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bryanlarsen • today at 3:34 PM • 4 replies • view on HN

The proposal is only to eliminate the disease born mosquitoes, letting the other mosquitoes take over. So if your polity has eliminated mosquitoes it's likely using chemicals rather than a more environmentally sound choice.


Replies

nine_k • today at 3:49 PM

Most mosquitoes are not the blood-sucking kind. It is possible to replace the blood-suckers with other species which still mostly fill the appropriate niches, like the birds' food chains, etc.

chihuahua • today at 4:43 PM

The article contains the following sentence: "In a randomized trial in Singapore, releases of Wolbachia-infected males cut mosquito populations by 85 percent compared to control areas and dengue infections by roughly 70 percent."

There are different things you can do to mosquitos with different techniques. The article discusses several different techniques. Some eliminate disease-spreading mosquitos, some eliminate the mosquitos. In Singapore, the latter was tried out. It is not the case that Singapore used chemicals.

backhold • today at 4:47 PM

The article discussed alternative methods that have succeeded in being deployed:

> The approach has succeeded at the scale of cities. In a randomized trial in Singapore, releases of Wolbachia-infected males cut mosquito populations by 85 percent compared to control areas and dengue infections by roughly 70 percent.

(mosquitos infected with Wolbachia are both more resistant to diseases, and fail to reproduce in the case of infected male x uninfected female)