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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I am

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Speaker 1: Christian Seger. Hey. The other night, I went outside to

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Speaker 1: bring my dogs in before we went to bed covered

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Speaker 1: in mosquito. B It's it's that season, it is. I

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Speaker 1: was just and I can't do anything, like even if

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Speaker 1: I get out there and I start putting the spray on,

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Speaker 1: they get to me before then. Yeah. We uh, we

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Speaker 1: have we have a company that comes in sprays the

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Speaker 1: yard with some sort of biologically friendly stuff. It's not

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Speaker 1: friendly to the mosquitoes obviously, or I think to the

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Speaker 1: bees either, but it allows us to actually go out

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Speaker 1: in our yard and not have to worry as much

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Speaker 1: about the mosquitoes. But yeah, this is a terrible time

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Speaker 1: for mosquitoes just in general. Uh. And on top of that,

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Speaker 1: we have all the added concerns about the zekov right,

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Speaker 1: especially because like as we're recording this, there's just been

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Speaker 1: announced that it's zico virus has been found in Florida, right,

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Speaker 1: which we are in Georgia. That's not that far away. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And I suspect highly that there are a lot of people,

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Speaker 1: especially pregnant women, who are very concerned about that. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean I have a couple of friends who are

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Speaker 1: currently pregnant and they have been, uh, very very mindful

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Speaker 1: of the scenario. So we thought it would be a

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Speaker 1: good opportunity to talk a little bit, a little bit

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Speaker 1: about mosquitoes in general, the pressure on what this organism is,

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Speaker 1: why they're so successful, but more importantly getting into one

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Speaker 1: of the more unique strategies out there to combat the mosquitoes,

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Speaker 1: that is the mosquito factory. Yeah, and you covered this

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Speaker 1: for How Stuff Works now was it last week? So

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Speaker 1: if if you you guys are interested in hearing more

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Speaker 1: about this and diving a little deeper. Robert both wrote

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Speaker 1: an article about it, and uh did a short video

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Speaker 1: that's about three minutes long. And I imagine that we'll

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Speaker 1: be able to post that to our social media fairly

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Speaker 1: soon too. Yeah, and that'll contain a link to our

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Speaker 1: podcast probably in the podcast landing page will definitely have

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Speaker 1: links back to the blue. We can combine them all,

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Speaker 1: so like, depending on how deep you want to dive

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Speaker 1: into mosquito land, you know, it's all right there in

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Speaker 1: one suite for you. But but the video is really

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Speaker 1: cool because you talk about this new innovation in China,

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Speaker 1: which is a big part of what we're gonna talk

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Speaker 1: about today, using Walbakia bacteria in mosquitoes to try to

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Speaker 1: basically kill off the population of mosquitoes that spread dengae

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Speaker 1: fever and zica. Yeah, to kill off, but also to

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Speaker 1: manage and redefine. Really so it's it's pretty interesting because

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Speaker 1: it goes it's we'll discuss it goes beyond merely wiping

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Speaker 1: out your enemy but also manipulating your enemy, and there's

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Speaker 1: there's you know, potential consequences to rewards like that as well.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about all of that today on the episode.

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Speaker 1: But to start off, we're gonna we're gonna discuss the

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Speaker 1: enemy itself, the mosquito. And the mosquito is a weird

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Speaker 1: creature to to discuss because it it's unlike most of

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Speaker 1: the creatures that you're able you're generally going to encounter

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Speaker 1: in your daily life. It is most certainly the enemy. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's true, right, Like nobody feels sorry for mosquitoes, even like,

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Speaker 1: like I'm a as as people know from listening to

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Speaker 1: this show, we talk about this sometimes, I'm a vegetarian,

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Speaker 1: and yet like if I'm getting bitten by mosquito, my

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Speaker 1: automatic reaction is like smack that thing, you know, get

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Speaker 1: it or get it away from me as fast as possible,

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Speaker 1: you know. Even uh geez, Like even cockroaches sometimes I'll

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Speaker 1: be like a little nicer to and like try to

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Speaker 1: scoop them up and get them out of the house

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Speaker 1: or something. But a mosquito, I'm just like, no, I

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Speaker 1: don't want to deal with this. Yeah, there's just there's

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Speaker 1: absolutely no remorse, and it's it's been weird raising a child.

