
Google Has a Plan to Eliminate Mosquitoes - hourislate
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-28/how-to-kill-mosquitoes-google-and-verily-have-a-plan
======
FiatLuxDave
Floridian here. For all those people who are concerned about the environmental
impact of eliminating these species, I suggest you take a closer look at how
mosquitoes are currently controlled. Maybe they don't have mosquito control
where you live? When the mosquito-spray truck comes by, it doesn't just kill
mosquitoes. It kills all kinds of flying insects. That includes thousands of
species which cause no harm to humans, but also provide pollination and food
for birds, frogs, etc. Before you object to this plan, please realize that
this plan is replacing a sledgehammer with a scapel. All the things you are
worried about happening are already happening right now, but effecting many
more species! If that's the status quo you want, by all means keep objecting,
or come up with a better plan.

I should also note that samples of the eradicated species will be kept, so if
it does turn out that it is a mistake, they can be re-introduced.

~~~
corodra
Hold up, another Floridian, these are only used when the mosquito populations
sky rocket out of control. These are last resort measures when water control
tactics failed. Typically after massive flooding occurred in an area.

This was the go to solution in the 90s. Yes. Totally. At least in both
Hillsborough and Pasco county that I can personally attest to. But that
changed in the 2000s when the casualties of it were apparent. Now, it's only
when too many phone in and complain about mosquito bites and mosquito traps
show populations are too high in an area.

Unless you're in a really backwater county...cough...Dixie county...cough...
Then yea, I think some commissioners don't care and do what they want. But it
does go against state guidelines to just truck-spray all the time. But I think
part of the guidelines also state when a mosquito trap finds one infected
mosquito, it's free game to go nuts with the trucks. If I also remember right,
only a certain amount of truck sprays are covered by the state per year (the
chemicals, lic and maintenance is expensive). After the county does a certain
amount, they have to pay out of pocket. You might want to FOIA the department
that handles mosquito control in your county.

~~~
afarrell
> when water control tactics failed

Are mosquitos the only insects that breed in standing water? If not, then
wouldn't water-control tactics also cause a decrease in the populations of
beneficial insects?

~~~
corodra
Yes and no. That's actually part of what's researched before they do a
treatment. From what I know, it takes about a week from deciding to "treat" a
body of water to actually treating it, at the fastest. They collect a bunch of
samples of the body of water, find out what's considered norm from past
samples, what's going on now and find a method of approach and the weakest
concentration needed.

Frogs and some fish feed mostly on the larva stage of their lives
(egg>larva>pupa>adult). The hormone treatment they use, can't remember it for
the life of me, affects their pupa to adult life cycle. Something about
screwing up the deterioration of the "shell" before they turn into adults. It
stays hard and they are essentially buried alive since the hormone responsible
to degrade the shell, so they can emerge, doesn't function properly. But that
hormone, in the past 20 years, has not shown to affect fish, frogs or mammals,
even down the food chain. There's technically 2 hormones, if I remember right.
It was 2 years ago when I was hired to do a research project on prediction of
mosquito migration and outbreak spread. My memory is not 100% on this. But one
hormone is better to attack than the other because it doesn't affect anything
other than mosquitoes. Obviously, "so far known". But it's also been a few
decades since testing this at a pretty good scale. Only problem with this
method, you only have a few day window of applying this in their life cycle.
That's why consistent testing is done and it's used proactively, rather than
reactively.

But some of the other tactics, is to speed up and help the flooding/draining
process that happens naturally. There are waterworks programs that route water
and keep it moving enough to deter mosquitoes, but not affect other wildlife
(fish, frogs, other insects, fauna, etc). Those are technically the most
effective, economical, and least likely to cause wide scale harm if a problem
occurs. Plus, there's specific planting of native plants that suck up water
fast. Then there's educating the public to not be retarded about standing
water. Plus a few other minor methods. Mosquito control is not a one vector
approach. The idea of "one action to rid them all" was shit canned long ago.
Literally. The guide for mosquito control, that county commissioners and other
gov officials here have to read, specifically mention that there is no single
approach to mosquito control and no one should ever think there is one. It's
been multi-faceted for many decades. At least in Florida. Other states,
apparently, have not adopted that approach.

Edit: Shit, failed to explain my yes/no response. By yes, other animals can
potentially be affected. But there is a conscious effort to use minimal
concentrations of chemicals needed. Also, they don't intend to eradicate all
mosquitoes. If the population of larva and pupa found in a body is deemed
normal or below normal. No treatment is done. That way there's enough
pollinators and food for the local wildlife. Also, if there isn't an outbreak
too. When there's cause of concern for some disease that's actively being
found, it's open season for mosquitoes until the outbreak is considered over.
It's a really rough balancing act. It succeeds often, but you only hear about
the few times it fails. Out of all the research, reports and interviews I've
done with folks, it's a conscious balancing act and continual learning process
with those in the field. But to be fair too, I only talked to professors who
are active in research, CDC and officials in counties that matter. I honestly
don't know what it's like in the hillbilly Florida counties. They probably
still think bathing makes you sick.

------
losvedir
Sigh, I knew before clicking that the comments would all be low effort "ho ho
- but unintended consequences!" snark. Yes, everyone knows about that risk.

At least two points are important: they're not eliminating _all_ mosquitoes,
just _aedes aegypti_ , which are the disease carrying ones, and there's a
_huge_ opportunity cost in not doing something here. There's always the risk
of unintended consequences, but you really have to have extremely severe ones
in order to offset the known cost of this species of mosquitoes.

I'm actually very interested in hearing concrete ideas of what the unintended
consequences could be _and their cost_ , from actual experts.

