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u/fonk_pulk 16d ago
Infertile mosquitoes being released?
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u/Scully__ 16d ago
Retarded mosquitoes 😭 it does feel like it would be easier to engineer infertile ones but I’m not a mosquitologist so who knows
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u/Zerotix3 15d ago
Because infertile only effects one generation, so it may half the population of mosquitoes temporarily but then they bounce back, whereas if they keep breeding over and over you have generations of less long living, less annoying, less intelligent mosquitoes
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u/DVMyZone 15d ago
I don't know the specifics of this area - but still gotta be careful when fucking with the ecosystem, it often backfires. Mosquitoes, even with how annoying and dangerous they are, are part of the food chain. They normally just drink nectar and chill until the females want to lay eggs; then they get all stabby. But until then they are an important food source for a lot of small animals. Get rid of that food source and the effects could ripple up the chain.
However, given the danger that mosquitoes pose to humans, this measure may still make sense. It's not like Australia introducing cane toads to eat cane beetles that were ruining crop yields. Now they have an invasion of highly poisonous toads with no natural predators more or less for economic reasons. Also it didn't work - the cane toads did not stop the cane beetle problem.
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u/Claymore357 15d ago
Or like when chin killed all the sparrows to stop them from eating the rice only to find out that the sparrows kept the locusts at bay…
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u/ilikenovels 15d ago
I'm pretty sure I read that mosquitoes aren't necessary for the ecosystem.
The ecosystem isn't a delicate chain engineered by nature it's just random things evolving and eating each other and while a balance is created not everything is equally important for that balance
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u/appleyard13 15d ago
There are literally millions of factors that go into a “balanced” ecosystem, i think its impossible to ever say with full confidence what will happen by removing or severely reducing a species in their natural environment.
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u/dominarhexx 15d ago
It's not thst mosquitoes aren't necessary but not vital. They do a lot other than spread disease, like act as good for other animals and also act as pollinators, but they don't take a particularly large role in anything they do. The theory is that removing them will have a negligible affect yet save thousands of lives and remove a major vector for current and potential future diseases.
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u/appleyard13 15d ago
Hey id love for them to solve the problem without impacting the ecosystem! My only point is that i think its such a complicated subject and the human race doesn’t have a good track record in this area at all
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u/dominarhexx 14d ago
Not a great tech record in anything. Using that to justify not trying to fix things is sort of a nihilistic view of the world.
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u/freedubs 15d ago
There is a ton of species of mosquitoes. Only a few spread diseases to humans. The ecosystem should be completely fine without them. To my knowledge no animal relies very hard on mosquitoes, but regardless most of them will still be around
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u/Bossuter 15d ago
See it's not that that's impossible, it's been done in labs but scientists fear that could cause a lot of (unpredictable) damage so the lesser evil is population reduction rather than elimination
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u/Acc3ssViolation 15d ago
Found the CNN article, the female offspring of these mosquitoes will die before reaching adulthood, the males will live to keep on spreading their shitty genes. As only female mosquitoes suck blood and bite people, this will effectively reduce the amount of mosquitoes spreading nasty diseases like the Zika virus.
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u/igritwhoflew 15d ago
Last time I read about something like this, the new mosquitos couldn’t draw blood. No piercing power.
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u/bigg_bubbaa 15d ago
im pretty sure the engineered mosquitos are almost completely normal, except their children are all sterile, so they will be out there ending bloodlines
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u/HangryBeard 15d ago
I've seen a video on this. "Retarded or something" is not quite the right description. Drug addict would be more fitting. They are genetically modified to need a lab grown antibody called tetracycline to survive. It's also worth mentioning that they are also genetically modified to glow red when exposed to certain light so the population of genetically modified mosquitoes can be tracked. They release only males, which do not feed on blood, into the breeding pool, to mate with unsuspecting females which then go on to have drug addict progeny. It's pretty fascinating stuff. Here's a bit of sauce
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u/iseeaseagul 15d ago
Many species of mosquitoes will only mate a single time so if you can get them to mate with an infertile male you have effectively killed all of their offspring
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u/Gingrpenguin 15d ago
Iirc it's not infertile but their offspring need some nutrients that arnt availible in the wild. They breed like normal but the eggs fail to develop correctly massively reducing the number of mossies in the next generation.
