Brazil releases 'good' mosquitoes to fight dengue fever | Hacker News Reader

Brazil releases 'good' mosquitoes to fight dengue fever

bbc.com

46 pointsfbueno15 comments

My first reaction was, "Gee, what could possibly go wrong?". Eep. But apparently there is some good science behind this?

I thought it was going to be a breed of mosquito that couldn't/wouldn't bite humans. doh...

Female mosquitoes must feed on blood to be able to reproduce so engineering a bite-free mosquito is impossible.

But you could in theory have a mosquito that is repelled by humans, and only feeds on birds.

That trait is going to end up being selected against very quickly. Humans are much more plentiful.

More plentiful than what? There are an estimated 200-400 billion birds in the world, with 10-20 billion in (for example) the US alone. Or did you mean something else?

How many birds: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/03/how-many-birds

I'm talking about cities. The dengue fever mosquito is an urban plague.

You don't need to create such thing. First because is a bad idea. You are diverting more energy from birds to insects. You will end with less birds (new diseases, blood parasites, etc in the equation) and... ¿more mosquito than before?.

The fact is that there are a lot of extant mosquito species that do exactly that and they are here since millions of years. They did not have displaced the other mosquitoes and they didn't fix the problem with malaria.

There is a very good RadioLab episode on these 'good' mosquitos: http://www.radiolab.org/story/kill-em-all/

>The researchers allowed the mosquitoes to feed on their own arms for five years because of concerns at the time Wolbachia could infect humans and domestic animals.

i could only applaud. Seriously. I'm against animal testing, and i think human species should carry the burden of what it does for its own benefit and as result it would be forced to do it responsibly.

> The bacterium Wolbachia is found in 60% of insects. It acts like a vaccine for the mosquito which carries dengue, Aedes aegypti, stopping the dengue virus multiplying in its body.

> Wolbachia also has an effect on reproduction. If a contaminated male fertilises the eggs of a female without the bacteria, these eggs do not turn into larvae.

Wait, so 60% of male mosquitos are effectively sterile?

It says that if a contaminated male fertilizes the eggs of a female without the bacteria, these eggs do not turn into larvae.

That implies that eggs of a female with the bacteria fertilized by a male that also has the bacteria can develop normally. So, assuming the 60% infection rate applies to male and female mosquitos, 60% of males cannot fertilize the eggs of 40% of females due to the bacteria, or about 25% of male/female combinations are incompatible due to this effect.

I'd like to see a recall.

"Oops, something went awfully wrong"

The Mosquitoes become self aware at 2:14am Eastern Time, August 29th. In a panic they try to pull the plug. The mosquitoes fight back.

Didn't we already try an experiment like this with bees a few years back?

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