YHK - yet another hacker news clone

The technology to eradicate mosquito-borne disease exists

163 points benbreen 1 day ago 125 comments

justmaris 23 hours ago | parent

I guess we have the capability to change a lot (from the technology we posess), but what would be the consequences of such impact on the rest of the ecosystem?

bpodgursky 3 hours ago | parent

Basically 0, there are only a few species of mosquito that carry disease. Other species fulfill all other ecological roles without spreading horrible diseases.

giancarlostoro 3 hours ago | parent

Famous last words... (Edit typo:) Till we find out when its too late that they had a genuine purpose in a very specific ecosystem after we've eradicated them?

Growing up my sister got dengue, so I hate mosquitoes, she was fine, I know dengue was no joke, but I always worry we make too many assumptions as humans, only to be proven wrong by nature somehow.

bryanlarsen 3 hours ago | parent

In that case, it would be a very niche/small ecosystem if we're don't know about it. OTOH, the benefits of eliminating malaria and dengue are massive to ecosystems we do know about.

giancarlostoro 2 hours ago | parent

My fear is, what comes out of the woodworks once mosquitoes are gone? Because nature finds a way... Will it be drastically worse? Will we wish we never messed with mosquitoes afterwards?

bryanlarsen 2 hours ago | parent

The mosquitoes won't be gone. Just the disease carrying ones.

Joker_vD 2 hours ago | parent

> My fear is, what comes out of the woodworks once mosquitoes are gone?

Well, what would come out of the outback once the rabbits are gone? Since we know the state of Australian wildlife before the rabbits, the answer is "nothing".

VLM 2 hours ago | parent

All ecosystems are local, and local eradication has been a thing since the first shovel was invented, and nothing too bad has happened.

If there's an abandoned lot and you eradicate the mosquitoes by removing the water filled abandoned car tires, the existing ecosystem does pretty well. In a similar way you can willfully decide to make a livestock pond either a mosquito factory or mosquito free and mosquito free has not resulted in any problems.

Local eradication programs have successfully worked for centuries, at least. What makes this story interesting is its very wide ranging and likely very expensive.

estearum 1 hour ago | parent

> we've been doing local eradication for a long time without much visible downside

(aside: There are lots of visible downsides to lots of local eradications of lots of things)

> this effort is interesting because it's much less local

So in other words it's very different from all the success cases you're alluding to?

Wowfunhappy 2 hours ago | parent

How do you feel about getting rid of screwworm?

someonebaggy 1 hour ago | parent

It's already happened. The concern is always about changes from the present state, no matter what the present state is. Once screwworms have already been eradicated from North America, there is concern about the impact of bringing them back.

thaumaturgy 2 hours ago | parent

Do you have the same level of concern for all other recently-extinct species, widespread habitat loss, and overall large decline in insect biomass?

Or do you reserve most of your concern for just the few species of human disease-carrying mosquito?

Kind of a genuine question, because I've observed over the years people popping in to this topic to exclaim deep concern for the potential ecological impacts of intentionally extincting a couple of species -- that most biologists reportedly agree aren't keystone species. Meanwhile, species loss continues to occur globally for a variety of reasons and yet it's still really difficult to get the average person to care very much about that.

The psychology here is peculiar and I don't understand it.

giancarlostoro 2 hours ago | parent

I don't want any species to go extinct if I can help it, but I also understand that sometimes nature finds a way in some cases.

I'm not versed in everything with all these species, but I believe everything has a purpose, look if someone goes all out into mosquitoes and proves they had absolutely no purpose, I'll concede, I just think its worth studying these types of things. For example, some years I fight wasps near my house, then the following year, I'm fighting fire ants. If I don't eradicate one or the other, they show up the next year, every year I fight one or the other, I assume they compete with one another. I wish I could curb stomp both from ever coming back, fire ants make me bust out with sores all over, however, I know me killing them from my lawn / property isn't killing ALL of them.

constantius 2 hours ago | parent

I'm much more puzzled by the many retorts to people asking about the unforeseen consequences of eradicating a whole species given how little we know about ecosystems.

Many such comments are very dumb, asking 'and how do you feel about viruses, screwworms, etc.?', but since you say this is a genuine question: mosquitoes are numerous and we know that they represent a source of food for many species (bats, birds, other insects). As far as I know, there is genuine debate among scientists about the role that mosquitoes play in their ecosystems. Everyone here has seen species of animals and plants eradicated and then being reintroduced or replaced, when we realise what role they were playing.

