Mosquitoes engineered to pass down genes that would wipe out their species

Discussion in 'Science' started by Herkdriver, Dec 12, 2015.

  1. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    Source: http://www.nature.com/news/mosquito...their-species-1.18974?WT.mc_id=FBK_NatureNews

    Interesting, this is only one species of mosquito but if science has the means to eradicate all species of mosquito ...essentially steering them into extinction via sterilization...I see no down side.

    After mosquitoes, we go after cockroaches and rodents (rats). Mankind has suffered immensely from these species...if we can wipe them off of the face of the Earth without the use of poisons and toxins like DDT: I see no reason not to
     
  2. 10A

    10A Chief Deplorable Past Donor

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    A lot of animals eat mosquitoes, so what is the impact if they are exterminated? Same with the other species you mention.
     
  3. DarkDaimon

    DarkDaimon Well-Known Member

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    There goes the bats, dragonflies, spiders, frogs, and birds that eat mosquitoes and whatever eats them and whatever eats those.
     
  4. LiveUninhibited

    LiveUninhibited Well-Known Member

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    I don't quite understand how this would work. They'd interbreed with the wild population and have infertile offspring.. okay... so then the surviving mosquitoes will be the offspring of those that did not breed with the mutant variety... and then soon the mutant variety dies out but not the wildtype... what am I missing here?

    I suppose it would temporarily reduce numbers as long as you regularly release new mutants, which would be good enough.
     
  5. MrNick

    MrNick Banned

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    I saw a documentary in which the premise was that lime disease was claimed to be a an engineered biological weapon spread by infected tics...
     
  6. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    Eradicating any organism would have serious consequences for ecosystems — wouldn't it? Not when it comes to mosquitoes,

    Source:http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html

    That sentiment is widely shared. Malaria infects some 247 million people worldwide each year, and kills nearly one million. Mosquitoes cause a huge further medical and financial burden by spreading yellow fever, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis, Rift Valley fever, Chikungunya virus and West Nile virus. Then there's the pest factor: they form swarms thick enough to asphyxiate caribou in Alaska and now, as their numbers reach a seasonal peak, their proboscises are plunged into human flesh across the Northern Hemisphere.

     
  7. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    99.9% of all species that ever existed...are now extinct.

    Do you think ecosystems would collapse if every mosquito suddenly vanished?

    Did ecosystems collapse when the other 99.9% of species vanished, or did they adapt.

    Genetically engineering a genetic code that spreads sterilization for unwanted lifeforms has no real downside...in the absence of one species, life will simply adapt as it has for 3.8 billion years.

    Mankind is what matters here...securing our species future takes precedent.

    It is not us and them...it is us verses them.

    If science and technology has the means to eradicate species detrimental to human existence, we are obligated to eliminate them.
     
  8. Denizen

    Denizen Well-Known Member

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    There are always unintended and unknown consequences which are only belatedly discovered after the event.
     
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  9. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    Rats?

    The New Zealand government has given the go-ahead for the poisoning of "a plague" of rats and stoats which it says threatens the country's native wildlife.

    Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-28291988

    A controversial bio-degradable poison, called 1080, is to be dropped onto one million hectares (3,861 sq miles) of forest to kill the pests, TV New aland reports. Government figures suggest that without intervention the rat population could increase tenfold this year to 30 million. The rise is attributed to a heavy fall of seed in the country's extensive beech forests.

    As I stated earlier...as our planet warms and mosquito populations expand...as rat populations expand...we will have to deall with the problem sooner or later, as New Zealand is doing with what amounts to poison.

    The future to combat these invasive species run amok is genetic drivers of sterilization. Essentially introducing a dominant gene into a population that spreads sterilization like a cancer...

    No muss, no fuss...after the last of their kind dies of natural causes, it's the death knell of that species, or minimally a drastic reduction.

    Rats, mosquitoes and roaches...is a good start.
     
  10. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    Of all species that have existed on Earth, 99.9 percent are now extinct. Many of them perished in five cataclysmic events. According to a recent poll, seven out of ten biologists think we are currently in the throes of a sixth mass extinction.

    Your computer, well...the infrastructure used to transmit and receive data...the electrical grid...contributes to a warming planet..a warming planet that is causing a cascading effect of destruction for many lifeforms teetering on the brink of vanishing..forever, off the face of the Earth.

    I don't see folks unplugging and getting off the grid....

    So all of you talk a nice game, but deep down...the fact we're headed for a 6th Mass extinction anyway, is of no real concern. If ti was, habits would change and lifestyles are not changing.