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Speaker 1: My son is now four, and we've been really trying

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Speaker 1: to emphasize that you need to be compassionate. And you know,

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Speaker 1: we don't just sqush bugs because they're there. We we

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Speaker 1: take an interest in them. We give them the distance

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Speaker 1: they need, and when we find something the house, we

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Speaker 1: light it out, you know. But the mosquito, that's the

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Speaker 1: the only creature where we've taught him. Oh, if you

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Speaker 1: see one of those who snack it um, and if

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Speaker 1: you see it on someone else, you can even smack it,

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Speaker 1: you know, whatever the costs. This is our enemy and

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Speaker 1: we must defeated, no matter no matter what. Yeah. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: especially like I don't know if your son is like this,

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Speaker 1: but I remember growing up, like my mom used to

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Speaker 1: always say like, oh, they love your ears, because I

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Speaker 1: would get just mosquitoes would go right behind my ears always,

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Speaker 1: and maybe that was just like the best source of

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Speaker 1: blood or something like that. They're they're drawn to him, um,

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Speaker 1: and he he seems to have more of a reaction

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Speaker 1: to him. And he's the kids, so he scratched him

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Speaker 1: more so. So even on days where I'm not wearing sprays,

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Speaker 1: like we're just spraying all sorts of stuff on him

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Speaker 1: and the injury's covered up. Otherwise, they just eat him

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Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah. Yeah, And it's uh, We've we talked

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Speaker 1: about this a little bit on our vampire episode when

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Speaker 1: we when we were talking about the science of vampires

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Speaker 1: drinking blood, right, and we sort of compared it to

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Speaker 1: the mosquito and the science of that. If you're interested

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Speaker 1: in that, you go back and check out that episode.

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Speaker 1: But this made me think of that, right because of

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Speaker 1: the like the sort of idea of if you just

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Speaker 1: let mosquitoes drink you constantly, it would still take them

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Speaker 1: like months to drain a body. And yet like they're

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Speaker 1: such a constant annoying pest because they don't drink you

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Speaker 1: all at once. They just get a little sip here,

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Speaker 1: a little sip here exactly from this guy, a little

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Speaker 1: from this gal. And I think if I remember from

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Speaker 1: the Vampire episode that was sort of the proposal for

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Speaker 1: the functional vampire was that's how they should operate as well, right,

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Speaker 1: all right, So let's talk about this, uh, this most

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Speaker 1: perfect organism, the mosquito. The world is currently home to

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Speaker 1: roughly thirty five hundred named species of mosquitoes, though only

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Speaker 1: about two hundred or so directly bother humans. Um. And

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Speaker 1: you can't really blame him, right because, I mean, just

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Speaker 1: look at us, like the mosquito. We thrive with these

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Speaker 1: throughout most of the world. We also offer large expanses

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Speaker 1: of relatively hairless skin, all of it coursing with delicious blood.

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Speaker 1: And we have we tend to be distracted by stuff.

