Re: Evolutionary fix of mosquitos

From: Adrian Tymes (wingcat@pacbell.net)
Date: Sat Jul 12 2003 - 11:07:01 MDT

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    --- Anders Sandberg <asa@nada.kth.se> wrote:
    > My suggestion is along these lines: many people take
    > pills that contain
    > a substance that acts as a mosquito contraceptive.

    Better and simpler: mosquitos that bite humans die.
    Mosquito toxin.

    > In general the logistics and the
    > economics of this
    > evolutionary approach to mosquitos needs to be
    > studied a bit more
    > closely. The principle seems to be fairly simple and
    > robust, but the
    > actual implementation might be done in many
    > different ways.

    It seems likely that this would work best where
    mosquitos are a large and acknowledged problem -
    primarily developing areas (e.g., without first-rate
    sanitation) in the tropics. Unfortunately, said
    places are also often unable to pay for high-end
    biotech R&D, and even when they are, there's this
    little problem of certain governments, or wannabe
    governmental organizations (usually military),
    confiscating any property of their citizens (such as
    food and medicine) that they can resell to their own
    benefit; by the time the meds actually get taken, they
    might have spoiled.



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