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Comment by TooSmugToFail | Hacker News Reader

Truly a fascinating method. Apparently, the most effective mosquito population control technique.

The counter-point argument offered at the end of the article/video is totally lame. I find it slightly annoying when journos feel compelled to seek contrarian positions just for the sake of form, regardless of the quality of the arguments.

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Yeah. The journalist labels Paul Tambiyah as an infectious disease professor (which he is), but also forgets to mention he is an opposition politician who will literally oppose anything for the sake of opposing.

It's an extra-lame counterpoint because male mosquitos don't bite, and they're only releasing males.

How do they separate the genders?

For small scale production it's a manual process (size differences), for industrial scale it's using ML and blowing air in a certain direction. Basically the mosquitoes are brought under a camera in some form of tube, and depending on the gender they are blown into a certain direction separating male and female.

I don't think this is part of Verily, and afaik Verily was one of the first that starting doing this.

Amazing. Thank you!

It's lame but it's true that during the Verily release of mosquitoes from their carts [1] in HDB estates, they had a lot of people complain how since releasing they saw more mosquitoes and were bitten more often, while the mosquito traps showed a clear decline in population.

[1] https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/nea-alphabet-...

Fwiw, I have had seen more mosquitoes in my room but not really gotten bitten. But they are definitely buzzing around my head at times

For the counter-point to be meaningful, people would have to individually kill a lot of mosquitoes. Made me wonder, what fraction of mosquitoes are killed by humans in a city setting? I'd guess it's very small. 1/1000? Has anyone tried to measure this?

I too am curious, but I think it's way, way more than you're guessing. I imagine humans are the single biggest threat to mosquitoes in a city (and also the single biggest source of sustenance).

Direct kills are probably pretty marginal, but Singapore employs insecticides in prodigious quantities. It's almost eerie how eg hawker centres have no flies and outdoor gardens are almost entirely devoid of insects (whereas if you cross the border to Malaysia, both can be found in abundance).

Huh. Does Singapore not need insect pollinators?

I believe there's very little agriculture in Singapore - almost all food is imported.

Singapore has some limited 'agriculture' (and a big shift to industrialised hydroponics and stuff); but most is outside the city.

It's indeed quite scary how much pesticides are currently used and how a lot of the green patches and parks have little flies, butterflies, and other insects.

> It's indeed quite scary how much pesticides are currently used

I am curious. Do you have a reference for that?

> but Singapore employs insecticides in prodigious quantities.

I am intrigued. Do you have a reference for that?

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