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Take one virus lethal to mosquitoes.
Take one benign asymptomatic virus ubiquitous in humans.
Introduce them & do a little shake & bake until you
get the desired properties.
Inject into human population.
Giggle gleefully ..
As all species of mosquitoes that feed on
human
blood become
extinct.
Technique may be applicable to other pests.
Putting the metaphorical boot on the other foot & vectoring
the vectors.
A little background reading
https://en.wikipedi...g/wiki/Human_virome
Human virome - Wikipedia [Skewed, Apr 27 2020]
Further background reading
https://en.wikipedi...symptomatic_carrier
Asymptomatic carrier - Wikipedia [Skewed, Apr 27 2020]
Last one, promise
https://en.wikipedi.../wiki/Bacteriophage
Bacteriophage - Wikipedia [Skewed, Apr 27 2020]
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Something we carry indirectly might work? |
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Phages are interesting, we have learned a lot about them recently. |
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If you look at the life cycle of Y. pestis, one of its effects is to block the digestion of its vector (the flea) causing it to feel hunger - it cannot digest its blood meals, so bites incessantly, thus transmitting the infection. |
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If possible, the infective agent should be transmissible without the need for the insect to get a blood meal; but you can always put the agent into other mammalian species that mosquitoes attack, other than humans. |
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The feeding takes place at a critical point in the life cycle. Only females bite, in order to reproduce. Males have no mouthparts - they mate and die. Something that can attack the ability of the females to reproduce successfully - it doesn't need to kill the insect - would be fine. All you need to do is break the reproductive cycle. |
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//put the agent into other mammalian
species// |
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The danger with that approach is you might drive habit
altering speciation. |
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Those of the target species with a taste
for the surrogate animal die out while those with a
preference for humans thrive. |
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So you may just end up with a species that lives exclusively
off humans. |
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To clarify; the suggestion would be to put the agent into numerous other biological reservoirs to ensure elimination, not just a behavioural change. Sorry, that should have been explicitly stated. |
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If you only put it in humans, exactly that undesirable effect - differentiation of food source - would follow. There will still be mosquitoes, they will just bite humans much less often, and the programme will have to be sustained indefinitely. |
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The objective should be extermination of the entire species*. |
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Smallpox was eliminated. This can be done too. |
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You'll need a Ministry of Ecological Niche Management or something to stop anything else exploiting the opportunity caused by the removal of a life-form. |
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*The insects, not the humans. Probably. |
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//undesirable effect - differentiation of food source// |
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Actually we consider that a very desirable effect, it's the
one we were aiming for. |
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The new virus would become a permanent part of the
human virome. |
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Because we've not worked out how to
get it back out once we've got it in yet. |
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So we expect the differentiation to eventually become near
total. |
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We're persuaded natural selection will eventually mean
the very smell of a human will make them fly the other
way. |
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//The objective should be extermination of the entire
species// |
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The law of unintended consequences as it applies to human
intervention in ecologies through the addition or
subtraction
of
a species (as explored so very thoroughly by Australia last
century) is something we've given some small thought to. |
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And we're too lazy to do the necessary field work to figure
out
all of the ramifications & ripple effects of the removal of
any individual species. |
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You've just not had enough practice. Once you've wrecked a few complete planetary ecologies, you'll get the hang of it, and gain confidence. |
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It's not just that you're admittedly lazy - which we don't believe, because humans can be astonishingly determined and resolute, usually when doing something appallingly ill-advised and self-destructive -but that you lack ambition. That doesn't sound like the species we know.... |
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My timing of a [Max] friendly idea was unexpectedly fortuitous
then. |
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I'll have to remember for next year. |
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We predict that "Blatantly Idiotic Predictions for 2021" will include "Halfbakers will forget to commemorate the anniversary of losing Max" ... |
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Though since that's not in any way funny, probably not. |
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// Happy birthday, Max. // |
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Indeed. And as a fellow baker who is the same age to the
day I can say that if I live twice as many years and
accomplish even half as much I shall still be woefully
behind. |
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You will never be forgotten, [Max}. |
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