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750M GM mosquitoes to be released in Florida


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OIP.c760mMFt68Mlxx8oTaol5gHaK-?w=193&h=2

Jurassic park experiment?

Try "Judas breed" mosquito style...oh goody 2020 wasnt FUBAR enough now this.

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Since I despise mosquitoes, I support this.

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Mosquitoes are a big part of the food web... it will alter it enough so that mosquitoes and other pests predators will diminish a lot and we will have a lot more problems next year. So they will need to release more and more and more, they will take the state has hostage and always asking for more money.

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This could be the worst episode of Black Mirror ever.

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Before too many people start talking about unintended consequences of messing with genetics this has already been done a few times already.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/magazine-35408835

The article is from 2016 and mentions how the same company already released genetically modified mosquitoes in the Cayman islands, which saw a 96% population reduction, and a location in Brazil, that saw a 92% population reduction.  

Whether this should be done or not is debatable but doing it has proven to be safe.

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Yeah, mosquitos are out of control here, decades back they released mosquito fish to help but they came right back,

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  • 4 weeks later...

There are some potential billion of implications. Dragonflies survival is based on mosquitos, birds are eating dragonflies. Mosquitos larvae in the water are feeding infant fish. Its all a natural chain we can break with massive implications. Mosquitos were always there for a reason.

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On 6/19/2020 at 3:27 AM, the13bats said:

OIP.c760mMFt68Mlxx8oTaol5gHaK-?w=193&h=2

Jurassic park experiment?

Try "Judas breed" mosquito style...oh goody 2020 wasnt FUBAR enough now this.

I immediately thought of this.

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9 hours ago, qxcontinuum said:

There are some potential billion of implications. Dragonflies survival is based on mosquitos, birds are eating dragonflies. Mosquitos larvae in the water are feeding infant fish. Its all a natural chain we can break with massive implications. Mosquitos were always there for a reason.

Good point.   

I still swat any I see though.   

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Reducing the mosquito population shouldn’t negatively affect the bird population, and could actually reduce bird mortality caused by West Nile Virus. The birds will relocate to another area, the mosquito population will eventually rebound due to the reduced bird population, and then the birds will return. It’s a temporary fix, but if it works, and WNV is temporarily eradicated, then it’ll be worth the effort.

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On 7/13/2020 at 1:11 AM, qxcontinuum said:

There are some potential billion of implications. Dragonflies survival is based on mosquitos, birds are eating dragonflies. Mosquitos larvae in the water are feeding infant fish. Its all a natural chain we can break with massive implications. Mosquitos were always there for a reason.

yep, nature is a complicated things, might get rid of mosquitos in a small area, but on a state scale, bad idea,  we actually did plant plants that attract dragonflies around our summer house,  it worked somewhat, we did see a bit more dragonflies,  a bit less mosquitos,  but no night and day difference, still got bitten,  

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  • 1 month later...

Genetically altering one of the worst pests in history... What could go wrong?

Just what we needed "Super skeeters"

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Just like how radiation doesn't make Fallout style super mutants and ghouls, genetic manipulation like this doesn't make super mosquitoes. There's nothing to panic over. This will either help, or have no measurable effect. People really need to stop getting their science from sci-fi. It's almost as bad as anti-GMO food people and anti-vaxxers...

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For anyone actually interested in the mechanism of how this is supposed to work, here is a quote from Oxitec.

Quote

Male mosquitoes don’t bite; they feed on flower nectar. Basically, male mosquitoes are harmless to humans. But female mosquitoes use blood to grow their eggs.

Oxitec created a male mosquito with a special gene that prevents female offspring from surviving to adulthood. The new males grow up, mate with more females and over time the number of Aedes Aegypti declines.

“Continual, large-scale releases of these OX5034 GM males should eventually cause the temporary collapse of a wild population,”

 

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