Beside by mosquito, apparently it can also be transmitted sexually:
"In 2009, Brian Foy, a biologist from the Arthropod-borne and Infectious Diseases Laboratory at Colorado State University, sexually transmitted the Zika virus to his wife. He visited Senegal to study mosquitoes and was bitten on a number of occasions. A few days after returning to the United States, he fell ill with Zika, but not before having had unprotected intercourse with his wife. She subsequently showed symptoms of Zika infection with extreme sensitivity to light. Foy is the first person known to have passed on an insect-borne virus to another human by sexual contact.
In 2015, Zika virus RNA was detected in the amniotic fluid of two fetuses, indicating that it crossed the placenta and could cause fetal infection. On 20 January 2016, scientists from the state of Paraná, Brazil, detected genetic material of Zika virus in the placenta of a woman, who had undergone an abortion due to the fetus' microcephaly, which confirmed that the virus is able to pass the placenta."
In Brazil there were public recommendations for women about avoiding getting pregnant, specially in the NE region of the country.
In a terrible use of words, the minister of public health "wished" that every girl got the Zika virus before beginning her... hum... "mature period", so that she would be protect before having any possibility of getting pregnant.
Those don't sound like terrible words to me. That sounds like a rather practical approach. And he brings up an interesting dynamic. Perhaps this wave of birth defects is partially linked to mosquito eradication. With fewer bugs around, or at least people being bitten less often, fewer girls get the disease early. A childhood disease may be returning as something far more dangerous in adults, like chickenpox. That would seem a possibility worth investigating.
Brazilians generally believe that the disease was first introduced to the country last year, which contradicts the hypothesis that acquired immunity used to be common. (I was in Brazil three weeks ago and talked to several people about zika.) Here is an item from European health authorities that agrees that the disease is new to Brazil.
While not phrased in the best way, wanting a disease whose major consequence is in pregnancy to have a very early average age of infection isn't particularly flawed. The same thing is true for rubella in countries without a robust vaccination program.
In Brazil there were public recommendations for women about avoiding getting pregnant, specially in the NE region of the country.
In a terrible use of words, the minister of public health "wished" that every girl got the Zika virus before beginning her... hum... "mature period", so that she would be protect before having any possibility of getting pregnant.
You should treat disease transmission vectors as subsets :
air > contact > sharing food/toilet facilities > sexual > blood
Any disease, say the flue, that can be transmitted by "sharing air" can be transmitted by contact, by sharing food, and sexually and blood transfusion (with very few exceptions)
They're subsets of one another. Sexually transmitted diseases are mostly that because they can't be transmitted any other way (other than sharing blood).
In fact a number of "sexually transmitted" diseases can't be transmitted sexually at all. But apparently it's somewhat common for humans' sexual organs to develop scratches during sex, resulting in blood mixing. So a number of sexually transmitted diseases cannot in fact be transmitted without exchange of blood. And euhm ... scratches are more common with anal or oral sex (sharp teeth near the relevant parts, I guarantee you there's 5 tiny bleeding scratches in your mouth right now, especially right after eating and/or stretching muscles and tissues beyond their normal limits ... leads to bleeding)
(this is not just true in humans, cats for instance are in fact much worse (due to the hook involved ... women might want to skip looking up what that means), when cats breed, you're pretty much guaranteed that you can find blood on the relevant parts. In fact, that is considered one of the signs that it's happened. Because scientists are not free to experiment on humans but are (more) free to experiment on cats we actually know more about disease transmission in pets and horses than we do about it in humans)
The definition of microcephaly is actually head circumference less than 32cm (not 42cm - that's like the 99th percentile). Brazil changed their definition from 33cm during this event, so their case count includes some borderline babies.
Another example case that could be solved by exterminating mosquitoes. We have the ability, and as best we know there would be little to no side effects. Humans are already drastically altering evolution and survival of the fittest, we might as well be smart about it.
Cost is the largest reason. While you're right in saying that we can exterminate mosquitoes, the question remains how costly that would be.
For example if we used the infertile male mosquito method, we'd need to bread billions of them and release them very carefully for maximum effect. That's do-able but a massive undertaking.
Plus we could spend tens to hundreds of millions of dollars on this (perhaps more) and have them spring back up a few years later just from a single missed colony (keep in mind they can breed in almost ALL still water, from a puddle, to a lake, to a water holding tank).
In the Americas you'd have to wipe them out in massive areas of jungle, every island, every country (even ones with bad relations), it is just mind boggling once you start thinking about it.
It is totally possible but would be the single largest human undertaking in our history.
PS - Indefinite population control might be more viable than literal extinction. Then you just release infertile males every season in the hopes of dropping their numbers in half or better.
With the possibility of being able to insert inherited traits via recent genetic advances, I believe more modern methods are looking at genetic combinations that are repressed in the parent, but lethal to any offspring (or cause infertility in offspring). [1]
FTA: "...it's difficult to see what the downside would be to removal, except for collateral damage"
The article goes on to quote biologists who think the consequences could be severe for some species (e.g., some birds).