~~~
bun_at_work
> but I know that I'll be unlikely to get that from HN

This is super unfortunate, because it's why I came to HN in the first place.
But unfortunately the site is becoming more twitter and less serious
discussion.

~~~
ben_jones
Just because people aren't discussing this the way you want them to doesn't
make it Twitter.

~~~
dymk
No, the constant spreading of FUD around the hivemind-identified “bad”
companies, semi-intentional misunderstanding of how they operate, and general
pessimistic vibe make it Twitter.

------
jaysonelliot
This story sits side-by-side with the recent reporting by the NY Times that
we're facing potential biosphere-level effects from an unprecedented die-off
of insect life.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-
apocalyps...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-
apocalypse.html)

~~~
sxates
That struck me as well. However I have to wonder how many insects in the
'Armageddon' are just caught in the crossfire in our battle with a handful of
harmful species like these mosquitos. For example, you can buy yard spray to
eliminate mosquitos in your yard for a day or so, which people use all the
time, but which also kill all the other insects in your yard.

So if we could target single species like this, maybe it would actually be
beneficial for all the other species that are collateral damage in our current
wars.

------
cultus
I've been hearing about this. What are the chances of resistance developing?
In Australia, the introduction of myxomatosis almost wiped out rabbits, but
sure enough they developed resistance and now it's just an endemic disease on
par with smallpox.

If the mosquitoes are all raised in a lab environment, and they are not
descended from mosquitoes from areas that have been subject to this control, I
feel like the risk would be significantly mitigated.

------
rurban
Nonsense. These plans do exist for decades, and there already have been wide
and successful field trials in Australia and Brazil.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3128286/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3128286/)
(2011 - Australia)

What Google is doing now is to try the same scheme in California, on a much
smaller scale, but with the hopeful option to go wide. The target is South-
East Asia and Africa.

------
oflannabhra
While Google (and Verily) are getting a lot of the credit here, the underlying
technology was developed by entomological researchers at the University of
Kentucky [0] and the resulting company, MosquitoMate [1] partnered with Verily
[2] to automate and scale the breeding of the sterilized male mosquitoes.

[0] - [https://uknow.uky.edu/research/uk-research-spinoff-
company-m...](https://uknow.uky.edu/research/uk-research-spinoff-company-
mosquitomate-expands-lexington-operations)

[1] - [https://mosquitomate.com/about-us/](https://mosquitomate.com/about-us/)

[2] - [https://blog.verily.com/2017/07/debug-fresno-our-first-us-
fi...](https://blog.verily.com/2017/07/debug-fresno-our-first-us-field-
study.html)

------
kingston
As far as ecosystem impact goes, it seems Verily's approach can be easily
controlled as they releasing roughly the same number of mosquitoes as they are
eliminating from the fertile population. This contrasts with the gene drive
approach, which has recently been shown to be successful at eliminating
populations albeit in an experimental setting [1]. Given their theoretical
ability to spread throughout an entire ecosystem within only a few
generations, it seems like that is a potential panacea though with a much
higher risk of unintended consequences.

[1] [https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/study--gene-
drive...](https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/study--gene-drive-wipes-
out-lab-mosquitoes-64849)

------
cmroanirgo
Is it only me that did a double take: "Google" (Technically, it's Alphabet
Inc)?

What is a tech company doing in the field of pest control? Are not the big
pharmas, the big chemical companies a better fit?

The article states how Verily Life Sciences is a 'unit of Alphabet' and whose
mission statement is:

"We are builders. We create tools that put health data into action." ~
[https://verily.com/](https://verily.com/)

I did not realise that Alphabet was into _everything_. No wonder they've been
lobbying for military projects...Now I _truly_ understand how distanced they
are from their old Google roots.

------
pgnas
The law of unintended consequences will prevail as it does with most attmempts
of man intervening in complex eco systems. This will more than likely not be
serendipitous, but more of a drawback.

We have caused famines messing with little things like this. Just my 2 cents.
I think it is a noble idea, I find it hard to believe that alphabet Inc is in
it for all the reasons they state, but I will have to take them at face value.

There are other ways, the reason you don't see them is because they more than
likely require too much work, too much change or don't turn a profit.

------
sambull
Stupid idea with massive impact, now that it's pretty obvious in they they are
a utilized food for many organisms [0].

[0] [https://www.newscientist.com/article/2180055-mosquitoes-
are-...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2180055-mosquitoes-are-eating-
plastic-and-spreading-it-to-new-food-chains/)

