GMO Mosequitoes Solve Pesticide Issues People are Afraid of Turning Into Mutants
 

So this is an awesome thing and some of the critism is valid. However some of it (like mosquitoes killing people by inadvertent DNA injection) is simply crazy.

My only request... next time make it so it's not being done by a very annoying insect?

Well the point is that they are actively trying to kill this specific species of mosquito by disrupting its ability to procreate. Thus they have to genetically engineer this species of mosquito so that when they introduce it the life cycle is disrupted.

The alternative is engineering a super mosquito killer insect. That's where shit would go really bad.

FYI link is down

But I read years ago about this idea and my issue then is my issue now. You should not mess with the food chain like this. Alot of animals feed on them. Unless I'm missing something and this specific species has no predators.

Should be working now.

Heh heh, someone asked me to do this for my next GLAA comic :D

Pretty much all ecologists agree that if you killed all the mosquitos, literally nothing would happen, aside from mosquitos not annoying you. They fill no unique niche in an ecosystem, and some other bug would take their spot.

Fair enough, but on strictly personal note I still dislike exterminating an entire species. Yea I know, spread illness and all that but genocide leaves a bad taste in my mouth just as a concept. I do get the opposing knee-jerk reaction. Its human nature to wipe out potential threats.

The problem lies on a different level.

Oxitec claims that all genetically modified mosquitoes die without being able to reproduce, but it's not true. A small percentage of them survive and do reproduce, spreading their modified genome in the wild. Another small percentage of female, biting OGM mosquitoes are also mistakenly released because it's unrealistic to hope to perfectly sort males from females on such scales.

There's also proof that genes are transferred horizontally, i.e. outside of a parent-child inheritance, although it is only proven for unicellular beings at the moment. If it was to be true for mosquitoes as well, even 100%-guaranteed-sterile-death rates (impossible) and 0% biting females released (also impossible) would not prevent genome leaks in the wild.

Additionally, these GM mosquitoes target only one species of mosquitoes: Even if it was 100% efficient with 0% footprint (again, impossible), it still gives room for other species to spread, some of which are actually worse. As a result, Oxitec is currently developing GM mosquitoes targeting another species.


The point is that the whole argument used by Oxitec to sell their stuff is that it will have no impact in the wild because they spent so much effort into ensuring their GM insects die without leaving a footprint. It is a lie. They're lying because they have to sell a lot to please their investors: Their discourse is commerce, not science.


I read about this in a couple science journals: it's good ol' paper so there's no link to provide. A veeery quick search turned this up, but I didn't bother checking the credibility of the website. Their article does corroborate what I read on actually reliable papers so I think it's fine.