The Wipeout Gene by canttakesky

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The Wipeout Gene

POSTED BY: CANTTAKESKY
UPDATED: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 16:18
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Sunday, November 27, 2011 12:53 PM

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-wipeout-gene

Letting loose transgenic mosquitoes into the wild....

I don't know how I feel about this. Very ambivalent.

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Sunday, November 27, 2011 4:21 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

I'm also ambivalent.

As a general rule, I find very little good in disease-spreading parasites like mosquitoes (malaria, dengue, West Nile virus and other encephalitis-causing viruses), ticks (Rocky Mountain spotted fever, babesiosis), flies (river blindness, sleeping sickness), and fleas (bubonic plague, Hantavirus and related hemorrhagic viruses). And mosquitoes and other blood-sucking parasites cause considerable deaths in birds and animals from sheer blood loss, especially as they extend their range northward into new types of populations, due to warmer temperatures.

However, there may be vital populations of other animals or insects that live off of these parasites. They may have vital ecological functions were not aware of.

OTOH, considering we're on the verge of a human-caused mass extinction, maybe there isn't too much to worry about over the elimination of a disease-spreading parasite.

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Monday, November 28, 2011 2:10 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

As much as I hate mosquitos et al, as Kiki said, they may have some vital function that we just haven't figured out yet, so I'm not sure how I feel about this.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Tuesday, November 29, 2011 4:08 PM

DREAMTROVE

Does anyone here believe in evolution?

Seriously, not to nitpick, but how on Earth does anyone seriously expect that a human engineering project is going to put a stop to the process of natural selection, let alone bring down one of the most successful species on the planet. The planet is host to roughly a trillion mosquitoes, each with a life expectancy of roughly a month. Each couple will have 200 offspring, and as the species sits at carrying capacity, only 1% of those children can survive to reproduce, those being the most fit 1%.

Occupying nearly every piece of land on Earth, if not every, there are one trillion eggs at any point on any acre of land, waiting for their chance. One trillion to the power of a hundred to the power of 12, that's the annual evolutionary pressure on the species. This isn't intelligent design, folks, mosquito isn't a model carved in stone at the dawn of time, it's a model created last spring, and every spring, since the dawn of time.

ETA: The flaw in the study is so obvious I have to think that someone is bilking someone for a ton of cash. I've run into this one before, as had my mother when I ran into it in college, which she had run into when she was in college.

Back in the early '90s it was proposed that this line of reasoning be abandoned as ill-conceived and hopeless (as, should the gene render the offspring at either a reproductive or survival disadvantage of just a 4 trillionth of a percent, the strain would be wipes out, and it was hopeless to think it would take over the species.)

The suggestion was that instead we should trying introducing a gene that made mosquitoes immune to malaria. That's a much better idea. Unfortunately, malaria also evolves. Still, it's a better bet.

The simplest solution is to engineer the human race to be immune to the disease. Fortunately, someone is already on that project.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Tuesday, November 29, 2011 4:18 PM

M52NICKERSON

DALEK!

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

Seriously, not to nitpick, but how on Earth does anyone seriously expect that a human engineering project is going to put a stop to the process of natural selection, let alone bring down one of the most successful species on the planet.

Sure, altering or preventing natural selection is not all that hard. Humans have been doing that for a very long time.

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

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