Given their destructiveness, we may want to eradicate mosquitos, but let's not pretend that such an undertaking would not only be costly, but carry a virtually unknowable level of risk.
I am from Brazil, we are actively trying to exterminate mosquitoes, it ins't working...
First, ignorant people don't cooperate, and seemly trying to make them non-ignorant (ie: teach them), don't work, some people just refuse to learn even when you shove information in their head.
Then any slight mishap that break the systematic killing of mosquitos, allow them to come back in full force, for example in São Paulo a contract problem led the government mosquito killers to be carless for some months, meaning they could not get fast around to kill nests, in this year the mosquito population exploded, undoing several years of work.
An undertaking so MASSIVE to "kill all the trees" is absolutely hyperbolic nonsense. The parent never suggested that. At worst, if your claims above are true, more logging may occur. This is a far, far, far, far cry from killing all the trees (even when limiting the context to the rainforest).
When you're arguing with someone don't derive meaning from someone's rebuttal that doesn't exist in order to help your position; it makes it appear that you only want to deal with extremes without evidence which paints your views in a nonrealistic way.
Why not say the same to the parent, or yourself then?
The rebuttal was all about sacrificing trees to prevent brain damage to babies which is a false dichotomy. Seems like you don't have a problem with 'extremes' of meaning that don't exist when they support your position.
> Why not say the same to the parent, or yourself then?
While I thought the parent's comment was in snark / sarcastic it was still contextual and not as extreme (it was regarding the issue you brought up).
As for me? What did I say that was hyperbolic?
> The rebuttal was all about sacrificing trees to prevent brain damage to babies which is a false dichotomy.
Yes what krschultz wrote was a false dichotomy. Sarcasm tends to be just that. Though you, on the other hand, took his / her comments to an extreme that didn't make sense because of exactly what I said: you creative a narrative that didn't exist out of someone else's comment only to be hyperbolic to try and bolster your position.
"Not sure I agree with protecting the trees over preventing brain damage in babies" - krschultz
"If you kill all the trees[...]" - zepto (in reply to krschultz)
Do you understand now? Surely you can see the ridiculousness of your response to krschultz, regardless of his / her own snark / saracasm, right?
Um...what? That doesn't even make sense. How does labeling it as sarcasm "suit me" especially when I gave a talking point about how it doesn't even matter if it was or wasn't sarcasm?
This is digressing into utter nonsense. Go back to reddit if you want to troll.
It matter because if the comment about causing brain damage to babies wasn't sarcasm, then it was extreme and a false dichotomy, so your accusation against my rhetorical style would apply there equally.
You have chosen to label it as sarcasm to make your attack on the style rather than the substance of my point look reasonable - that's what I mean by it 'suiting you'.
I don't actually believe that the point about brain damaging babies was sarcasm. I think the poster was being serious because that is one of the harms caused by malaria. I don't at all see how this could be construed as a sarcastic comment.
If sarcasm was irrelevant, why did you base you use it to account for the false dichotomy?
Haha okay I'm done. You've very obviously a troll. All you want to do is try to (falsely) redirect the conversation far, far away from your hyperbolic claims that you have still yet to source (and you obviously never will). You're sitting here arguing over the intent of a statement made by someone not even in this argument simply because I stated I thought it was sarcasm but then went on the explain how it didn't even matter if it was sarcasm and why.
Go back to reddit and have run arguing with yourself.
70-80% of atmospheric oxygen comes from ocean life [0]. I'm not that worried about trees - especially since a vast majority of logging comes from forests that are maintained with the intent of logging [1]. Areas are cleared, new trees planted, and areas are harvested in cycles.
Do you have a source for all of the hyperbolic claims you're making?
You're asserting that mosquitos, possibly carrying disease, hold back logging operations significantly to the point where if the mosquitos didn't exist there would be logging that would create a "catastrophic" event.
I'm not convinced we even have enough resources at or near the ready to cause a "catastrophic" event in relation to logging even if we wanted to. Rain forests are extremely dangerous as it is, surely there are far, far better places to log?
Loggers are usually local operations. They don't hover above the world choosing the globally best places to operate. They simply go where it's cost effective. If you lower the risk, you lower the cost and the barrier will move.
What do you mean by local operations? If they're local what are they logging right now and why would their productivity go up so sharply when the mosquitos die off? Do you have any sources for any of this information? Why can't they work around them today? There are many proven ways to dealing with mosquitos.
You made a claim with no source. As I keep repeating I am awaiting your sources but you provide none.
It is not my responsibility to track down and disprove all claims made on the internet. When you make a claim you must back it up otherwise why make the claim at all?
So you're still not going to try and back up your original claims and, instead, are going to try and nitpick over anything so you can make the same argument? How petty...
Regardless the rainforest being dangerous is actually a really common theme (I know I learned about it in primary school).