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Speaker 1: You know. It's like my son walks outside, he's just

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Speaker 1: doing his thing. Yeah, I'm working on the porch, and

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Speaker 1: then everybody else in the neighborhood is playing Pokemon Go,

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Speaker 1: just just just sitting there waiting to be sucked dry

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Speaker 1: by the mosquito. Somebody should do a study on the

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Speaker 1: effect of pokemon go on on mosquito population. Probably it's

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Speaker 1: probably done a lot for him. We also have to

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Speaker 1: remember two of those species, though it's only the females

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Speaker 1: that are drinking blood. Yeah, that's that's one of the

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Speaker 1: important factors here. The females drink the blood because they

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Speaker 1: have to use the blood to UH as part of

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Speaker 1: their reproductive cycle to actually develop the eggs. The males

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Speaker 1: they do not drink the blood. And we'll and we'll

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Speaker 1: get back to the difference between the males and the

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Speaker 1: females in a minute. Um. Mosquitoes in general, though they're

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Speaker 1: accomplished flyers, as you know very well from your attempts

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Speaker 1: to kill them. Their skills at infiltrating human habitats. They can,

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Speaker 1: they hitch c spanning rides. They invade new continents, as

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Speaker 1: we see with the invasive yellow fever carrying aidis agypty

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Speaker 1: in South America. They also benefit from an inc readibly

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Speaker 1: fast reproductive cycle. All they need is the tiniest bit

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Speaker 1: of standing water to deposit their eggs in, which developed

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Speaker 1: into their aquatic wriggling larva. UH. Abandoned swimming pools and

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Speaker 1: bird baths are great, but they can also make do

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Speaker 1: with a pet bow, candy rapp or even like just

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Speaker 1: small puddles and cracks in the earth. So one of

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Speaker 1: the things that I read for this that didn't make

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Speaker 1: it into the notes was that in Brazil, where they're

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Speaker 1: very you know, we're gonna talk about that later, and

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Speaker 1: I'm very concerned about this. Uh, they actually sent military

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Speaker 1: out home to home to make sure that there weren't

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Speaker 1: tires in the yards filled with water. Yeah, because that

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Speaker 1: big of a problem they need to, like, uh, their

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Speaker 1: primary concern is managing these these stale water sources are sorry,

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Speaker 1: stagnant water sources. But but you know, it's one of

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Speaker 1: those things where, yeah, you can go to homes, you

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Speaker 1: can sweep the area, and you can turn over old

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Speaker 1: old kiddy swimming pools and old tires, but they're all

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Speaker 1: those little things, I mean, just a candy wrap. You know.

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Speaker 1: They're just wonderful infiltrators. And they have four stages that

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Speaker 1: there's the adult, there's the water surface eggs, and then

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Speaker 1: there's the sub surface larva. They breathe through snorkels of

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Speaker 1: sort a little breathing tracheal tubes that poke up through

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Speaker 1: the surface of the water and then when those developed,

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Speaker 1: then the mosquito comes up up to the surface, flies off,

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Speaker 1: and they're ready to go. Yeah, they're vicious, and then

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Speaker 1: they like it's so incredibly quick. And that's part of

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Speaker 1: the difficulty of trying to manage their populations too, is

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Speaker 1: how fast they breed and their cycle of life is.

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Speaker 1: Now they've been with us a while. They've been around

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Speaker 1: roughly one hundred million years, according to the sources I

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Speaker 1: was looking at, And according to Dark Banquet author Bill

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Speaker 1: Shoot we mentioned on the vampire episode because that's an

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Speaker 1: excellent book about blood drinkers in general, with an emphasis

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Speaker 1: on bats, but also some of the discussion of mosquitoes.

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Speaker 1: He points out that the oldest evidence for blood feeding

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Speaker 1: actually comes from a fossil proto mosquito from the Triassic

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Speaker 1: period two hundred twenty million years ago. Now, this is

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Speaker 1: the time when there were no flowering plants, so the

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Speaker 1: elongated probiscus on this creature is thought to have functioned

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Speaker 1: more or less like the modern mosquitoes. I'm imagining that

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Speaker 1: they were bigger, though everything was bigger. Yeah, it's it's

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Speaker 1: like the one that Homer Simpson kills. Yeah, exactly. It

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Speaker 1: travels back in time. Now you'll find mosquitoes and every

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Speaker 1: continent except Antarctica, they thrive, and even our most exhaustive