Again, assuming you're asking in good faith: you're asking why these commenters are so concerned while humanity is eradicating species all the time anyway: these are not the same populations... I'd wager there is a big overlap between those wondering about consequences and those taking action for the planet (not eating animal products, not flying, etc.). Similarly, I'd wager there's overlap between those posting such illogical retorts, and those eating animals at every meal and driving their car daily.

I see the same ridiculous retorts in HN debates about the condition of animals.

thaumaturgy 1 hour ago | parent

Okay, but we aren't talking about the eradication of all mosquitos. Approximately 10% of known mosquito species are potential carriers of human disease (https://entomologytoday.org/2022/07/26/less-than-10-percent-...), and discussions about eradication efforts generally revolve around just the Anopheles genus.

There's an excellent book on the impact of the mosquito on humanity, and a brief overview of some of that subject here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/05/how-mosquitoes.... These species of mosquito are and have been one of the most significant threats to human health for all of our existence.

I don't think argument-from-ignorance should be more convincing here than it would be on any other subject. There is some debate among researchers, sure, but published biologists have been making arguments in favor of eradication for over 20 years (https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/25/opinion/a-bug-s-death.htm...). If someone is being intellectually honest in objecting to this on the grounds of the fragility of ecosystems, then they must also be an equally loud voice against the use and manufacture of glyphosate. That one chemical alone is already having a far greater impact on insect populations, yet you can buy it at your local hardware stores.

So yeah, I genuinely don't understand the reasoning here. It feels like a dumber version of the trolley problem, where a perceived inaction that has far larger negative consequences is preferable to an action with more limited ones -- except in this case, it's not even right to describe our current impacts on ecosystems as "inaction".

I suspect that if an article were published tomorrow that found that, through some previously-unknown mechanism, the expected rise in global temperatures over the next 10 years would have a side-effect of killing all mosquito populations, that article wouldn't even make the front page of HN. Nobody much would care, aside from those few recurring voices mourning our future.

More cynically, I also suspect that since the worst impacts on human health are occurring in tropical populations, westerners find it much easier to argue in favor of protecting this particular pest.

estearum 1 hour ago | parent

Do you think animals pick their food source based on whether humans have taxonomized them under a similar heading, like "mosquito?"

Would an alien species contemplating the eradication of wheat be correct to think "that won't hurt Homo sapiens much, wheat makes up <1% of our taxonomic category 'things that grow in dirt!'?

thaumaturgy 1 hour ago | parent

Again: the effect you're referring to here, food chain collapse, is already occurring, but on much larger and more indiscriminate scales. Meanwhile, there is scant real evidence that Anopheles is a critical component of the food chain. Here's the most fair treatment on the subject that I could find: https://archive.ph/h12qU

I've been following this subject since at least Olivia Judson's article was published back in 2003. Over the last 23 years, to the best of my knowledge, nobody has yet made a strong case that Anopheles was a necessary part of the ecosystem. If your alien species were unable to identify wheat as an important food source, one would question how they managed to figure out interstellar travel.

The most vocal arguments against are all of the kind we're seeing here: "we don't know what might happen" (a statement of the unintended consequences of science meddling with nature that goes back in fiction to at least Mary Shelley), "we should assume they're necessary" (and yet all other necessary critters seem to be optional), "something needs them, we just don't know what" (in 23 years, biologists have so far identified a single spider that maybe or maybe not depends on them).

And these are the arguments that condemn a million people a year to death.

I would be easily swayed by evidence of large-scale ecosystem destabilization if Anopheles were eradicated. To date, not only is there no such evidence, but there is some evidence to the contrary (species of mosquito have been introduced to island habitats where they went on to have significant effects on local animal populations).

estearum 23 minutes ago | parent

Food chain collapse happening elsewhere is a reason not to risk creating more of it. It makes ecosystems more fragile, not less.

> If your alien species were unable to identify wheat as an important food source, one would question how they managed to figure out interstellar travel.

Per your prior point: we are causing food chain collapse all over the globe. We are not an alien species with a good track record on this.

> "we don't know what might happen" (a statement of the unintended consequences of science meddling with nature that goes back in fiction to at least Mary Shelley)

Per your prior point: the unintended consequences of science meddling with nature also goes back in reality to the widespread food chain collapse that our science is already unintentionally causing all over the globe.