I mean if this is how petty you want to go I can pull up thousands of links; the rainforest can be a pretty scary place and there are countless things in it that can kill you.
It is? Source (why do I even bother asking you at this point)?
Regardless dangerous isn't tied to a specific set of dangers. That's simply not what the word means. I gave a set of links, mentioned I could send you many, many more, and you cherry-pick a topic I didn't post...for what purpose?
I'll admit I'm not used to being trolled on HN but this is just ridiculous. If you want to just post random garbage without providing a way of backing up claims (extreme claims nonetheless) then go to reddit.
So your reasoning is simply broken here. The word dangerous is indeed not tied to a specific danger, however it is not simply a binary label that is either true or not true about a specific noun. Dangers do in fact vary in type and in relative degree. That is how the word is used in English. Words draw their meanings from their context as well as their definition.
It seems you're upset about something I said that you disagree with and are using hostility instead of reason.
You're arguing over the usage of dangerous, which was perfectly valid, as if it were a binary term? I don't get it. It was never used as such. I gave you a sampling of data and you want to continue off an example left off the sampling. So just add it? Who cares?
> It seems you're upset about something I said that you disagree with and are using hostility instead of reason.
You made a statement that was extreme and never supplied a source. At this point you're just trying to troll and branch the argument down paths that are unrelated. Just go back to reddit.
If you want to have a real, intellectual discussion about topics you yourself brought up then you need to provide source. Trying to find irrelevant faults just make you look like a troll.
One of your sources as to why rainforests are dangerous for loggers already is an ehow article on dangerous plants. You aren't trying to have a real intellectual discussion.
I think it would even be a net ecological boon if we could actually exterminate mosquitoes – tremendous effort goes into suppressing mosquitoes, all of it with significant collateral damage to the environment.
But I don't think we actually have the ability, do we? We have some promising approaches, though it's unclear to me how good any of those approaches are at getting down to zero mosquitoes. I suppose we'd need better detection as well so that we could incrementally eradicate the mosquitoes and then quickly address any resurgences.
When will humans learn that you can't just remove one thing and have it not replaced by another. There are tons of unintended consequences by doing things like this. Sure, mosquitoes might be gone, but what will replace it? We don't know, and each region might have different replacement insects. I don't think you can get rid of that amount of biomass without it being replaced by something else.
That's only the case when they are competing with something or are eating something. Mosquitoes do neither so their existence does not suppress other insects.
Whatever replaces mosquitos can't be worse than a generation of cripples, which is the biggest threat from zika. As a guy who lives in an area that's affected by dengue, chikungunya, and now also zika I say kill them all. We'll rather take our chances with hypothetical future dangers than with very real current ones.
There are plenty of species of mosquito that don't transmit these respective diseases. Sure, the diseases themselves may eventually mutate so they are transmissible by something else, but in the meantime wiping out A. Egyptii (for instance) is fine as long as other species are still there for bats, spiders, etc.
On a practical level, why would we bother? Anything that'd transform a whole population that deeply is going to be much much harder than just poisoning them, and the resulting mutant-mosquitoes aren't filling any new or useful niche. (They'll probably die anyway from competition with better-adapted species.)
Even the moral dimension seems... lacking: I doubt you'll will ever soulfully stare deep into the eyes of a mosquito and confess your species-guilt for having destroyed them, let alone explain why your cruel warping of their species was deemed the better choice.
I don't have any evidence, but I don't think that will work: life will find a way. But a modification that will let mosquitoes survive, but not bother humans (or animals), might be a good compromise.
We've tried exterminating mosquitos before. It turns out they're very hardy, and it's an extremely expensive program that needs absolute, global buy-in.
In brazil, mosquitoes may be nothing more than a pest to be eliminated. But in places like Canada and Russia (ie the north) they are a huge part of the food chain. They are so numerous that swarms could be classified as carnivorous. They eat a weight of animal protein equivalent to that consumed by a large carnivore. Actually eliminating mosquitoes as a species would be like eliminating plankton. The ripple effects locally and across the planet may be incalculable.
> as best we know there would be little to no side effects
I think that to expect just the opposite, a rearrange of all the food chain and lots of collateral effects, would be more realistic. A world suddenly without many species of fishes, birds, amphibians, spiders or predatory flies do not looks like a stable system.
There's a weird urban legend going around that DDT would solve mosquito problems -- usually with the implication that environmentalists are evil for banning this terrific substance. You appear to have succumbed to this urban legend.
The story is just not true. DDT was banned not because of blind chemical-phobia, but because the molecule is way too stable. It stays in the food chain and environment for decades. Eventually, it builds up in certain predators and wipes them out.
There are plenty of insecticides which are perfectly usable, but without DDT's problematic stability. Stability does not help with mosquito control, so the lack of stability does not hurt effectiveness.
Consider the Silicon Valley. 150 years ago the land that Facebook is on was considered uninhabitable due to mosquitos. If DDT was that crucial to killing mosquitos, then mosquitos should have recovered in the 40 years since the ban.