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Speaker 1: steps to eradicate them often only serves to do them

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Speaker 1: in for a short period of time. Uh, there's a

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Speaker 1: there's an article in Technology Review that came out recently

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Speaker 1: looking at some of the efforts were discussing here, and

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Speaker 1: they pointed out that Brazilian officials declared invasive yellow fever

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Speaker 1: carrying a Us a Gypti mosquitoes eradicated in night following

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Speaker 1: some rather intense efforts. Is kind of door to door

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Speaker 1: kind of thing we're talking about here, only to experience

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Speaker 1: reinvasion in the decades to follow, and then you're right

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Speaker 1: back where you were to begin with. Yeah, it's uh,

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Speaker 1: that was that was a time where they were they

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Speaker 1: were using a lot of sprays as well as like

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Speaker 1: sort of like you know, like you said, door to

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Speaker 1: doorm management, trying to make sure everyone was following sort

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Speaker 1: of best practices, and yet here they are it's back

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Speaker 1: worse than ever. Now, this is interesting. We've we've mentioned

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Speaker 1: the difference between males and females, even though the females

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Speaker 1: are the only ones doing the blood drinking both sexes

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Speaker 1: of the of mosquito take advantage of plant nectar for nourishment, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's one of the big concerns along the lines of

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Speaker 1: eradicating them is what would it do to the plant

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Speaker 1: population that's pollinating. Yeah, yeah, we'll and and we'll we'll

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Speaker 1: get into that and the like I think the final

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Speaker 1: portion of the podcast. But yeah, people often don't realize

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Speaker 1: that that in addition to drinking blood, they're also visiting

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Speaker 1: these different plants um and the female blood drinking. If

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Speaker 1: nothing else, that really knocks the already shaky science foundation

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Speaker 1: out from under. The two thousand five sci fi original

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Speaker 1: picture Man Squito, in which a half man, half mosquito

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Speaker 1: hybrid sucks blood and seeks out a female mate. If

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Speaker 1: you've seen this, I've not seen it. I'm I've heard

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Speaker 1: of it, and I gosh, I can't remember off the

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Speaker 1: top of my head, but I just feel like there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of sort of giant mosquito or or

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Speaker 1: where mosquito type things in like some pretty trashy science fiction. Actually,

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Speaker 1: you know what's a good one. In that China Mieville

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Speaker 1: boss Log universe, there's a species I think they're called

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Speaker 1: the anopolies or something like that. Uh, and their mosquito

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Speaker 1: women that like zip around on wings and like attack

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Speaker 1: people and drain them dry. Well he got the sex

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Speaker 1: right at Yeah he did. Well, you know Meavil does

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Speaker 1: his research. Now. I don't want to hate on Manskitot

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Speaker 1: too much because the director uh Pbore Takas. He actually

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Speaker 1: gave us the super fun Night seven film The Gate.

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Speaker 1: I yeah, I like the Gate I saw that recently,

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Speaker 1: and and to follow up the Night ninety Nines the

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Speaker 1: gate To, both of which were yeah, tremendous fun. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think a young what's his name, the villain from

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Speaker 1: the first Blade movie was in Oh, yeah, you're right, God,

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Speaker 1: what is his name? Stephen Dorff? That's the one. Okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: young Stephen Dorff demon summoning wishes granted and then wishes

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Speaker 1: turning into poop after the fact that it's a pretty

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Speaker 1: fair that's like back when they made horror movies for

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Speaker 1: little kids, and I guess we have goose bumps nowadays. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe we'll get back into that. I feel

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Speaker 1: like that's one of the strengths of the recent Netflix

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Speaker 1: hit Stranger Things, so it catch into that that childhood

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Speaker 1: adventure scenario exactly. Um, certainly, even though I don't think

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Speaker 1: there are any direct references to the Gate in that show,

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Speaker 1: that's a little bit of the Gates DNA. Yeah, alright,

