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from the hope-there-are-no-bugs-in-the-bugs-fighting-the-bugs dept.
The EPA has approved the use of bacteria-treated mosquitoes to help reduce mosquito populations. The approval will be effective for five years in 20 states and D.C.:
On November 3, 2017, EPA registered a new mosquito biopesticide – ZAP Males® - that can reduce local populations of the type of mosquito (Aedes albopictus, or Asian Tiger Mosquitoes) that can spread numerous diseases of significant human health concern, including the Zika virus.
ZAP Males® are live male mosquitoes that are infected with the ZAP strain, a particular strain of the Wolbachia bacterium. Infected males mate with females, which then produce offspring that do not survive. (Male mosquitoes do not bite people.) With continued releases of the ZAP Males®, local Aedes albopictus populations decrease. Wolbachia are naturally occurring bacteria commonly found in most insect species.
"It's a non-chemical way of dealing with mosquitoes, so from that perspective, you'd think it would have a lot of appeal," says David O'Brochta, an entomologist at the University of Maryland in Rockville."I'm glad to see it pushed forward, as I think it could be potentially really important."
MosquitoMate will rear the Wolbachia-infected A. albopictus mosquitoes in its laboratories, and then sort males from females. Then the laboratory males, which don't bite, will be released at treatment sites. When these males mate with wild females, which do not carry the same strain of Wolbachia, the resulting fertilized eggs don't hatch because the paternal chromosomes do not form properly.
The company says that over time, as more of the Wolbachia-infected males are released and breed with the wild partners, the pest population of A. albopictus mosquitoes dwindles. Other insects, including other species of mosquito, are not harmed by the practice, says Stephen Dobson, an entomologist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and founder of MosquitoMate.
NPR has reprinted a 2012 article about the idea. Also at Newsweek.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday November 10 2017, @05:09PM
That is a good explanation. What you are saying, if I understand, is that the male, as delivered from the factory, is unable to produce an offspring. And the female won't ask for a refund or replacement item.
So it is not a matter of some astronomically small chance that one out of billions of female mosquitoes will have the random mutation that allows producing an offspring and getting the evolutionary ball rolling. You're saying there is zero chance, out to infinite decimal places, that the male can produce offspring.
It seems then, that you have to produce as many males as you expect there to be females in a given area. So you would need to breed / infect / release males as fast or faster than they naturally occur. Or maybe just at a rate that brings down the entire population by a necessary percentage in each breeding cycle to ensure extermination.
I wonder if AIs will think of something like that for humans.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.