Stability is not a help with mosquito control? Of course it is. You can dust your dwelling and not have to treat again for a month due to the stability. It certainly is a benefit.
Yes, DDT builds up in organisms and can cause reproductive issues in some birds. The point the OP is trying to make is that we as a society decided that bird health is more important than human health.
And I'm not sure I understand your Silicon Valley example. The land that Facebook was on was drained and backfilled. No standing water, no mosquitos. What does DDT have to do with it?
Not. We banned DDT also because we care about human health.
There is evidence of adverse human health effects resulting from long-term exposure to DDT, including reproductive health effects at birth (preterm birth and low birth weight); growth reduction in boys, earlier puberty in girls and neurodevelopmental impairment in infants.
There is also evidence of neurotoxic effects in adults. Adverse pregnancies and breast cancer in women; and reduction in semen quality and development of pancreatic cancers in men.
DDT was banned in 1972 in the US. The paper you cite is from 2011.
The fact remains that no pesticide is completely non-toxic. Compared to other pesticides, DDT is actually quite safe.
If you look at the wikipedia summary of the current position on long-term toxicity, you can see that it's not a settled issue.[1]
"Overall, in spite of some positive associations for some cancers within certain subgroups of people, there is no clear evidence that exposure to DDT/DDE causes cancer in humans."
DDT intake in US peaked in 1965, but in Mexico was not banned until 2000 for example, therefore is relevant to have a recent review here. We have learned a lot and clearly linked the substance with lots of unwanted and undesired effects since 1972.
Women develop breast cancer typically around 50 years age ( the median age at diagnostics is 61) with around 230.000 new cases in US in 2015, and at a relatively stable rate (~12% of women). Thus we are far away to see the real results of DDT banning in US. Maybe we will not have a clear answer until 2022, when the women born in 1972 will reach 50 years.
...for the handful of sprayings before mosquitos evolve resistance again.
...also assuming you are fine with killing off lots of other insects including bees and other pollinators, since DDT is a very broad spectrum insecticide.
...not to mention the problem with persistence in the environment and bioaccumulation. We almost managed to kill off bald eagles after the last go-around with DDT. Now that they have recovered, let's start spraying again, right? I mean, birds... who needs them, they're noisy and their turds are gross.
Not, the answer can not be: Lets give a free round of breast cancer for all women again. This is a very bad idea. Then you'll have also two very serious dangers for human fetuses instead one.
It is never a good idea to have unsafe sex with your partner as soon as they arrive home from a trip. It is is best to let a little time pass for symptoms or conscience to develop.
Chikungunya is a horrible malaise. It is very prevalent in India. While not deadly, it can cripple you for days and also leave lasting damage to joints in older people. Every adult in my family in India has gone through a bout of it. It is a recent phenomenon, viral-arthritis type diseases were rare till chikangunya made an appearance. I dread visiting India because of the widespread prevalence of this disease and dengue.
It's very prevalent in Mexico too, however it has mainly affected low and middle-low income families, my guess is that due to poor sanitation and the areas where they live (near likes and swamps). What about in India? Because from what I can infer from your comment it seems that is much more widespread over there.
The problem in India is that the poor and the rich don't necessarily live in very different sanitary conditions. In my experience, the situation is likely worse in poorer neighborhoods, but it is still very, very bad in rich neighborhoods. Unlike countries with similar economic development metrics, India is particularly filthy. So much so that, 'Swacch Bharat' aka 'Clean India' is a big effort by the current Government.
This study from Johns Hopkins University, for example details how the prevalence mosquito-borne fevers does not follow income/class: www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2015/burden-of-dengue-chikungunya-in-india-far-worse-than-understood.html
To quote, " Researchers estimated that on average, 23 percent of those who have not yet been infected become infected by dengue every year, corresponding to roughly 228,000 infections per year in Chennai alone. “This rate of infection is extremely high, almost three times higher than in areas of Brazil and Thailand where transmission was thought to be high,” says Rodríguez-Barraquer. They also found that the rate of infection in Chennai was similar in poor communities as in more affluent neighborhoods. The research is believed to be the first to systematically measure dengue and chikungunya infection rates in India. “If you don’t understand the extent of the problem, you can’t address it,” she says. "
I'm totally terrified by this thing right now because my wife is pregnant. There's tons of mosquitoes here in Venezuela . She already got Haemorrhagic Dengue about 10 months ago.
The worst part is that because of the terrible state of the economy here, there's no insect repellent in the stores and no proper Zika test kits in the hospitals. The sanitary situation here is getting worse everyday (constant shortage of food and medicine).
Add to that the constant politization of everything, the govt hasn't even issued any infection figures or warnings.
I had to ask a friend coming from the US to bring some DEET repellent. But not everyone has the same opportunity.
(Joking aside, Venezuela has a quasi-command economy with foreign exchange controls; this results in a shortage of imported goods and it may be prohibitively expensive to do a personal import)
What about a personal package being sent? If it would help a guy from having his pregnant wife getting some insane fever, I could ship him a box of DEET stuff.