~~~
JacobJans
There are many, many species of mosquitoes. Just a few of the species carry
malaria. If you kill those species, they will quickly be replaced by the other
species in the ecosystem. There would be no negative effect on the ecosystem
and countless lives would be saved.

~~~
pwython
Yup. Of the 3,500 species of mosquitoes, only ~200 suck human blood. And
Google is only targeting a couple of species.

~~~
bun_at_work
Google isn't targeting anything, but yes, Verily is targeting ones non-native
to the area.

~~~
pwython
> "On December 7, 2015, Google Life Sciences was renamed Verily."

~~~
bun_at_work
Right, when the whole company was restructured for the explicit purpose of
allowing independent parts of the massive Google to operate independently and
efficiently with respect to their different business models.

~~~
pwython
To be clear, I don't believe any part of Google's ad side has ever influenced
their life sciences division, as it has been led by the same man, Andrew
Conrad, since 2013. That being said, Andrew Conrad still works for Google as a
subsidiary CEO, and I hope he continues to do great things with Verily.

------
lxcid
Well, they already running trial by the government in Singapore…

[https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/nea-
release-m...](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/nea-release-more-
wolbachia-infected-mosquitoes-tampines-yishun-9992592)

------
rdl
Can a company win the Nobel Peace Prize, the Nobel for Economics, and for
Medicine, simultaneously?

------
goda90
We hear about these mosquito eradication plans a lot, but why haven't I seen
much about developing new repellents? Perhaps we could come up with pills that
make our sweat repulsive to them without having to use tons of gross,
poisonous sprays.

~~~
appleiigs
I'm not convinced on your repellant idea, but generally agree with the
approach. Vaccine research (eg. malaria) would be better than messing with the
environment.

~~~
joshuamorton
The Gates foundation alone has granted more than $2 Billion on Malaria
vaccine, control, and protection research.

Vaccines, in general, make a lot more sense for diseases spread by human to
human contact due to herd immunity. Since malaria isn't spread that way,
vaccines in general would be much less effective. And the number of people you
would need to vaccinate is massive (north of one billion), as well as any new
children who are born (infants make up a significant number of Malaria
deaths).

------
vmware505
As I remember, there was not any mosquito in Dublin, Ireland and there is not
any mosquito in Wellington, New Zealand. Move in these cities and you will
have really nice dreams. ;)

~~~
muro
Aren't there sandflies around Wellington (I'm sure they are around Nelson)?
Those buggers are worse than mosquitoes.

