A Deadly Mosquito-Borne Illness, kills almost half of its victims, and cases are on the rise

[Caz]

Can we wipe this garbage from the earth already?

I am ok with losing a couple frog species.

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It's time to finally get rid of mosquitos once and for all.

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Leaving aside the cost and logistics of wiping out the literal thousands of species there are, not all mosquitoes bite and spread diseases. In fact, some mosquito species eat the ones that bite other animals.

What do adult mosquitoes eat? Most are vegetarian. They drink flower nectar, plant sap, and fruit juices, and never drink blood. Killing these species is not necessary: in fact, it's counterproductive. The more than 90 species of one such harmless genus, Toxorhynchites, also known as the "elephant mosquito" because of their great size, are an ally to our cause: their larvae eat other mosquito larvae! Since they are helpful, we should make sure any strategies we use to kill bad mosquitoes will leave these gentle giants alone.

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Not saying we shouldn't exterminate the blood suckers but it's important to minimize the impact on the ecosystem by only getting rid of the ones that bite can bite humans in order to draw blood.

 

[Mona]

 

[Neece]

Kill All the Mosquitoes?!

New gene-editing technology gives scientists the ability to wipe out the carriers of malaria and the Zika virus. But should they use it?

www.smithsonianmag.com

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[WrenchNinja]

Cool. Yeah. Totally. This is fine.

 

[Deleted member 13645]

Someone needs to return the fucking slab

 

[astroturfing]

i'm more worried about SADS-COV (Swine Acute Diarrhea Syndrome Coronavirus), from what i read it can already infect human cells.

just a matter of time.

 

[AkumaNiko]

You guys are acting like this is new.

 

[refusi0n1]

 

[wandering]

Locked at OP's request.