There are a lot of forwarding services here that let you buy stuff online, have it sent to a US address and then they send it to you in Venezuela. I actually do some occasional work for one such company.
Also, since so many venezuelans are leaving the country, lots of people living in Panama and the US are sending stuff to their friends and family in the country using these companies. The shipping and taxes are expensive sometimes but it's an alternative at least.
As pjc50 said, we have a foreign exchange control that restricts the amount of dollars you can buy in a year. It used to be $300 per year, but now it's practically zero because the govt has not authorized it yet.
I've got some (very) small savings in dollars from some grunt jobs I do every now and then online and I can buy some stuff like prenatal vitamins, repellent, etc.
Permethrin is what the pros use. It's way better than DEET, and less dangerous. I've been using it for a while now to prevent ticks and have been really impressed with it's effectiveness. You apply it your cloths not directly on your skin.
I ask myself that every day , especially now with a baby coming. 150% inflation in 2015 from January to September. Food and medicine shortages. Huge lines to buy food, diapers, baby formula.
Almost all of my closest friends have already left. I think about leaving every day. I am teaching myself programming and studying for CCNA , thinking that maybe I can get a job somewhere relatively quickly , even though I'm in my mid-thirties and have limited experience in those areas.
Brazil can't get their mosquitoes under control. They have been struggling to eradicate Dengue (breakbone fever) for years. Health authority is too slow, too unprepared, and lacking budget. The government is corrupt and the people don't seem to care.
It seems that microcephaly is associated with onset of Zika during the first trimester of pregnancy. Considering the mild nature of the illness, couldn't the virus be its own vaccine? Could a woman proactively contract the virus while postponing pregnancy, in order to thwart it?
I expect the situation is similar to the flu: once you contract a strain, you develop immunity to that specific strain, but as soon as the disease, which is under highly selective pressure to mutate, mutates, you are once again susceptible to the new strain. It might work for a short while, but not a full pregnancy.
A grandnephew of my wife was born with microcephaly, likely one of the first victims of Zika virus, when the surge of the birth defect was still not detected by public health.
I can just imagine the social cost of that -- how many persons in family will have to dedicate to care, work just to supply money for the necessary medical treatments, and/or losing professional opportunities because of this. I estimate the impact in 10:1.
This is getting serious here in southern Mexico, we just had a chikungunya outbreak a year ago and now this. These situations remind me of a talk given at Oscon Data by Steve Yegge about working on the things that matter[0]. Virus are complex and modelling molecular biology requires CS expertise, it's kind of sad that we're normally discussing the new JS frameworks instead of working on the hard(and important)problems.
>it's kind of sad that we're normally discussing the new JS frameworks instead of working on the hard(and important)problems.
What gives you the impression that people contributing to JS frameworks have the potential to meaningfully contribute to "hard problems" in molecular biology ?
>the new generations of smart talented folks are choosing CS over other career choices
Umm... he is arguing that CS is exactly what people should be focusing because CS (ML/data processing, etc.) applied to existing fields and data could lead to new insights - so more smart people going to CS is a good thing (at least according to Yegge).
My point is that CS has practically nothing to do with writing JS frameworks and frankly I doubt that most people doing JS development are the kind of people that could make significant contributions to CS or mentioned sciences - maybe a fraction of the top % - but JS is a low barrier to entry, easy to get simple things done, sufficient to solve real world problems like automating CRUD TPS reports - because someone needs to do that as well. I've had the misfortune of working with that platform - JS is by far the lowest quality ecosystem I've seen* (I never really got into PHP so I can't compare).
IMO Yegge makes a stronger point suggesting that data science people are being driven to "catbook" projects instead of "important stuff" - but those people are not your everyday JS developers.
Correct, not everybody can do significant contributions to say molecular biology. My point is that we need more smart people working on the problems that matter and right now we have a lot of smart people working on http://(buzzwords).io
An illness that I thought was influenza just swept through my household and included pretty severe pink eye / conjunctivitis type symptoms. Are there any other viruses circulating North America that would have such symptoms? I live in the Sierra mountains where mosquitos are rare, so I find this all very interesting/confusing.
I live in Hawaii and last week saw the first confirmed case of Zika virus in the United States in a child born with microcephaly on the Big Island. [1]
The mother had recently traveled to Brazil and thankfully neither her nor the baby are infectious -- but, living in the tropics, it seems to be only a matter of time until we see mosquitoes carrying Zika here.
112 comments
[ 0.37 ms ] story [ 220 ms ] threadIn 2015, Zika virus RNA was detected in the amniotic fluid of two fetuses, indicating that it crossed the placenta and could cause fetal infection. On 20 January 2016, scientists from the state of Paraná, Brazil, detected genetic material of Zika virus in the placenta of a woman, who had undergone an abortion due to the fetus' microcephaly, which confirmed that the virus is able to pass the placenta."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zika_virus#Transmission
In a terrible use of words, the minister of public health "wished" that every girl got the Zika virus before beginning her... hum... "mature period", so that she would be protect before having any possibility of getting pregnant.
http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications/Publications/rapid-ris...