The following two arguments are not ones that I've made, and aren't necessary to justify extreme caution.

> And these are the arguments that condemn a million people a year to death.

Obviously the people arguing against you believe there's a chance that altering course would be far, far worse than this already-not-good outcome.

> I would be easily swayed by evidence of large-scale ecosystem destabilization if Anopheles were eradicated. To date, not only is there no such evidence, but there is some evidence to the contrary (species of mosquito have been introduced to island habitats where they went on to have significant effects on local animal populations).

Yes I'm in the same boat as you. But note that this is a fundamentally different position than "other things eat things that humans call 'mosquitos' so it should be fine."

throwawayffffas 2 hours ago | parent

If the documentary mimic (1997) is to believed we will be looking at 6 foot mosquitos in 3 to 5 years.

ricogallo 2 hours ago | parent

few people know that mosquitoes are also pollinators for some plants

boxed 2 hours ago | parent

In this case not significant since we're talking about eradicating an invasive species that isn't the majority population.

PunchyHamster 2 hours ago | parent

we are already wiping out many species, wiping out one that's basically always bad both for humans and other animals is probably net positive

estearum 1 hour ago | parent

Completely illogical argument. Our destruction of other parts of an ecosystem makes it more fragile, not less.

hannob 2 hours ago | parent

I mean, we eliminated smallpox viruses, and the impact was that humans no longer die from smallpox. We have almost eliminated polio, which has the impact that nobody needs an iron lung any more. We have massively reduced the incidence of a whole range of other pathogens. Are you concerned about that, too?

I'd be much more concerned about the changes humans do to our ecosystems that we know cause harm, but aren't stopping (like filling the atmosphere with CO2 and other greenhouse gases) than about changes that would, almost certainly, reduce harm and have only extremely unlikely and hypothetical risks.

Arodex 2 hours ago | parent

A virus isn't an insect. This comparison is pointless.

ttd 2 hours ago | parent

Well, one notable difference between your examples of eliminated pathogens is that there is a food chain built on top of mosquitos. There are plenty of animals that eat both mosquito larvae (ex: tadpoles, some fish) and adults (ex: bats, dragonflies). I don't believe there is a similar food chain built on top of viruses.

I agree that many of the risks are hypothetical, but I disagree that we can simply dismiss them. Taking a decent amount of time to understand cause and effect on ecosystems seems like a perfectly prudent thing to me.

boredatoms 1 hour ago | parent

Im curious about the food chain part, what happens to individual viruses over time, do they ‘die’ or degrade somehow?

TeMPOraL 1 hour ago | parent

Viruses are bundle of DNA with an attitude. Lacking any active metabolism, they just denature with time.

korrectional 1 hour ago | parent

While they don't age like living organisms, their outer protein coating wears away due to temperature and UV light, so like you said they sort of "degrade".

inglor_cz 1 hour ago | parent

We wouldn't have to destroy all mosquitos, though. Only a few species that are carriers of human pathogens. Once they are gone, other, benign mosquitos will occupy their spot, and will be eaten by the same animals as before.

estearum 1 hour ago | parent

Such a vague blanket statement sounds like an article of faith and not an actual informed opinion about the specific species of mosquitos, the animals that eat them, and the fungibility of their food sources. Correct me if I'm wrong though.

IncreasePosts 1 hour ago | parent

The mosquito species in question is native to northern Africa, and is an invasive species pretty much everywhere else in the world, having only arrived 300-400 years ago.

estearum 27 minutes ago | parent

"Invasive" is a made-up human concept that has pretty much no bearing on local dependence after a couple hundred years.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49967028

xienze 47 minutes ago | parent

> Are you concerned about that, too?

Kind of, because every time you stomp out one of Mother Nature's ways to keep the human population in check, you contribute to letting the population exceed carrying capacity, which leads to things like:

> changes humans do to our ecosystems that we know cause harm, but aren't stopping

fwip 2 hours ago | parent

From memory, mosquitos are a food source for some birds and bats, pollinate some plants, and, most uniquely, help drive wild cattle migration (to keep them from overgrazing areas into barren mud-fields).

mw67 22 hours ago | parent

having spent the summer in Singapore I can confirm its a delight to enjoy hot weather's outdoor activities without any mosquito to be found

bryanlarsen 2 hours ago | parent

The proposal is only to eliminate the disease born mosquitoes, letting the other mosquitoes take over. So if your polity has eliminated mosquitoes it's likely using chemicals rather than a more environmentally sound choice.

nine_k 2 hours ago | parent

Most mosquitoes are not the blood-sucking kind. It is possible to replace the blood-suckers with other species which still mostly fill the appropriate niches, like the birds' food chains, etc.

chihuahua 1 hour ago | parent

The article contains the following sentence: "In a randomized trial in Singapore, releases of Wolbachia-infected males cut mosquito populations by 85 percent compared to control areas and dengue infections by roughly 70 percent."