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Speaker 1: So anyway, the females do feed on the blood, and

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Speaker 1: they feed on it a lot, and they feed by

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Speaker 1: dipping into an organism's blood and then another organism's blood

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Speaker 1: and then another, making them an ideal disease factor. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So this is where the real problem comes about, and

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Speaker 1: especially with this atis a Gyp dy uh species, because

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Speaker 1: they're the ones that really are carrying so many of

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Speaker 1: these diseases that are problematic for the human population. Of course,

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Speaker 1: one of the big ones, the most famous one perhaps

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Speaker 1: even malaria, and according to some estimate estimations, mosquito born

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Speaker 1: malaria kills one human being every twelve seconds. That's how

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Speaker 1: pervasive a problem this is. Well, they're also responsible for

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Speaker 1: dog heartworm, also dengay fever, which we're gonna be talking

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Speaker 1: about a lot today. You mentioned yellow fever already. There's

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Speaker 1: also estern equine and sephalitis. St. Louis encephalitis, lacrosse and scephalitis,

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Speaker 1: Western equine and sephalitis all is there a plural for encephalitis.

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Speaker 1: I think we just sephalitis is just created, and then

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Speaker 1: West Nile virus, and now of course zekra, which everybody

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Speaker 1: is very concerned about. Now, I just wanted to give

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Speaker 1: us like a very tiny primer. Obviously there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of out there about ZEKEI right now, but you know, frankly,

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Speaker 1: like I wasn't quite aware of like the actual symptoms

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Speaker 1: of it. For most people, it just causes a mild rash.

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Speaker 1: The real concern here is the link to four thousand

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Speaker 1: Brazilian children that were born with microcephaly or what's sometimes

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Speaker 1: called shrunken heads um. But we currently don't have a

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Speaker 1: vaccine for ZEKA, and developing a vaccine could take years,

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Speaker 1: so that there's a lot of concern about it. Also,

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Speaker 1: I believe it is sexually transmittable as well. Yeah, see

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Speaker 1: I did not know that. So it's it's we're continuing

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Speaker 1: to learn exactly how it works and the problems and

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Speaker 1: trying to fight it, which often comes back around to

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Speaker 1: fighting mosquitoes, fighting the the the vectors that are spreading

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Speaker 1: it from one person to the next, And in the

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Speaker 1: past we've depended on powerful and secticides like DDT to

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Speaker 1: curb mosquito populations, but we've been forced to try different

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Speaker 1: approaches in recent years, including the use of of a

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Speaker 1: natural occurring soil bacterium called Bacillus the ginus that actually

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Speaker 1: kills the insect larva. And then of course there are

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Speaker 1: there are more advanced techniques, and that's really what we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk about today. Some of these these really

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Speaker 1: really intriguing ideas that go far beyond nearly gassing the countryside. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so let's take a quick break and then when we

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Speaker 1: come back, we're going to talk to you about the

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Speaker 1: mosquito factory, in particular one that's in China and another

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Speaker 1: in Australia. So, yes, the first couple of mosquito factories

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Speaker 1: as they're called because they are we should just go

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Speaker 1: and get this out of the way. They are basically

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Speaker 1: endeavors to breed mosquitoes and pump them out to essentially

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Speaker 1: math produced mosquitoes, pump them out into the population in

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Speaker 1: an attempt to control the shape of that population. So

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Speaker 1: this is one of the limitations of the podcast medium. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And but what we'll be able to add some of

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Speaker 1: this to the landing page. The Atlantic did a great

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Speaker 1: article photojournalism article that we used as a resource for

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Speaker 1: this to learn more about it. And it was a

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Speaker 1: series of I want to say, like what twenty photos

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Speaker 1: of the inside factories and man alive it. It made

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Speaker 1: me itchy just looking at them. Uh. It's it's photos

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Speaker 1: of what the inside of these labs look like, how

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Speaker 1: they've they've got like it shows people just these jars