    Simply posting an the internet is contributing to a change in a species ecosystem that may in fact lead to it's extinction.

    Seems rather hypocritical to argue introducing genetic drivers aimed at reducing a detrimental species population is bad thing, while simultaneously maintaining an unsustainable consumption based lifestyle that is doing PRECISELY the same thing as we type responses.

    I'm realistic.

    Mankind is first and foremost....if other species go the way of the dodo bird...frankly so be it. Species in direct competition with us that are detrimental to our own existence should be eliminated if technologically possible without harming beneficial species.

    Nevermind malaria, which killed 438,000 this year alone. We need more honeybees...not mosquitoes.

    Fewer mosquitoes means more flower sugars for bees.
     
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  11. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    Anyway, going back to the OP, and addressing the question of how this works..

    https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dna-editing-shows-success-mosquito-sterilization

    “They all work terrifically,” says George Church, a geneticist at Harvard University.

    Cas9 is a DNA-cutting enzyme borrowed from bacteria. Researchers can design RNA molecules to guide the enzyme to particular genes.


    So the technology is upon us.

    It is time to..at minimum...use these scientific tools to eliminate this particular species of mosquito spreading so much disease in sub-saharan Africa...

    The new gene drive would eliminate the mosquitoes themselves by making it impossible for females to reproduce.

    Ignore the know nothing peanut gallery..we have the technology....it is a moral imperative to use it.
     
  12. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    and yes...some mosquitoes will not inherit the gene that causes sterilization in females.

    Introducing the gene drives will not eliminate a species in one fell swoop, it will however reduce populations

    Other articles I've read on this, could possibly be on the order of a gene drive that kills the female mosquitoes...but beforehand leaves them with the ability to spread the gene throughout the population.

    As I say this is new technology...what bothers me are the naysayers...

    "Oh well you can't mess with nature"

    We're "messing" with nature already...we're driving beneficial species out of their habitats and introducing species in areas they were not naturally placed. Whether it's invasive snakes in Florida or invasive carp in Missouri rivers. Here is a technology that does not "poison" the environment. What we need is the fortitude to use it. Perhaps not eliminating a species, but certainly controlling it's population growth.

    [​IMG]

    If some think is about playing "God" and will only have catastrophic consequences...wake up and smell the coffee.

    Our planet is facing a 6th mass extinction. Driven not by genetic modification but by the embrace of an unsustainable consumption based lifestyle and economy...google "Beijing smog." This is what mankind is doing today...indirectly leading many species, both good and bad into extinction.

    We've already intervened in nature, we're already playing "God." Every time you turn the ignition on your car you contribute to another species eventual extinction..so y'all can spare the faux outrage please.
     
  13. 10A

    10A Chief Deplorable Past Donor

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    Sure, sure, but I don't believe such alarmist bull(*)(*)(*)(*). The planet has been warming for quite awhile. I do believe purposefully extinguishing species such as mosquitoes and rats have consequences. Maybe those consequences are acceptable, maybe not. I'll ask again, what is the impact?
     
  14. Steady Pie

    Steady Pie Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    These things almost always have unforeseen consequences. The food chain is delicate and we should interfere with it at our peril.
     
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  15. MrNick

    MrNick Banned

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    I'm not a bug geek but where I'm from male mosquitoes are huge and they don't even bite, not only that but you rarely see them...

    Of course the idea of mosquitoes being an "engineered biological weapon" is lol....

    Mosquitoes spread disease because they don't discriminate who they bite...

    They're just like fleas or ticks, just way more common and mobile because they fly... In short you go to fleas and ticks and mosquitoes come to you...
     
  16. MrNick

    MrNick Banned

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    Rats aren't bad or even disease infected animals - they just get fleas and (*)(*)(*)(*)...

    It's not like a rat from a pet store is diseased - I mean if you really had to you could eat it...

    I had a pet rat growing up (it came from the store and I was 10), and I will tell you this much - rats are better pets than cats... lol... I'm a dog guy tho...
     
  17. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    The Sixth Wave Of Extinction
    Date: August 23, 2004
    Source: Informnauka (Informscience) Agency
    Summary: History of life on the Earth witnessed five mass extinctions of species as a result of natural calamities. Currently, biologists are talking more and more often about the sixth wave of extinction provoked in many respects by human beings.

    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/08/040816001443.htm

    Death reigns on land and at sea. Thus, about 1 percent of tropical rainforests disappears annually. Up to 70 plant and animal species become extinct every day, which makes about 3 species per hour.

    This is 11 years ago.

