Given all the complex procedures for trying to control populations of mosquitos, life would be much easier if they would simply bite something else. It turns out the mosquito which carries malaria shows a distinct preference for biting cows or biting humans and the research was to locate a genetic marker of any kind. (Science Daily: Mosquito preference for human versus animal biting has genetic basis)
Break for shout-out to Davis, California, one of multiple home towns but regarded the fondest. It's home to UC Davis where this research originated. If you think of "Doc Hollywood" for its Squash Festival, that was Davis at Picnic Day and hopefully it's still that way.
Mayor Nick Nicholson at the Squash Festival: I'm so happy I could be twins.
The 3Ra inversion is some variation within that mosquito's genome which defines whether they will have a preference for cows or humans. Replacing the mosquito genome seems formidable but it happens about every two weeks anyway, the interest is how to create a bit of disinterest in the human-biting segment of the mosquito population.
The first researcher move is to confirm the research since they've scoped fifty bugs to give them a strong indication but the big cheeses want more before they will call it a proof and fair enough.
For the sci-fi, we want the next move and we do not want the human biters reproducing. In case you like checkers instead of 3D-chess in Star Trek, hop over to Zika since why not expect a similar mechanism in those mosquitos as well. They are not of the same genome as the malaria mosquito but they probably share many similarities.
If the Zika mosquito does not manifest the 3Ra inversion, what say we GMO those bugs and give it to them. As you balance your aversion to GMO, consider that Zika skeeter won't kill your baby, it will hurt the baby so badly you will want to do it, and there's no worse evil on this planet than that.
So what say we transplant that 3Ra into the Zika mosquitos and turn them into cow biters.
The sci-fi solution still needs to convince the human biters for any type of mosquito to take off this generation. Have a ball biting this last time but no more mosquito sex for y'all. It's all very well to convince some of them to become cow biters but it doesn't mean so much when there are still human biters extant in the land.
Killing mosquitos doesn't do much because they just make more and much faster than we can wipe them out. The Trojan solutions with sterile males may be effective but making enough of them is another formidable effort. We're clever here at the Rockhouse but we're not that clever and you need some major clever for dealing with skeeters overall. Good luck with that one. Meanwhile put up some bat boxes since their skeeter motto is 'We don't need to beat 'em. We just eat 'em.'
Break for shout-out to Davis, California, one of multiple home towns but regarded the fondest. It's home to UC Davis where this research originated. If you think of "Doc Hollywood" for its Squash Festival, that was Davis at Picnic Day and hopefully it's still that way.
Mayor Nick Nicholson at the Squash Festival: I'm so happy I could be twins.
The 3Ra inversion is some variation within that mosquito's genome which defines whether they will have a preference for cows or humans. Replacing the mosquito genome seems formidable but it happens about every two weeks anyway, the interest is how to create a bit of disinterest in the human-biting segment of the mosquito population.
The first researcher move is to confirm the research since they've scoped fifty bugs to give them a strong indication but the big cheeses want more before they will call it a proof and fair enough.
For the sci-fi, we want the next move and we do not want the human biters reproducing. In case you like checkers instead of 3D-chess in Star Trek, hop over to Zika since why not expect a similar mechanism in those mosquitos as well. They are not of the same genome as the malaria mosquito but they probably share many similarities.
If the Zika mosquito does not manifest the 3Ra inversion, what say we GMO those bugs and give it to them. As you balance your aversion to GMO, consider that Zika skeeter won't kill your baby, it will hurt the baby so badly you will want to do it, and there's no worse evil on this planet than that.
So what say we transplant that 3Ra into the Zika mosquitos and turn them into cow biters.
The sci-fi solution still needs to convince the human biters for any type of mosquito to take off this generation. Have a ball biting this last time but no more mosquito sex for y'all. It's all very well to convince some of them to become cow biters but it doesn't mean so much when there are still human biters extant in the land.
Killing mosquitos doesn't do much because they just make more and much faster than we can wipe them out. The Trojan solutions with sterile males may be effective but making enough of them is another formidable effort. We're clever here at the Rockhouse but we're not that clever and you need some major clever for dealing with skeeters overall. Good luck with that one. Meanwhile put up some bat boxes since their skeeter motto is 'We don't need to beat 'em. We just eat 'em.'
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