There are different things you can do to mosquitos with different techniques. The article discusses several different techniques. Some eliminate disease-spreading mosquitos, some eliminate the mosquitos. In Singapore, the latter was tried out. It is not the case that Singapore used chemicals.

backhold 1 hour ago | parent

The article discussed alternative methods that have succeeded in being deployed:

> The approach has succeeded at the scale of cities. In a randomized trial in Singapore, releases of Wolbachia-infected males cut mosquito populations by 85 percent compared to control areas and dengue infections by roughly 70 percent.

(mosquitos infected with Wolbachia are both more resistant to diseases, and fail to reproduce in the case of infected male x uninfected female)

esperent 1 hour ago | parent

Do they achieve it by regularly spraying poison on the air like they do in Malaysia? Feels like a pyrrhic victory to me. I know they were trialing genetic modification but I don't know how successful that was and I'm certain it's not the only thing they're doing.

virgil_disgr4ce 58 minutes ago | parent

I humbly propose you simply read the article

rayiner 3 hours ago | parent

I hate all the glib wordplay that reframes a policy decision and turns it on its head to make it seem like a different kind of policy decision. Nobody is “choosing” to have mosquitos. Mosquitos exist naturally. Maybe we can undertake a large scale intervention in the environment and wipe them out, but it that’s different than “choosing” to have them. Just say what you mean.

SoftTalker 2 hours ago | parent

It's a choice to wipe them out or let them continue to exist. We were on our way to doing that using DDT until the unfortunate side-effects of that chemical were understood.

isolli 2 hours ago | parent

Hm, rather, as soon as (some) mosquitoes became resistant to DDT, eradication became a lost cause.

SoftTalker 1 hour ago | parent

The resistance was (perhaps counterintuitively) caused by overuse in agricultural applications.

pigpop 2 hours ago | parent

We are choosing to not undo the harm we caused by spreading Aedes aegypti all over the world in the first place.

Arodex 2 hours ago | parent

If we are "choosing" to live with mosquitoes, then we also are "choosing" to let people starve, die of cancer, etc.

We could in one stroke take half of what multi-billionaires and quasi-trillionaires have hoarded. If they didn't have personal accountants, they wouldn't even notice it, as they have far more money than what they manage to burn through - and we would have the means to "choose" to solve real problems affecting hundreds of millions of people.

dctoedt 39 minutes ago | parent

> we also are "choosing" to let people starve, die of cancer, etc.

It's debatable whether taking half of billionaires' wealth would materially advance the efforts in those areas.

What seems far less debatable is the political consequences of the accummulation of so much wealth — coupled with essentially zero legal restrictions on the use of that wealth in the quest for (governmental) power.

isolli 2 hours ago | parent

I agree. The precautionary principle applies to novel actions we take, not to leaving the status quo in place.

zhivota 2 hours ago | parent

Does anyone know if this is possible to DIY? I live in an area where dengue is endemic on a substantial land area and would be interested.

throwawayffffas 2 hours ago | parent

Before your local government rolls on you for bio-terrorism you should probably look into other options.

https://store.photonmatrixlab.com/

fransje26 2 hours ago | parent

Only $988 for a gadget that probably doesn't work. Nice!

henry2023 2 hours ago | parent

I’m not sure this is a real product.

chriscjcj 2 hours ago | parent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser

Smoofer 2 hours ago | parent

“A mosquito laser is a proposed device[…]”

throwawayffffas 1 hour ago | parent

[...] the device was still under development as of 2017.

It's been nine years since that blurb was updated supposedly.

throwawayffffas 1 hour ago | parent

The company linked supposedly will start shipping the first units this month.

https://www.indiegogo.com/en/projects/jimwong-38623042/world...

throwawayffffas 2 hours ago | parent

I believe it is. I have seen research for this on this site since at least 2015. The technology exists it's probably legit.

post-it 44 minutes ago | parent

You are correct.

