Not to take away too much focus from this issue, but we gotta start talking about ticks in the same vein.
Re:Malaria 'Completely Stopped' by Microbe
by KerryJones on Monday May 04, 2020 @12:44PM
(#23070243)
Seriously -- I didn't realize how bad it could get until I got to Vienna and a local told me that residents of the city are required to be inoculated against ticks because they can make you brain dead, epilepsy, etc, and I didn't believe it... but it's real
https://www.iamat.org/country/austria/risk/tick-borne-enceph...
Re:Malaria 'Completely Stopped' by Microbe
by mikeappell on Monday May 04, 2020 @12:49PM
(#23070329)
No clue how important they are in the ecosystem, but from the perspective of insects which piss me off, I'm on board 100%.
I read somewhere that they are not important and that is good enough source for me. It could have been written on a post-it for me to support an eradication campaign.
I hate ticks.
There is a joke that ticks and lice were crucial for human evolution, since removing them from each other helped to make monkeys spend time together:)
There is a hope that gene-drive targeting doublesex gene can be effective in eliminating mosquitos (and likely other insect species if we want) https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.4245.
There have been many articles about this on HN last year, but there was also a depressingly large number of people commenting how precious mosquitos are, and that the maximum measure we are allowed to consider is modifying mosquitoes to not transmit malaria, and that even thinking of eliminating "the whole species" is a sin.
For anybody, who thinks "mosquito laser system" was only a made up phantasy - no, it was a real attempt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser
Re:Malaria 'Completely Stopped' by Microbe
by andrewflnr on Monday May 04, 2020 @06:21PM
(#23074059)
Aren't there lots of mosquitoes that don't transmit deadly diseases, or don't bite humans at all? They're not going to go away as a category even if we did eradicate anopheles et al. I mean, do the research to find out if they're some plant's sole pollinators, but otherwise I can't see anything to lose.
They're also extremely important pollinators -- their role in the ecosystem isn't just bat food.
https://www.earthtouchnews.com/natural-world/how-it-works/th...
Re:Malaria 'Completely Stopped' by Microbe
by empthought on Monday May 04, 2020 @10:01PM
(#23075581)
This article is hot garbage. The specific mosquito (Anopheles) that transmits malaria plays no special role in any ecosystem that can’t be filled by another species. They have been doing this research for years now, and yet this author didn’t cite any of it.
Honestly, fuck mosquitoes. If the mosquito laser system were ever actually viable/purchasable, I'd happily drop thousands of dollars to keep those bastards out of my bedroom at night.