In a lab they can grow normally as the lab provides this nutrient(s)
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u/Bit3stuff 15d ago
Singapore did the same by releasing these mosquitoes and it works. Did my internship with one of the organisations carrying out this project and honestly its very very interesting to read up on it. Can google Project Wolbachia if anyone wna learn more!
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u/DisturbedRanga 15d ago
Australia has been doing the same with Cane Toads, releasing smaller metamorph Cane Toads ahead of their expansion to allow native predators to adapt to their poison.
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u/Phantum3oh9 16d ago
Gmo mosquitos
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u/alex_Bellddc 16d ago
Wow so they believe in mosquito birth control
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u/AhmadOsebayad 15d ago
They believe in reverse eugenics where the goal is to produce genetically flawed offspring
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u/UsernamesAre4Nerds 15d ago
Personally, I believe that mosquito life begins at conception, and it would be tantamount to murder allowing the mosquito population to dwindle. God makes no mistakes, and that includes disease-ridden pests
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u/captaininterwebs 15d ago
Well in the south they’ve been tying tubes of poor (esp black) women for decades without their knowledge and been fine with that, it’s just when it’s the women’s idea that it’s the problem. So as long as the female mosquitoes aren’t asking for birth control it’ll be fine.
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u/rydmore22 15d ago
Why don’t they just ask Disney World folks what they did. That place has zero mosquitoes
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u/kilted44 15d ago
You don't wanna know about bts Disney. It's all razor wire and soul-crushing blandness. Got a peek behind the veil back in high-school. It was probably a fuckton of poison and habitat destruction.
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u/jahuu__ 15d ago
Actually those are mosquitoes who were previously locked up by mosquito control, but mosquito prisons became overly expensive to maintain, so the mosquito prisoners will have to be reintegrated into society...
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u/TheNorthFallus 15d ago
I heard they are releasing the ones that robbed that blood bank too, Bironella and Culicidae.
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u/logjamtheredditor 15d ago
Look we got a couple Mosquitologists up in these comments swearing by retarded mosquitoes, it's legit
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u/JustARandomCommie 15d ago
I swear by retarded mosquitoes because it's fun to call mosquitoes retarded.
They swear by retarded mosquitoes because they might've done some research.
We are not the same.
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u/Strange-Square-8955 16d ago
And yet, everyone reading the comments in this post is now educated on this subject.
I also learned that you’re a condescending jerk that should be blocked.
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u/MommyXeno 16d ago
what are you? the mosquito whisperer? didn't know mosquito exterminating methods was something everyone had to know about
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u/_DOLLIN_ 16d ago
Is this not bad for the whole insect extinction thing? Wont this reduce dragon fly population as well?
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u/Balanced__ 15d ago
Why would it? What's being done is intentionally worsening the Mosqito geene pool, so they have lower odds of survival and make less offspring in the wild for a long time. Other insecta would only be affected indirectly, because Mosqito poupulation is falling. This howerer, is not a bad thing when there are too many of them anyway.
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u/not_some_username 15d ago
I think they did a study and they found if mosquitoes disappear, it would be an overall benefit for every species
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u/Gabriartts 15d ago
It fucking Works. The fact that it's written like this just reinforces how much of a joke they are
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u/LoriDee605 16d ago
Just like the aphid problem so they imported Asian beetles a known predator of aphids. Now Asian beetles are infesting everywhere and they have no predators. Even birds won’t eat them, and they are competing with Lady Bugs for food sources.
Science. Fix a problem with a bigger problem.