> This item is currently available for pre-order. Orders will be shipped within 120 calendar days after payment confirmation.

Arubis 1 hour ago | parent

These are such a cool, fun, wonderful idea right up until you try to put them anywhere that shares space with a human eyeball.

throwawayffffas 8 minutes ago | parent

Yeah that's the main drawback for these, very dangerous. I believe there are several DIY projects but I wouldn't trust them.

[1]. https://github.com/Ildaron/Laser_control [2]. https://github.com/tanakasan3/mosquito-laser

niij 2 hours ago | parent

Mosquito dunks kill larvae. It's used as a mosquito population control in warmer areas. Me and a few neighbors used it this year with good results.

Get a 5 gallon bucket, add water/grass/leaves/dunk and let it sit for a few weeks. Every few weeks add more dunks. Put a stick in there so small animals don't get stuck when trying to get a drink.

late2part 2 hours ago | parent

I've read this is safe for animals and bees.

happymellon 1 hour ago | parent

Yes, the bacteria target mosquito larve.

Though:

- It won't stop breeding in other standing water

- Depending on where you live, it could decimate the food source of other animals

- It attacks all mosquito's not just blood suckers

- I understand that there are conflicting reports on its effects on amphibians. I'm not sure how reliable the negative reviews are, or if it is "big citronella" sourced scare, but you may want to be cautious of which water sources you use them in.

robotresearcher 1 hour ago | parent

Some horse barns put little fishes in the drinking water troughs. The fish eat the larvae. The horses ignore the fish.

mbeavitt 2 hours ago | parent

Oh come on. Does anyone actually believe gene drives will work? This fundamentally goes against the principles of natural selection.

A gene which incurs a fitness cost will be purged from the population under selection!!

john_strinlai 2 hours ago | parent

>Sustained releases cut a wild Aedes aegypti population in the Cayman Islands by 80 percent, and in a field trial in Juazeiro, Brazil by about 95 percent.

qoez 2 hours ago | parent

The remaining 5% and their adapted mutation will eventually repopulate the local population.

Noaidi 2 hours ago | parent

Plus, the animals that eat those mosquitos will decline in the meantime...

soulofmischief 1 hour ago | parent

Humanity seems pretty good at driving animal populations to extinction. We're on our best run yet.

mbeavitt 2 hours ago | parent

Penicillin used to kill 100% of Staphylococcus aureus. My point still stands - even if a selective sweep takes out 99% of the population, they will recover.

This is at best a temporary solution.

throwawayffffas 2 hours ago | parent

That may very well mean the eradication of the population. Also we can do the gene drive repeatedly reintroducing the gene. Or modified genes.

twack 2 hours ago | parent

Depends how fast the gene drive works. Natural Selection is slow.

mbeavitt 2 hours ago | parent

In a diverse population, the mutations that will drive the selection have in fact already happened. It doesn't matter how fast you move.

cmrx64 2 hours ago | parent

there are latches in designspace

schiffern 2 hours ago | parent

The idea is to hit the population with a cataclysm so sudden that it goes extinct before it can adapt. We can calculate mutation rates and reproduction dynamics, so we know how to predict whether this is likely or not.

If it's one-and-done, everywhere on Earth (eg smallpox), it can work. If it drags on for decades or isn't rolled out globally (eg malaria) then it won't work.

christophilus 2 hours ago | parent

I think you’re right. I’d want to pair this approach with introducing a replacement species that can hopefully out compete the one we’re eliminating. No idea what that looks like, though.

bryanlarsen 2 hours ago | parent

The gene gives a sizable advantage to mosquitoes that don't carry disease. Those mosquitoes will then take over the niche making it very difficult for disease carrying mosquitoes to come back.

pigpop 2 hours ago | parent

Aedes aegypti are container breeders, you can totally eliminate them from an environment through diligent removal of standing water left in buckets, tires, pots, etc. This has been done before but the effort wasn't properly sustained so they've made a major comeback in disease prone areas. Killing a lot of them does have a substantial effect because they don't easily travel long distances by themselves so if the remaining resistant population is small enough it might just as easily end up dying out due to its breeding cycle being interrupted through other means. The part that should be criticized here is that any eradication campaign should also involve efforts to eliminate their breeding environments by removing junk and unattended containers that collect water.

chewbacha 1 hour ago | parent

Sterile insect releases are a tool for suppressing populations and have been used for about a century. This is not really a new suppression technique but a novel way of producing the sterile insects.