Edit: the linked BBC article also states that it was first reported in Brazil in May 2015 (at least in recent years).
In a terrible use of words, the minister of public health "wished" that every girl got the Zika virus before beginning her... hum... "mature period", so that she would be protect before having any possibility of getting pregnant.
air > contact > sharing food/toilet facilities > sexual > blood
Any disease, say the flue, that can be transmitted by "sharing air" can be transmitted by contact, by sharing food, and sexually and blood transfusion (with very few exceptions)
They're subsets of one another. Sexually transmitted diseases are mostly that because they can't be transmitted any other way (other than sharing blood).
In fact a number of "sexually transmitted" diseases can't be transmitted sexually at all. But apparently it's somewhat common for humans' sexual organs to develop scratches during sex, resulting in blood mixing. So a number of sexually transmitted diseases cannot in fact be transmitted without exchange of blood. And euhm ... scratches are more common with anal or oral sex (sharp teeth near the relevant parts, I guarantee you there's 5 tiny bleeding scratches in your mouth right now, especially right after eating and/or stretching muscles and tissues beyond their normal limits ... leads to bleeding)
(this is not just true in humans, cats for instance are in fact much worse (due to the hook involved ... women might want to skip looking up what that means), when cats breed, you're pretty much guaranteed that you can find blood on the relevant parts. In fact, that is considered one of the signs that it's happened. Because scientists are not free to experiment on humans but are (more) free to experiment on cats we actually know more about disease transmission in pets and horses than we do about it in humans)
For example if we used the infertile male mosquito method, we'd need to bread billions of them and release them very carefully for maximum effect. That's do-able but a massive undertaking.
Plus we could spend tens to hundreds of millions of dollars on this (perhaps more) and have them spring back up a few years later just from a single missed colony (keep in mind they can breed in almost ALL still water, from a puddle, to a lake, to a water holding tank).
In the Americas you'd have to wipe them out in massive areas of jungle, every island, every country (even ones with bad relations), it is just mind boggling once you start thinking about it.
It is totally possible but would be the single largest human undertaking in our history.
PS - Indefinite population control might be more viable than literal extinction. Then you just release infertile males every season in the hopes of dropping their numbers in half or better.
[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/health-35024794
Geneticists have discovered ways to drive terminal genes into entire populations. A mosquito species could be wiped out in no time with a gene drive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive
Thanks alpeb!
The article goes on to quote biologists who think the consequences could be severe for some species (e.g., some birds).
Given their destructiveness, we may want to eradicate mosquitos, but let's not pretend that such an undertaking would not only be costly, but carry a virtually unknowable level of risk.
First, ignorant people don't cooperate, and seemly trying to make them non-ignorant (ie: teach them), don't work, some people just refuse to learn even when you shove information in their head.
Then any slight mishap that break the systematic killing of mosquitos, allow them to come back in full force, for example in São Paulo a contract problem led the government mosquito killers to be carless for some months, meaning they could not get fast around to kill nests, in this year the mosquito population exploded, undoing several years of work.
They have nests? I was born in northern canada, mosquito capital of the planet, and that's news to me.
If this barrier were removed without a suitable alternative means of regulation, the consequences could be catastrophic.
I agree with you that we should be smart about how we alter evolution.
Humans depend on the biosphere for survival.
I agree that protecting babies from brain damage is very important, but certainly not at any cost.
An undertaking so MASSIVE to "kill all the trees" is absolutely hyperbolic nonsense. The parent never suggested that. At worst, if your claims above are true, more logging may occur. This is a far, far, far, far cry from killing all the trees (even when limiting the context to the rainforest).
When you're arguing with someone don't derive meaning from someone's rebuttal that doesn't exist in order to help your position; it makes it appear that you only want to deal with extremes without evidence which paints your views in a nonrealistic way.
The rebuttal was all about sacrificing trees to prevent brain damage to babies which is a false dichotomy. Seems like you don't have a problem with 'extremes' of meaning that don't exist when they support your position.
While I thought the parent's comment was in snark / sarcastic it was still contextual and not as extreme (it was regarding the issue you brought up).
As for me? What did I say that was hyperbolic?
> The rebuttal was all about sacrificing trees to prevent brain damage to babies which is a false dichotomy.
Yes what krschultz wrote was a false dichotomy. Sarcasm tends to be just that. Though you, on the other hand, took his / her comments to an extreme that didn't make sense because of exactly what I said: you creative a narrative that didn't exist out of someone else's comment only to be hyperbolic to try and bolster your position.
"Not sure I agree with protecting the trees over preventing brain damage in babies" - krschultz
"If you kill all the trees[...]" - zepto (in reply to krschultz)
Do you understand now? Surely you can see the ridiculousness of your response to krschultz, regardless of his / her own snark / saracasm, right?
