether we _should_ kill all mosquitoes, I question
if we can. Is there really a pesticide that we can apply globally that kills
all mosquitoes, but not huge swaths of other types of insects? And what is the
cost of this--who is paying for this global campaign?

------
brbsix
I realize this is blasphemy to some, but perhaps it's time to _consider_
further use of DDT.

~~~
ommunist
This is indeed blasphemy. I worked close with people who replaced Soviet DDT
programme for controlling gypsy moth populations with effective biological
treatment programme in 70-ies (viral agents species-specific). Cheaper, easier
to apply, no side effects, real cute. Took 15 years to develop.

------
guelo
I've heard environmentalists say that one advantage of mosquitoes is that it
keeps humans out of tropical forests. It's a view of humans as the pest. Which
isn't that preposterous when you consider the vast ecological damage we're
doing as a species.

------
hyperion2010
Ah, the scapegoat for the much harder problem: "Let's get rid of bad
government."

------
SFJulie
let's give mixomatose to all rabbits to try to eradicate them all.... Well,
long story short, Australia is still full of rabbits and this disease has been
introduced in Europe by an idiot and it is still harming the ecosystem.
Adaptation sux.

------
nec977
[http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160422-battling-the-zika-
vi...](http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160422-battling-the-zika-virus-one-
old-tyre-at-a-time)

------
Zelmor
The writer thinks in terms of human loves, excluding the fact that birds and
other species thrive on mosquitoes. If you remove one step of the foodchain,
you will hurt everyone, including us.

------
ElijahLynn
Evolution requires the human population to go through epidemics in order to
get stronger. Unfortunately what is best for the planet and species is not
always the best for individual humans.

~~~
krapp
Don't fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing evolution. It doesn't "require"
anything, it _certainly_ isn't sending epidemics to help us "get stronger",
and it really doesn't "care" whether anything lives or dies.

People thought the bubonic plague and cholera were God's will up until the
germ theory of disease was discovered, happy to pray and cast spells while
wallowing in their own feces in flea-bitten squalor, and that's not much
different (or much more rational) than arguing that epidemics should be
accepted because they're "evolution's will." Believing that nature has a plan
only causes unnecessary suffering. Nature no more has a plan than does the
dust in a dust storm.

------
Gratsby
I'm getting attacked here at home. Tell me one of you has a mosquito
destroying IOT startup going on. Something that maybe counts the kills and
pushes stats to the cloud?

------
cmurf
"This is genocide: the deliberate and systematic destruction of all life on
Arrakis!"

Yeah ok, just mosquitoes, but it made me think of the angry emperor.

------
ElijahLynn
Just wanted to say this is a fucking stupid idea.

------
mavdi
It's an amusing article, almost sounded like we are not the most destructive
species to most other species on the planet.

------
viach
"The End of the Whole Mess" by Stephen King is a good read illustrating the
problem with this approach.

------
pastyboy
Maybe all the pesticides used to control mosquitos have created the virus in
the first place.

------
known
We need to eliminate/inject mosquitoes with a virus that is not harmful to
humans

------
gsmethells
Perhaps mosquitos are here to manage the human population in the ecosystem.

~~~
vtlynch
Okay. Then lets let some disease carrying mosquitoes into all countries -
including Western Europe and the US. We wouldnt want those ecosystems to be
imbalanced.

~~~
_AllisonMobley
>>lets let some disease carrying mosquitoes into all countries

Why bother when you can count on tourism to do it for you?

[http://www.cdc.gov/zika/geo/united-
states.html](http://www.cdc.gov/zika/geo/united-states.html)

~~~
vtlynch
Looked at your comment history and its clear you are either a xenophobe, or
clueless.

------
quotha
Firstly, the cure should not be worse than the disease.

------
marknutter
I wonder what PETA would have to say about this.

------
losty
Intrexon (NYSE:XON) bought Oxitec last year.

------
Ontheflyflyfly
First: genocide liches

------
rdiddly
Corporate trolling

------
sickbeard
What if mosquitoes are the only thing preventing an alien invasion? Or even
worse, the key to stopping one when it happens.

"Tabarnak! we would have won if we had some damn mosquitoes!"

~~~
OldSchoolJohnny
Tabernac? Never thought I would see a french canadian curse here.