------
post_break
Who gives anyone the right to try to wipe out a species? Generally speaking of
course. I mean even something as annoying as mosquitoes, ticks, lice, fleas,
bed bugs. I just can't fathom the idea of someone coming along, deciding for
the whole world, that they need to do something like this, and the whole world
can just accept it. As much as I hate mosquitoes, the diseases, etc, I can't
make that call for the rest of the world to try to kill them all, or even a
large portion of them.

~~~
saiya-jin
Well, those few hundred thousands dead every effin' year give a lot of right
for this. You are writing this on your computer, so you are among the
privileged ones of this world and most probably not in any direct threat by
malaria. You for sure have access to proper medicine in case you would get
infected. The people worst hit by malaria don't have any of this luxury. You
don't have to vouch for them, thats OK, I will do that for you, and so will
others.

And of course, as many have mentioned here - this is not about wiping out
every single species of mosquitoes on the planet. Just those few that transfer
malaria, just in places they invaded recently. It is a good move.

------
blue4
This plan seems like a rebrand of Rachel Carson's, Silent Spring.

------
alsadi
Start feeling sad for the birds that eat them.

~~~
robbrown451
Which ones? Are there any birds that have mosquitos as a major part of their
diet? (and how does this compared to hundreds of thousands of human deaths
caused by malaria?)

------
lawrenceyan
Technology is a force multiplier.

------
sigi45
We killed so much already, pls let us kill Mosquitoes on purpose.

Not that i hate them but they like me way more than lots of other people :|

Am i selfish about this? Fuck yeah! I hate them.

~~~
stronglikedan
Wasps and hornets too, please, while we're at it.

------
bun_at_work
Before people go too far with not actually reading the article, here are the
main points to actually understand:

1\. This is Verily, not Google, owned by Alphabet.

2\. They are releasing male mosquitoes (that don't bite) in the area, where
the species is not native. They are attempting to remove the species only from
their unnatural habitat.

3\. The headline is clickbait, as Google is not involved and no one is trying
to eliminate mosquitoes "around the world."

In all cases I've seen of countering mosquitoes in any way, all researchers
are aware of risks and take them very seriously. The goals tend to be similar
to this one or have to do with eliminating the spread of malaria and other
mosquito-transmitted disease.

~~~
tjpnz
How is this new from solutions that others have already proposed? And what
business does an ad company have in getting into this?

~~~
owlmirror
Alphabet is not only Google Anymore, it's a conglomarate with a portfolio of a
very diverse range of industries.

~~~
giobox
Alphabet never was “only Google” even on day 1. Google was long a conglomerate
containing Google and “Other Bets”, other companies such as Nest etc before
the alphabet shuffle.

Google was more or less just as much a holding company for a diverse range of
other companies such as this Verily then as Alphabet is now, which is why the
distinction between the two is considered so artificial by many here, an idea
further compounded by the fact Google stock was converted to Alphabet stock
and still uses Google’s ticker symbols.

------
kazinator
How about a modest goal first: eliminate the vast amounts of crap from the
search engine results.

~~~
dang
This isn't helping. Could you please follow the site guidelines instead of
blatantly breaking them?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
_red
I'm 100% sure that such worldwide environmental changes will have no negative
effects. There is no hubris involved here, future humans will look back with
nothing but thanks.

Thank you search engine company! Silicon Valley / PHP engineers really will
save the world!

~~~
b_b
Instead of the sarcasm, please elaborate on the harmful effects of complete
mosquito removal (those that carry diseases) from the ecosystem. These bugs
cause an immense number of death and suffering every year, and eliminating
them seems a good solution in that it removes the carrier of the diseases,
eliminating the disease without having to worry about finding cures and
expanding health care access in a lot of the impoverished places where these
diseases strike the hardest.

~~~
ris
It would have disastrous consequences for the food chain - the bird population
in particular being hit hard.

~~~
privateSFacct
These mosquitoes are non-native in the areas they are being removed. Can you
walk us through the "disastrous" consequences of removing them. Why is
introducing non-native wildlife OK, but removing nonnative species not OK?

~~~
ris
"Non-native" is a much fuzzier term than it seems. There wasn't _really_ any
absolute blessed state of perfection that populations were in before humans
started having an impact on the world, you know.

------
chicob
The fact that no one can remember a reason for why mosquitoes should not be
exterminated is not a reason in favor of total extermination.

The Four Pests Campaign is thought to have contributed significantly for the
death of around 30 million people in China.

And fish eat mosquito larvae. So there's that. Anyone observing larvae in a
pond's surface will notice that they will shake and dive whenever a change in
lighting occurs. That tells me that they probably have non-aquatic predators.
I'm gessing dragonflies, although I suspect these insects only prey on adult
mosquitos.

I'm not sure of this. And that is exactly the point, because Google must be
completely sure of what is doing.