If it's sarcasm, then it doesn't stand as an argument and my original point goes unrefuted. You can't have it both ways.
This is digressing into utter nonsense. Go back to reddit if you want to troll.
You have chosen to label it as sarcasm to make your attack on the style rather than the substance of my point look reasonable - that's what I mean by it 'suiting you'.
I don't actually believe that the point about brain damaging babies was sarcasm. I think the poster was being serious because that is one of the harms caused by malaria. I don't at all see how this could be construed as a sarcastic comment.
If sarcasm was irrelevant, why did you base you use it to account for the false dichotomy?
Go back to reddit and have run arguing with yourself.
[0] http://www.ecology.com/2011/09/12/important-organism/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_forest_management
Around the 88% of logging in Indonesia and 80% of logging in Brazil and Bolivia could be illegal in fact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_logging
You're asserting that mosquitos, possibly carrying disease, hold back logging operations significantly to the point where if the mosquitos didn't exist there would be logging that would create a "catastrophic" event.
I'm not convinced we even have enough resources at or near the ready to cause a "catastrophic" event in relation to logging even if we wanted to. Rain forests are extremely dangerous as it is, surely there are far, far better places to log?
Asking a barrage of innuendo laden questions to create doubt is not an argument.
It is not my responsibility to track down and disprove all claims made on the internet. When you make a claim you must back it up otherwise why make the claim at all?
Why did you make these claims without backing them up?
Regardless the rainforest being dangerous is actually a really common theme (I know I learned about it in primary school).
Tips for tourists: http://traveltips.usatoday.com/dangers-amazon-rainforest-116...
Surviving the Jungle: http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/survival/wilderness/jungl...
Poisonous plants of the jungle: http://www.ehow.com/list_6698309_poisonous-plants-amazon.htm...
I mean if this is how petty you want to go I can pull up thousands of links; the rainforest can be a pretty scary place and there are countless things in it that can kill you.
Regardless dangerous isn't tied to a specific set of dangers. That's simply not what the word means. I gave a set of links, mentioned I could send you many, many more, and you cherry-pick a topic I didn't post...for what purpose?
I'll admit I'm not used to being trolled on HN but this is just ridiculous. If you want to just post random garbage without providing a way of backing up claims (extreme claims nonetheless) then go to reddit.
It seems you're upset about something I said that you disagree with and are using hostility instead of reason.
> It seems you're upset about something I said that you disagree with and are using hostility instead of reason.
You made a statement that was extreme and never supplied a source. At this point you're just trying to troll and branch the argument down paths that are unrelated. Just go back to reddit.
If you want to have a real, intellectual discussion about topics you yourself brought up then you need to provide source. Trying to find irrelevant faults just make you look like a troll.
Have fun arguing with yourself.
But I don't think we actually have the ability, do we? We have some promising approaches, though it's unclear to me how good any of those approaches are at getting down to zero mosquitoes. I suppose we'd need better detection as well so that we could incrementally eradicate the mosquitoes and then quickly address any resurgences.
Even the moral dimension seems... lacking: I doubt you'll will ever soulfully stare deep into the eyes of a mosquito and confess your species-guilt for having destroyed them, let alone explain why your cruel warping of their species was deemed the better choice.
I don't have any evidence, but I don't think that will work: life will find a way. But a modification that will let mosquitoes survive, but not bother humans (or animals), might be a good compromise.
Malaria was once endemic to the US, and while we didn't at the time have the capability to totally eradicate mosquitoes, that didn't stop the CDC from wiping it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Malaria_Eradication_P...
It'd be wonderful to see mosquitoes utterly eliminated. They're the source of massive human suffering worldwide.
I think that to expect just the opposite, a rearrange of all the food chain and lots of collateral effects, would be more realistic. A world suddenly without many species of fishes, birds, amphibians, spiders or predatory flies do not looks like a stable system.
The story is just not true. DDT was banned not because of blind chemical-phobia, but because the molecule is way too stable. It stays in the food chain and environment for decades. Eventually, it builds up in certain predators and wipes them out.
There are plenty of insecticides which are perfectly usable, but without DDT's problematic stability. Stability does not help with mosquito control, so the lack of stability does not hurt effectiveness.
Consider the Silicon Valley. 150 years ago the land that Facebook is on was considered uninhabitable due to mosquitos. If DDT was that crucial to killing mosquitos, then mosquitos should have recovered in the 40 years since the ban.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT
Yes, DDT builds up in organisms and can cause reproductive issues in some birds. The point the OP is trying to make is that we as a society decided that bird health is more important than human health.
And I'm not sure I understand your Silicon Valley example. The land that Facebook was on was drained and backfilled. No standing water, no mosquitos. What does DDT have to do with it?
There is evidence of adverse human health effects resulting from long-term exposure to DDT, including reproductive health effects at birth (preterm birth and low birth weight); growth reduction in boys, earlier puberty in girls and neurodevelopmental impairment in infants.
