• Archangel1313@lemmy.ca
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    4 days ago

    So, it killed 90% of the females…but does that mean that the 10% that survived will go on to produce resistant offspring? This sounds no different than every other attempt they’ve made at eradicating mosquitoes.

    • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      From the article, it seems like they spray spores onto the male mosquitoes and then they go and spread it to the females they mate with. Furthermore, they suggest that it’s within a 24 hour timeframe.

      These things, to me, point to this being less an STD and more a fungal infection that’s spread through close proximity to spores (the kind of proximity you’d get through mating).

      It could very well be that by the time the mosquito has mated several times there simply aren’t enough spores to infect the females they mate with, as whatever spores are on the surface have either been sloughed off or have started to work their way inwards.

      Ultimately I don’t know if there’s enough information to give you an assertive answer either way, but this combined with the other techniques for mosquito eradication (like sterile males) could be used as a wombo combo to fully eradicate mosquito populations.

  • moodymellodrone@sopuli.xyz
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    3 days ago

    “Mosquitoes are the world’s deadliest animal. It’s believed that they alone, by transmitting disease, have killed half of all human beings who have ever lived,”

    That’s a crazy stat, man.

  • skye@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    how the tables have turned. We went from using Malaria to ‘cure’ STDs (syphilis), and now we’re using STDs to get rid of Malaria

  • Grimy@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    I hate when they do this with bugs because it will be impossible to contain if it goes wrong. You can’t quarantine from or cull super herpes infected mosquito swarms.

    • ThoGot@lemm.ee
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      4 days ago

      The problem before was that it was impossible to not “contain” it if it goes right (at least with the previous sterilisation approaches), because a certain area got rid of mosquitoes too quickly, therefore not spreading that infertility wide enough, and then they just moved in again from other areas.

  • reksas@sopuli.xyz
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    3 days ago

    Is it possible for the disease to mutate so it can infect non-mosquitos? The disease would have many opportunities if its in the fluids mosquito spits into what ever it bites.