It's going to work great until selective pressure leaves only mosquitoes resistant to the control method. Biological controls like Bt aren't much more durable than chemical pesticides - it's still...
It's going to work great until selective pressure leaves only mosquitoes resistant to the control method. Biological controls like Bt aren't much more durable than chemical pesticides - it's still going to take substantial investments in integrated control. Breeding mosquitoes for inability to carry human diseases may be a better long-term strategy as it's less ecologically disruptive.
That's the theory behind integrated pest management. It works, but it's expensive and tends to burden the environment with a cocktail of persistent toxins that kill off-target species and may harm...
That's the theory behind integrated pest management. It works, but it's expensive and tends to burden the environment with a cocktail of persistent toxins that kill off-target species and may harm humans.
I've been paying attention to this stuff for a number of reasons - public health, living in Florida under threat of the odd yellow fever or Zika outbreak, Michigan with EEE, outdoor activities, gardening, and now beekeeping.
Mosquitoes are always going to be with us. Like every other species with a high reproductive index and fast generation time, there will be resistant survivors against whatever control methods we can devise. Mosquitoes are ridiculously adaptable to physical environments as well - you can't universally drain the half-cup of water they're capable of breeding in. They're environmentally necessary - part of the food web, and important to pollination for various plants.
As irritating as it is to get bitten, we might better adapt ourselves to resist mosquitoes and the diseases they carry. [I'd personally love to know how the lone mosquito in a roomful of people finds and bites me. This is a real thing.] It's not necessarily worth developing a vaccine against rare diseases like EEE, but malaria control otherwise requires millions of kilos of pesticides.
An experimental program led by Google parent Alphabet Inc. to wipe out disease-causing mosquitoes succeeded in nearly eliminating them from three test sites in California’s Central Valley.
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Verily is also running coronavirus triage and testing in parts of California. Bradley White, the lead scientist on the Debug initiative, said mosquito-suppression is even more important during the pandemic, so that outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever don’t further overwhelm hospitals.
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Verily is not the only organization pursuing an end to mosquito-borne disease. Microsoft Corp. co-Founder Bill Gates has pledged more than $1 billion to help wipe out malaria, including controversial efforts to genetically modify mosquitoes. Infecting mosquitoes with Wolbachia, which occurs naturally in some mosquito species, is a popular approach rooted in an old insect control strategy called sterile insect technique.
What Verily’s efforts offer is not just evidence that Wolbachia can help wipe out disease-causing mosquitoes but potential ways to make such efforts work on a massive scale. Last year, Verily released about 14.4 million mosquitoes in Fresno County.
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Verily has expanded its partnerships to include Singapore’s National Environment Agency. Trials there have entered a fourth phase to cover 121 urban residential blocks and about 45,000 residents. Verily is eyeing partnerships in South America and is in talks to launch in the Caribbean.
It's going to work great until selective pressure leaves only mosquitoes resistant to the control method. Biological controls like Bt aren't much more durable than chemical pesticides - it's still going to take substantial investments in integrated control. Breeding mosquitoes for inability to carry human diseases may be a better long-term strategy as it's less ecologically disruptive.
Maybe having multiple control methods and switching between them would help? Like using multiple drugs.
That's the theory behind integrated pest management. It works, but it's expensive and tends to burden the environment with a cocktail of persistent toxins that kill off-target species and may harm humans.
I've been paying attention to this stuff for a number of reasons - public health, living in Florida under threat of the odd yellow fever or Zika outbreak, Michigan with EEE, outdoor activities, gardening, and now beekeeping.
Mosquitoes are always going to be with us. Like every other species with a high reproductive index and fast generation time, there will be resistant survivors against whatever control methods we can devise. Mosquitoes are ridiculously adaptable to physical environments as well - you can't universally drain the half-cup of water they're capable of breeding in. They're environmentally necessary - part of the food web, and important to pollination for various plants.
As irritating as it is to get bitten, we might better adapt ourselves to resist mosquitoes and the diseases they carry. [I'd personally love to know how the lone mosquito in a roomful of people finds and bites me. This is a real thing.] It's not necessarily worth developing a vaccine against rare diseases like EEE, but malaria control otherwise requires millions of kilos of pesticides.
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