    Imagine the lifeforms, that have become extinct in that time period.

    Has your life appreciably changed at all?

    All around you, on this planet, species vanish...everyday...yet no one notices...but God forbid technology is used to wipe out one species of mosquito which is responsible for thousands of deaths.

    Yes, the poor bats will starve, what will they do...nevermind there are literally approaching a million species of insects living at the moment. Some are vanishing on their own as I type this...I see no reason to believe the elimination of one species of insect in sub-saharan Africa will impact your life one iota.

    Meanwhile 270,000,000...that's 270 MILLION human beings have contracted Malaria, and millions have died from it; a primarily mosquito borne disease.

    Who cares about them I suppose, as long as you've got your beer and football. We gotta save the bats food supply.
     
  18. MrNick

    MrNick Banned

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    Who cares, species die out...

    Would you be mad at a lion that ate a panda?

    No, you would call that nature...

    If it even matters using the AGW logic cutting down trees is good because they exhale a "lethal gas" according to the climate guru Al Gore...
     
  19. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    The thread is about genetically engineering an extinctioin..aimed at a species of mosquito that carries malaria.
    Do you what know malaria does?

    The largest killer of children. Malaria kills one child every 30 seconds, about
    3000 children every day. Over one million people die from malaria each year,

    Americans, some anyway...are completely clueless as to how much of the World lives. Basically in abject poverty with limited access to potable water let alone healthcare.

    The elimination of malaria would have a significant impact in these developing countries, which the average American knows nothing about as malaria is not an infectious disease we're exposed to in such vast numbers as other areas of the World. If it was killng American children on the level it is in Africa. there would be a public outcry to do something about.it.

    We would see a vast attempt to poison them out of existence...now we have genetic engineering, a new technoglogy. that may be able to selectively and surgically wipe out a species of pest, or at least curb their population.

    That's what the thread is about. Peripherally, the planet loses 70 species a day...anway...on it's own, in part due to human activity. If folks want to deny that, be my guest.

    The loss of one species of mosquito will impact the ecosystem no different than what we're already losing in species everyday. Life will adapt and fill the niche left by the extinction of a species as it has for 3.8 billion years.

    We have a chance to spare human suffering by eradicating the pest which spreads malaria, it would be immoral not to utilize it.
     
  20. MrNick

    MrNick Banned

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    Dude seriously? perhaps I should have also included we don't die of diseases like Malaria because we have clean water (which is the biggest reason) and anti-viral medication...

    Most people get Malaria from drinking bad water than anything else...
     
  21. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/

    Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite. People with malaria often experience fever, chills, and flu-like illness. Left untreated, they may develop severe complications and die. In 2013 an estimated 198 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide and 500,000 people died, mostly children in the African Region. About 1,500 cases of malaria are diagnosed in the United States each year. The vast majority of cases in the United States are in travelers and immigrants returning from countries where malaria transmission occurs, many from sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia

    Water? No it's from being bitten by a carrier, a female mosquito who transmits the parasite it carries into the human being it has bitten.

    The mosquito itself is not the culprit, it's the parasite it carries, and not all mosquito species carry malaria. It is possible to genetically alter the mosquito DNA of this specific species to render the females sterile.

    The female Anopheles mosquito is the only mosquito that transmits malaria.

    A selective extinction, or at least a reduction in the population of this species has no downside...perhaps a collateral effect as a food supply to other species..but another species can fill that niche quickly enough.

    No DDTs or toxins ever enter the environment and harm other species like birds or bats that may eat the mosquito.

    As I say, Americans seem to mainly care about what effects Americans. Folks didn't care much about ebola until a few of those with the disease actually entered our country. Malaria is regarded as a "foreign" disease here, but globally it is devastating to human populations, particularly children.
     
  22. MrNick

    MrNick Banned

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    Where do you think mosquitoes breed and what do you think people drink?
     
  23. Moi621

    Moi621 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Will Mosquito fish become an endangered species?
     
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  24. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    They aren't talking about eliminating all mosquitos, but only the malaria mosquito. Not sure about Africa, but in the State of Florida, we have 80 mosquito species.
     
  25. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    This is very dangerous because altering species can have enormous unexpected consequences. The result could be an evolution to a super mosquito that is immune to pesticides, particular aggressive etc. Mosquitos don't just kill humans, but many other species. What other species will rise because mosquitos vanish and with this then their natural predator?

    Whether it be introducing species to combat other species to other attempts to manipulate nature have almost always had disastrous.consequences. I say NO! No genetic manipulations to try to eradicate a species.
     

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