------
sklogic
AFAIR (cannot find sources) they are crucial for the soil formation (at least
for tansfering the nutrients from the swampy areas), there've been some old
Soviet studies.

------
serge2k
> We’re told that scientists must work hard to find a new vaccine, as if that
> would be the best solution to the problem.

Because it's probably easier than just preventing mosquitos.

~~~
Pitarou
The advantage we have with mosquitoes is that they fly about and mingle with
the general population, looking for other mosquitoes to mate with. Isolated
population reservoirs are relatively easy to identify. So if the latest
advances in DNA technology bear fruit, mosquitoes may well turn out to be the
easier target.

Also, I hate mosquitoes and want them all dead.

------
masterponomo
My condo is clear. Next.

------
SubZero
How many bugs and spiders rely on mosquitoes as part of their diet? Out of all
of the ideas in this article, not once was the impact to the biological food
chain discussed. We can kill all of the little annoying things, but how many
beneficial organisms are being supported by them?

~~~
teraflop
You must have stopped reading part way through:

> There’s little evidence, though, that mosquitoes form a crucial link in any
> food chain, or that their niche could not be filled by something else. When
> science journalist Janet Fang spun out this thought experiment for Nature in
> 2010, she concluded that “life would continue as before—or even better.” I
> arrived at the same answer when I looked into the same question for a piece
> published three years later. “There’s no food chain that we know of where
> mosquitoes are an inevitable link in a crucial process,” one mosquito-
> control expert told me.

~~~
clord
There will always be experts (and journalists) who _can 't_ think of the
impact of some change. But I believe tropic cascades are a real thing in food
webs, and we can't really know for sure that something will have no impact
until we do the thing. If there is one thing we're learning right now, it's
that these cascades are real and quite dangerous. Now that this is known, no
one should in good conscience set off a possible cascade without knowing
something about what might happen.

Humans _can_ improve on nature once they understand the impact of an action
well, so I'd get behind a well funded study into what effect getting rid of
mosquitoes would have — one with an experimental basis and not just a
journalist's thought experiments.

------
andrewfromx
watch the will smith movie "I am Legend" where he's the last human alive
because scientists made a bold decision like this, then decide if we should do
a pre-emptive strike. Or will this be the 12 monkeys (wow, 2nd movie
reference) tipping point.

~~~
teraflop
There are plenty of sci-fi stories where scientists meddle with forces beyond
their understanding and get burned. That's not evidence of anything except the
fact that people enjoy those sorts of stories.

See also: [http://dresdencodak.com/2009/09/22/caveman-science-
fiction/](http://dresdencodak.com/2009/09/22/caveman-science-fiction/)

~~~
andrewfromx
great point and cartoon. Am I being like a caveman not wanting to mess with
nature? I guess so.

------
iamleppert
Why don't we kill off some of the humans instead? It's sad when a child dies
of malaria, but anymore I'm wondering just what makes us think we deserve to
be here more than any other animal, insect, etc? Epidemics are tools of nature
to deal with an unbalanced ecology.

People are far more destructive to the environment and have been around for
far less longer than the mosquito, which has been here since the beginning.

At least something like a mosquito is honest about its intentions. It wants to
have a handy blood meal from you. A human, on the other hand, will engage in
varying forms of deceit, deception and then probably fuck your mother behind
your back, before they sucks you dry.

Which one would you rather have around? Something to think on next time your
get bit by one.

------
bbarn
Serious question: In areas where Malaria is killing many people, access to
health care is a big part of why, right? So I'm assuming if you just removed
the mosquitos, those people that died would be alive, and putting greater
strain on already famine-like food economies. Wouldn't that be equally as bad?

~~~
roywiggins
All the people chronically sickened by malaria (but not killed) could be more
productive. Probably the strain from chronic malaria is worse for an economy
than any theoretical strain due to feeding a few million more people.

~~~
_AllisonMobley
>>Probably the strain from chronic malaria is worse for an economy than any
theoretical strain due to feeding a few million more people.

How about the strain on the planet's non-renewable resources? One would think
that the million more people would cause said resources to run out sooner than
they otherwise would.

Perhaps we should focus on how to deal with the consequences of eliminating
certain natural human population controls before we go through with it.