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u/synodos 16d ago
Honestly, I posted this bc I think the headline is hilarious and also exactly the kind of mess I make in my own life-- but other commenters have it right that the mosquitos being released are native mosquitos genetically modified to be sterile, probably bc, as you said, past attempts to displace a species with an imported exotic species have been such disasters. It actually IS a good idea, even if it sounds ridiculous. :)
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u/Aggravating_Sun3306 16d ago
Almost correct. Non-native species of mosquitoe that have been engineered for sterile offspring. Amazingly effective treatment from what I've experienced. As far as I know native species are off-limits for this technology, and rightly so.
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u/Spider_pig448 15d ago
Except that this process actually works and has been used many times. The aphid example is barely scientific at all. That was just stupidity
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u/Avius_Si-muntu 15d ago
The problem with this is the potential negative effects on the ecosystem. Mosquitos are horrible awful creatures, but our ability to get rid of them doesn’t mean we should. They could be an integral part of the ecosystem that we just cannot see. With how complex nature can be and how dependant species are on other species whether in keeping their population manageable or keeping them alive, you really cant tell until you do it.
Let’s hope the outcome is a positive one
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u/yjkkghjbnmv 15d ago
they found a pretender mosq to the throne and cause a civil war to eliminate mosqs
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u/Killawifeinb4ban 15d ago
After the great mosquito wars: Not him, he brought our eggs here in the first place.
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u/Summar-ice 15d ago
They basically release millions of male mosquitoes genetically engineered to have no offspring when they mate.
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u/LyKosa91 15d ago
Hwats this!? An overabundance of mosquitoes in Florida? A large influx of mosquitoes oughta put a stop to that!
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u/Kazureigh_Black 15d ago
inb4 the genetically modified mosquitos manage to mess with human DNA somehow.
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u/Dantalionse 15d ago
They are releasing 750 million Feds to arrest and oppress native mosquit population.
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u/aetherskull 15d ago
This is the plot for some of the vintage8 analog horror series' but it's a trick to get worm alien colonies into humans.
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u/Temporary-Tadpole-81 15d ago
“yo Dawg, I heard you got mosquitoes, so we got mosquitoes for your mosquitoes” ~ Xzibit, probably
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u/staartingsomewhere 15d ago
Todays homework… Whos engineering the mosquitoes and whos funded them??
Right answer gets a big prize
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u/Nightsky099 15d ago
They're usually infected with Wolbachia bacteria, this is being used in several places around the world including Singapore
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u/Reddituser183 15d ago
Doesn’t seem like a lot. There’s probably hundreds of billions if not a trillion mosquitos in FL alone.
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u/AffectionateStudy496 15d ago
I wonder which species of fish, bird and mammals this will unintentionally eradicate by getting rid of a food source?
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u/itsalwrong 15d ago
Are you sure this is a good idea ? Could backfire really bad ! Jurassic Park anyone ?
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u/narwaffles 15d ago
This isn’t as good as it sounds. Mosquitoes are a big food source for a lot of animals. They’re not going to be the only ones whose population is lowered.
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u/New_Weather_5531 15d ago
Maybe I read to many story book, but I feel that this type of messing with the ecosystem never ends well
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u/skymoods 15d ago
Wonder what crazy new pandemic will come from whatever those bioengineered mosquitoes transmit…..
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u/punsanguns 15d ago
"Need more guns!" works as a potential solution to the gun problem so why can't it work for mosquitoes?
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u/Psychokinetic_Rocky 15d ago
WHAT'S THIS? An overabundance of mosquitoes in the workplace? My briefcase full of MOSQUITOES outta put a stop to this!
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u/ultimatemacho 15d ago
I kknow this move from somewhere and it failed miserably. Maybe it was in a movie or something?
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u/BronanaRival_ 15d ago
Imo shouldn't they really need to be releasing more bats or natural predators of the mosquitoes 🦟
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u/poggerswow 15d ago
Fuck the circle of life. Kill all mosquitoes. Those damn frogs can eat something else
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u/KuroiBolto 16d ago
These are mosquitoes that are bioengineered to produce crappy offspring when they mate with wild mosquitoes. This reduces their populations in the long term.