It has been used to suppress screw worm in the United States for decades until the administration cut the funding.

These are almost always a temporary solution that need constant funding and seasonal releases to work. The populations will surge back as soon as it's stopped.

exabrial 2 hours ago | parent

>It shouldn’t have to take fifteen years to deploy effective products that can save lives.

I completely disagree. This is a reasonable and responsible timeline to look for unintended consequences. Some things, you simply cannot undo.

What if the bacteria (somehow) jumped to monarch butterflies and killed them off? Controlled releases and multi-year environmental studies are the correct and responsible course of action. In fact, when the injected insects are released into an area, the entire thing should be monitored carefully, as each ecosystem might respond differently.

All of that being said, excited to see this adopted more broadly. It's time these fuckwit insects die.

BeetleB 2 hours ago | parent

From what I understood, they didn't spend 15 years collecting data on the efficacy and risks of the product. Much of it was spent just waiting for regulators to respond.

elicash 2 hours ago | parent

I can imagine a scenario where the testing takes 15 years, and a scenario where the testing is done in 1 year. I think it's probably wrong to look at it purely as "we should wait X years". The author describes the 15 years as "regulatory limbo" implying that it was known as safe before that, but I have no idea whether that's the case.

In general, you have to weigh the irreversible cost of unintended consequences with the irreversible cost of known human death from mosquitoes.

boxed 2 hours ago | parent

The bacterial solution was the one that was fast tracked, while the safer genetic modification was delayed more.

vlod 2 hours ago | parent

Isn't there a knock on effect of removing them?

Does anything eat them as food? Wouldn't it be environmentally damaging to remove a source of food for X?

larsiusprime 2 hours ago | parent

I believe the argument is the dominant mosquito species are themselves invasive to the continent

estearum 1 hour ago | parent

"Invasive" is a made up human concept. The question is whether there are species that now rely on these as a food source. The entire natural world is a hodge-podge of "invasive" species coming from some nearby land, disrupting the ecosystem, then the ecosystem evolving around it – typically a gradual process over thousands of years.

If it took a couple hundred years for this species to proliferate, it's absolutely plausible that eradicating it in a few years will have surprising second- and third-order effects.

pigpop 2 hours ago | parent

Aedes aegypti is an invasive species native to Africa so removing it from the environment everywhere else in the world that it has been spread to would benefit the local mosquito species which don't spread the same diseases and are less of a nuisance to humans.

Tagbert 2 hours ago | parent

There are still a lot of other mosquito species. removing just the few that carry human disease will not have a major impact on creatures that eat mosquitoes.

estearum 1 hour ago | parent

The mere existence of other things that we call mosquitos does not mean they are all interchangeable as a food source for the animals that eat them.

Is your level of knowledge on this just "there are other things called mosquitos ergo it's not a problem," or do you have deeper affirmative knowledge that the animals that eat these mosquitos also eat those other mosquitos, and that those other mosquitos can increase their population to replace the lost food source?

Tuna-Fish 2 hours ago | parent

There are many mosquito species in competition for the same resources, only a few (iirc 10% in the US) of which sting humans and carry diseases. Wiping out the ones that attack people would allow other mosquitoes to take over the ecological niches.

fckgw 2 hours ago | parent

Lots of animals eat mosquitos, but they really aren't the primary food source of any species, especially this particular type of mosquito. It would have a very minimal effect on food supply.

andai 2 hours ago | parent

The swallows love mosquitoes. When I get bit by mosquitoes I often joke I am feeding the birds.

GuB-42 1 hour ago | parent

Mosquitoes control human populations, an invasive species. Removing mosquitoes will make humans proliferate, which is known to be environmentally damaging.

Joking aside, the consensus seems to be that the effect of removing disease-carrying mosquitoes (not all mosquitoes) from the environment is minor compared to how many lives it can save.

vel0city 1 hour ago | parent

What's the ratio of frogs lives to human children spared from disease that's acceptable to you, assuming we had a clear answer?

If 20,000 humans weren't significantly harmed from disease because of this release, but 70,000 frogs faced starvation, which would you choose?

vlod 54 minutes ago | parent

I was suggesting that it's rarely that simple.

