this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
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Science Memes

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Horrors We've Unleashed (mander.xyz)
submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 37 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (5 children)

If those creatures that also eat mosquitoes cannot eat them anymore, that means they would have to eat other bugs more frequently, and possibly fucking up all the ecosystem.

That said, fuck mosquitoes, they can take blood from other places.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

All of our best data on the impact says that it really wouldn't matter. Sometimes a species is a linchpin for the ecosystem, and sometimes it isn't.

Sucks for mosquitoes, but there's a very real chance that we'll smallpox them, and the biggest concern will be our confidence that the virus we use doesn't impact other species unintentionally.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Hopefully we can do the same for bedbugs. Fuck bedbugs. I can smell the little fuckers

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Hey, at least pubic lice are going extinct!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I read that as public. I was pretty confused as to what you were talking about

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

Just imagine what would happen if all lice were privatised.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Oh no! My patriotic merkin startup plans are ruined! I guess 'MericaMerkins was never meant to be...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Don't let Trump hear this idea

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Haven't read closely on it, but I've seen plenty of articles about the lack of effect we'd see over killing off mosquitoes. I have a feeling that, along with what you said, it's because they're tiny.

Consider the dragonfly. They hunt mosquitoes efficiently. But relative to their size, a mosquito is like us eating a candy bar, or even less. Meanwhile, they could snatch about anything else and it would be like a 3-pound steak.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Now that you say that, average us candy bar contains 200..250 kcal a piece. That's about 1/7th of BMR of an average healthy male.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 weeks ago

They're largely applying this technique to invasive species of mosquitoes, eg Aedes aegypti, which is a potent vector of disease and native of Africa that has spread worldwide only within the past 200 years

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

They also eat nectar and are pollinators of various plants.

There's no way we could simply remove a creature as numerous and widespread as mosquitoes without any consequences.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

If we were to somehow magically remove mosquitos from existence in an instant, we'd better hope something fills their ecological niche quickly

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago

Nothing eats them exclusively, that I know of. And they're tiny. Any insectivore is getting far more nutrition out of about anything else.

Maybe I'm wrong, but biologists seem to think eradication is a non-issue.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

I think the purpose of the original genetic modification is to make them unable to bite humans (and spread malaria) but to otherwise leave them capable of feeding, thus not wiping them out and upsetting the ecosystem they're part of

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

That niche being flying bloodsucker? I'm not sure the alternative will be any better

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago

The niche being food for fish that share their ecosystem in larval stages, and birds/bats/frogs that share their ecosystem in their adult stage.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Found the mosquito.