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LOL FUCK EM
We genetically engineered mosquitoes to have gender dysmorphia - weird times.
They are turning the
frogs gaymosquitoes trans!
On the one hand this is creepy as hell
On the other fuck mosquitoes
Great. First science was making the frogs gay. Now it’s turning the mosquitos trans.
What’s next? Lesbian amoebas? Pansexual algae? Non-binary seahorses?
Has science gone too far?
Has science gone too far?
No
We have suffered for millions of years under mosquitos are they are likely the biggest killer of humans in history. Maybe us evolving big brains and developing genetic engineering is an evolutionary necessity?
Or as Harbinger said: “We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it.”
As a Brazilian, I won’t feel sorry for these fuckers.
Ok but mosquitoes historically are the #1 killers of humans, by an order of magnitude. This could be argued as a form of evolution. We simply engineered them out as a threat. GG get gud scrub, see you in 3 million years when you have your own AI generated bioengineering.
Ok but mosquitoes historically are the #1 killers of humans, by an order of magnitude
Homo sapien: am I a joke to you?
According to google, yeah. Mosquito-borne diseases are responsible for 52 billion deaths. I was extremely surprised myself.
I’m pretty sure over history mosquitoes have killed far more people than people have.
Right, but consider:
Fuck them bugs
Hey, most bugs are cool and an important part of their ecosystem.
Mosquitoes tho ? Yeah, fuck them.
as much as i’d love to agree with that-
mosquitos are pollinators and an important food source for quite a few animals. Our eco system would not be fine if we got rid of them
The largest type of mosquito in the Americas is an invasive species. There would be no harm done wiping them out.
First, they aren’t critical in either of those roles, and second, there are a few thousand species of mosquitoes, and only five of them cause issues with human health. Get rid of those five, and you haven’t caused much ruckus. The others will be fine in their continued parts.
Now, that being said, nobody knows for certain what will happen if all five are completely eradicated, but the sentiment above seems to be the consensus among people who have studied them.
That… That is a price I am willing to accept.
Total mutual destruction is the only way™
I’d like to see any scientific study that reassures at least a little that this won’t have terrible ramifications for ecosystems and the food chain.
We know too little, we are shortsighted and we have a bad record of intervening with nature.
It’s a pretty ineffective strategy, but I’m just going off this one photo.
If it’s genetic, and the females can’t get a blood meal, then they won’t lay any eggs to pass on those genetics and just die.
Then the ones without that gene will lay all their eggs and the next generation will be unchanged and they have to spend all that money again to do whatever they did which had no effect.
Knowing a bit about crispr my understanding is that crispr is the technology that can be used to circumvent that scenario by making the effects kind of like an genetic time bomb
I get the feeling of discomfort but it’s basically the same feeling we get when someone breaks a pencil
There is no evidence that a mosquito is capable of feeling the kind of despair or horror that a human would feel in a similar situation. It’s unlikely that mosquitos can form emotions at all.
At the same time, a huge portion of human-animal interactions involve the human controlling the animal in ways that they animal can’t even comprehend. A dog has no idea you’re doing operant conditioning to change their behavior. Pigs have no idea they’re being fed just so they and their children can be eaten.
The only way to avoid this kind of thing is to turn off your big human brain and go back to ape tier. We might need to go farther down the tier list than that though https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War
Mosquitoes have killed more humans than every disease ever (edit: when you obviously exclude malaria) along with every war ever, combined.
Fuck those little shits. Let them all die, it will literally change nothing on this planet because nothing solely survives off predation on mosquitoes or their larvae.
But what will happen when the humans lose their natural predators, we might destroy our habita- ah, right. Nevermind
Mosquitos are just trying to save the planet by murdering as many humans as possible
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.
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.
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.
Hopefully we can do the same for bedbugs. Fuck bedbugs. I can smell the little fuckers
Hey, at least pubic lice are going extinct!
I read that as public. I was pretty confused as to what you were talking about
Just imagine what would happen if all lice were privatised.
Oh no! My patriotic merkin startup plans are ruined! I guess 'MericaMerkins was never meant to be…
Don’t let Trump hear this idea
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
If we were to somehow magically remove mosquitos from existence in an instant, we’d better hope something fills their ecological niche quickly
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
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.