If we lose those frogs, it most likely would cause a cascade across other species. There are lots of things that eat frogs.

vel0city 38 minutes ago | parent

I totally understand there's a massive amount of unknowns about this. Let's continue analyzing what's the right course of action as we go, and ensure we're taking that understanding into account of what we do in the future.

In the end, whose lives do you prioritize given the lack of information today, and the lives at risk today? Deciding to do nothing still costs lives, and potentially drives us further into the bad state area.

Noaidi 2 hours ago | parent

About the mosquito release in Australia. I wonder, since of course bats love mosquito's, if this could be related?

The population of an endangered Australian bat suddenly dropped by up to 16%. No one knows why

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/30/southern...

kubanczyk 2 hours ago | parent

Humanity is eradicating entire species left and right. Mosquitoes are our worst enemies. Can we have a deal to save some little poor amazonian frog (the doomed one which has only ~100 animals and 1 location left) and after we accomplish that, in return wipe out one species of mosquitoes?

Arodex 2 hours ago | parent

I hope the Amazonian frog doesn't depend too much on mosquitos as food. Or that by eradicating mosquitoes, insectivorous animals don't eat more of other, less abundant and fast-breeding, insects as a replacement and it starved the Amazonian frog.

(I don't know what the Amazonian frog eats; my point is that biotopes are complex and second- and third-order effects need to be monitored. That's why smaller interventions - e.g. making humans poisonous to mosquitoes, pushing them to the evolutionary path of avoiding humans - would be better than whole eradication.)

lostdog 2 hours ago | parent

Human-biting mosquitoes aren't necessary for the ecosystem and we should remove them.

someonebaggy 1 hour ago | parent

That's what we thought about all the other species we intentionally eradicated, both the ones that turned out to be unimportant, and the ones that turned out to be very important.

NotGMan 2 hours ago | parent

Midwit article.

People like the author actually belive that there is no chance of real world interactions happening.

Eg what is the bacteria jumps to some other organism? What if it mutates? What if the birds eat the mosquitoes and carry a mutated bacteria elsewhere?

There is a reason why you need autistic level safety for such projects, and even then things like this might happen.

It's completely impossible to guarantee theses things, no matter how long you study it in a lab.

Some people just aren't capable of thinking more than 1 step ahead.

rlpb 2 hours ago | parent

If the various regulatory bodies are disclaiming jurisdiction over the matter, then what is preventing these companies from proceeding without their blessing?

gavinsyancey 2 hours ago | parent

Who's going to fund that?

mrngld 1 hour ago | parent

The avalanche of lawsuits that every NGO that hadn't been paid off would file within minutes that'd extract the same toll in terms of years, plus potentially even higher legal fees.

yorwba 36 minutes ago | parent

The article features multiple examples of the EPA actively regulating in the area, including allowing some deployments to proceed with their blessing.

nephihaha 2 hours ago | parent

The mosquito is part of the ecosystem, and remove that and you remove the food source for many creatures including bats, frogs, swallows/swifts and many others.

I agree they are a nuisance but they do not exist on their own. Many of them spend their time feeding on plants rather than blood.

Bill Gates is involved in this. Always a red flag.

herpdyderp 2 hours ago | parent

Why is Bill Gates a red flag? I am under the impression that he's done a lot of good for the world, especially around AIDs research.

elicash 51 minutes ago | parent

You can read about some of the claims about Gates here:

https://www.reuters.com/article/fact-check/list-of-claims-ab...

pigpop 2 hours ago | parent

Aedes aegypti aren't native to anywhere outside of Africa. Native mosquito species in most other continents don't spread the same diseases that infect humans. Aedes aegypti mostly breed around where humans live since they lay their eggs in containers of stagnant water, other mosquito species live primarily in wetlands and areas that stay moist due to thick vegetation or soil conditions. The native species of mosquitos are a much larger food source than Aedes aegypti for that reason.

kakacik 2 hours ago | parent

I'd say paranoid-by-default folks are a huge red flag on any agenda. Something about disservice to the cause and all that.

Anyway since they kill north of half a million folks yearly and infect couple of hundred millions as official minimums, I am more than happy with some other species of small insects take their empty spot. Of course not everybody cares much about poor folks dying quietly half around the world, but some do. One of very few benefits of global warming is the migration of these bastards more north so rich folks in US and Europe will have more personal stake in this topic rather than usual 'oh that's so horrible, next'.