There is also evidence of neurotoxic effects in adults. Adverse pregnancies and breast cancer in women; and reduction in semen quality and development of pancreatic cancers in men.
Source: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780444522...
The fact remains that no pesticide is completely non-toxic. Compared to other pesticides, DDT is actually quite safe.
If you look at the wikipedia summary of the current position on long-term toxicity, you can see that it's not a settled issue.[1]
"Overall, in spite of some positive associations for some cancers within certain subgroups of people, there is no clear evidence that exposure to DDT/DDE causes cancer in humans."
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Chronic_toxicity
Women develop breast cancer typically around 50 years age ( the median age at diagnostics is 61) with around 230.000 new cases in US in 2015, and at a relatively stable rate (~12% of women). Thus we are far away to see the real results of DDT banning in US. Maybe we will not have a clear answer until 2022, when the women born in 1972 will reach 50 years.
...for the handful of sprayings before mosquitos evolve resistance again.
...also assuming you are fine with killing off lots of other insects including bees and other pollinators, since DDT is a very broad spectrum insecticide.
...not to mention the problem with persistence in the environment and bioaccumulation. We almost managed to kill off bald eagles after the last go-around with DDT. Now that they have recovered, let's start spraying again, right? I mean, birds... who needs them, they're noisy and their turds are gross.
Handled by corrupt and incompetent Brazilian public health officials? Thanks but I prefer the mosquito.
Separately, the piece mentions that one person in the world is known to become infected through this vector, making the risk absolutely negligible.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chikungunya
This study from Johns Hopkins University, for example details how the prevalence mosquito-borne fevers does not follow income/class: www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2015/burden-of-dengue-chikungunya-in-india-far-worse-than-understood.html
To quote, " Researchers estimated that on average, 23 percent of those who have not yet been infected become infected by dengue every year, corresponding to roughly 228,000 infections per year in Chennai alone. “This rate of infection is extremely high, almost three times higher than in areas of Brazil and Thailand where transmission was thought to be high,” says Rodríguez-Barraquer. They also found that the rate of infection in Chennai was similar in poor communities as in more affluent neighborhoods. The research is believed to be the first to systematically measure dengue and chikungunya infection rates in India. “If you don’t understand the extent of the problem, you can’t address it,” she says. "
The worst part is that because of the terrible state of the economy here, there's no insect repellent in the stores and no proper Zika test kits in the hospitals. The sanitary situation here is getting worse everyday (constant shortage of food and medicine).
Add to that the constant politization of everything, the govt hasn't even issued any infection figures or warnings.
I had to ask a friend coming from the US to bring some DEET repellent. But not everyone has the same opportunity.
(Joking aside, Venezuela has a quasi-command economy with foreign exchange controls; this results in a shortage of imported goods and it may be prohibitively expensive to do a personal import)
Also, since so many venezuelans are leaving the country, lots of people living in Panama and the US are sending stuff to their friends and family in the country using these companies. The shipping and taxes are expensive sometimes but it's an alternative at least.
I've got some (very) small savings in dollars from some grunt jobs I do every now and then online and I can buy some stuff like prenatal vitamins, repellent, etc.
Almost all of my closest friends have already left. I think about leaving every day. I am teaching myself programming and studying for CCNA , thinking that maybe I can get a job somewhere relatively quickly , even though I'm in my mid-thirties and have limited experience in those areas.
The answer: the same thing that keeps everyone outside the first-world in their place... the inability to get a visa to greener pastures.
That's the real problem from which all others derive.
I can just imagine the social cost of that -- how many persons in family will have to dedicate to care, work just to supply money for the necessary medical treatments, and/or losing professional opportunities because of this. I estimate the impact in 10:1.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKmQW_Nkfk8
What gives you the impression that people contributing to JS frameworks have the potential to meaningfully contribute to "hard problems" in molecular biology ?
On the macro level, the new generations of smart talented folks are choosing CS over other career choices.
Umm... he is arguing that CS is exactly what people should be focusing because CS (ML/data processing, etc.) applied to existing fields and data could lead to new insights - so more smart people going to CS is a good thing (at least according to Yegge).
My point is that CS has practically nothing to do with writing JS frameworks and frankly I doubt that most people doing JS development are the kind of people that could make significant contributions to CS or mentioned sciences - maybe a fraction of the top % - but JS is a low barrier to entry, easy to get simple things done, sufficient to solve real world problems like automating CRUD TPS reports - because someone needs to do that as well. I've had the misfortune of working with that platform - JS is by far the lowest quality ecosystem I've seen* (I never really got into PHP so I can't compare).
IMO Yegge makes a stronger point suggesting that data science people are being driven to "catbook" projects instead of "important stuff" - but those people are not your everyday JS developers.
The mother had recently traveled to Brazil and thankfully neither her nor the baby are infectious -- but, living in the tropics, it seems to be only a matter of time until we see mosquitoes carrying Zika here.
[1] http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/31007233/hawaii-health-of...