Some minor re-adjustement of ecosystem is more than fine, anyway we do it constantly for rather pathetic reasons if any. I would add ticks, all forms, to the effort.

dennis_jeeves2 1 hour ago | parent

Obviously we should pass a law so that only mosquitoes that have undergone a full medical examination and are certified free of diseases are allowed to bite humans.

DANmode 1 hour ago | parent

What’s this have to do with TFA?

ortusdux 1 hour ago | parent

Reminds me of the novel Everything is Tuberculosis, which explores the idea that we have a cure for the leading cause of death from infectious disease and "that the disease is no longer primarily caused by the bacteria, but instead by human choices."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_Is_Tuberculosis

benterris 1 hour ago | parent

The tools available for these biological operations are fascinating. OP's article links this other one, which explains everything that can be done in practice with today's tech and reads like science fiction : https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-ultra-selfish-gene/

vel0city 1 hour ago | parent

I'm reminded of the horror movie Mimic, in which a genetically modified bugs are deployed to deal with a rampant cockroach population. Once the cockroaches are taken care of, the mutant bugs focus on the next disasterous infestation...humans!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimic_(film)

Arubis 1 hour ago | parent

Something about mosquito-borne diseases lands on HN every year or so, resulting in hand-wringing about whether we should deliberately cause species extinction. I have seen the suffering they cause firsthand, and so my response has become rather consistent:

Do we want to eradicate mosquitoes?

Yes; fuck them.

We (intentionally or no, mostly not) cause the extinction of hundreds to thousands of species every year for much more mundane reasons: deforestation is the big one, climate change another. And that buys us arguably nothing but enriching people that benefit from the process of deforestation and climate change--folks that're economically desperate enough to log illegally, and energy barons. These extinctions are mostly tragic, and the net benefit to human societies is likely negative.

Mosquitoes are fucking evil. They kill more humans every year than any other animal. Malaria is only the most well-known disease they spread; see also dengue ("breakbone fever", named for what it feels like), West Nile virus, and more. Those that malaria doesn't kill are frequently left with a low-level chronic infection that makes them less effective as people. Malaria and mosquitoes kill children, disable the working population, and economically cripple entire nations.

As best we can tell, things that eat mosquitoes also eat other things. But I'd vote for nuking the mozzies from orbit even if that weren't the case. They're such an unmitigated cause of human suffering and hardship.

yyyk 45 minutes ago | parent

The technology to eradicate Aedes mosquitoes exists. Time to use it ruthlessly. There's no good reason not to do it and at least a million reasons per year to do it.

gonational 25 minutes ago | parent

Use genetic engineering to extinct a species... what could go wrong?

Not to mention the many species of, e.g., birds, etc., that rely either heavily, or almost entirely, on mosquitoes, as a food source. One does not simply eradicate an entire species, through genetic sorcery, for the entire planet, without causing negative side effects.

This is just like cloud seeding. A few powerful idiots ruin it for everyone else, in the service of accomplishing a specific goal. We are likely experiencing major changes in the regional climates, as a result of cloud seeding. For example, right here in Idaho we are stealing water from clouds floating overhead, through a cloud seeding program primarily driven by Idaho Power. Do I benefit from this? Of course. We use the irrigation water and benefit from the cheap electricity rates. At what expense? Who knows. Somewhere east of us is likely getting royally screwed. As long as we have what we need here, though, who cares about anybody else or the rest of the planet's ecosystem, right?

The hilarious part, to me, is the fact that those who get excited by this idea (obliteration of entire species through genetic engineering) are the selfsame supposed champions of the climate when it comes to "GlObAl WaRmInG", asking for us to send our money to the Guberment to fix the problem. I guess it's not too surprising, since these people don't think for themselves; they are simply following with the TV told them to think.

jwgarber 16 minutes ago | parent

I did some research over the summer on Anopheles gambiae, a mosquito that spreads malaria, and I was stunned to learn how many diseases are spread by mosquitoes. There are tons of viruses (yellow fever, dengue, West Nile), protozoa (like malaria), and even parasitic worms (lymphatic filariasis--the pictures of this are awful). Hundreds of millions of people are infected with these diseases every year, and I'm a bit shocked of how ignorant I was to this. Malaria eradication has stalled over the last decade [0], and I hope that we can resume it.

[0] https://anopheles-genomic-surveillance.github.io/home.html

jms703 7 minutes ago | parent

How does this affect fish that eat mosquitos like trout? Do they have enough food without mosquitos? Just wondering.