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Speaker 1: filled the mosquitoes, or they've got racks where they've got

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Speaker 1: mosquito larvae and they're like manually picking out the males

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Speaker 1: from the females. And it's just until you see it,

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Speaker 1: it really doesn't I don't know ring home just how

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Speaker 1: how literal the term mosquito factory is. Yeah, and the

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Speaker 1: these particular efforts we're gonna talk about first here. First

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Speaker 1: of all, the there's one in Guando, China, and that's

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Speaker 1: what the photos referred to. And there's another one in

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Speaker 1: Australia as well. Yeah, and these are both utilizing a

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Speaker 1: technique that involves the use of walt Bacchia bacteria. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So while Baccia its full name is I believe wal

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Speaker 1: Baccia pipientis, which sounds cute, pipientis, it's like a hobbit

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Speaker 1: uh uh Walbakia is a bacterium and it inhibits Zeka

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Speaker 1: and other viruses by preventing the fertilization of mosquito eggs.

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Speaker 1: So when you reapply it over time to multiple generations,

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Speaker 1: it can kill off an entire species of mosquito. The

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Speaker 1: percentage of mosquitoes carrying it subsequently increases, and outbreaks can

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Speaker 1: then be contained and reduced. Wal Baccia. Now, if some

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Speaker 1: of you out there are immediately you know, worried, Oh

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Speaker 1: my god, we're just putting this thing out into the world.

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Speaker 1: What is it, Well, don't worry just yet about walbaccia.

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Speaker 1: It already occurs naturally in some mosquito species, but not

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Speaker 1: in the adis a gypty that we're we've been talking

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Speaker 1: about already that's responsible for spreading all these diseases, right,

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Speaker 1: and it also does not pass on to humans, right

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Speaker 1: it like can't. My understanding is it cannot physically fit

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Speaker 1: through the probiscus. It's actually present and up to six

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Speaker 1: of all different species of insects that exists around us already,

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Speaker 1: and it's reportedly, like as you just said, safe for

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Speaker 1: humans animals in the environment. Uh, they've actually conducted two

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Speaker 1: independent risk assessments on wall Bacia and they found that

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Speaker 1: it has negligible risk rating when it's released in mosquitoes.

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Speaker 1: So that brings us to Guang Joe, China, which is

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Speaker 1: where they're actually doing this now. Yeah, and uh and

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Speaker 1: as well discussed they've they've been reporting some promising results.

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Speaker 1: They're rearing and releasing these mosquitoes that are infected with wallbaccia.

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Speaker 1: Uh and and really you've already touched on this, but

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Speaker 1: the two key ideas here is that first, it renders

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Speaker 1: the mosquitoes incapable of carrying a wide range of dangerous pathonges,

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Speaker 1: including including zaga. And this is a quirk that mosquitoes

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Speaker 1: pass on to their offspring. So the parents have wallbakia,

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Speaker 1: they'll pass that on. But of course this also again

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Speaker 1: plays into the overall population because when a male walbaci

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Speaker 1: infected mosquito mates with an uninfected female, the resulting eggs

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Speaker 1: don't hatch. It's only when both mates carry Wallbachia that

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Speaker 1: the union results in a viable egg, and then that

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Speaker 1: offspring has wallbakia. Is well. So it's it seems really

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Speaker 1: almost kind of perfect, right because it's it's it's it's

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Speaker 1: it's making the creature unable to carry the illness that

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Speaker 1: is the problem, and it eliminates those the that that

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Speaker 1: do not carry this disease inhibiting agent. Yeah, it's it's

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Speaker 1: it seems almost too perfect. Um, which is you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean my spider sense immediately, no pun intended, immediately

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Speaker 1: goes off when I hear stuff like this, because I'm like,

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Speaker 1: really like for messing with nature on this level where

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Speaker 1: the repercussion is going to be Um, it's essentially mosquito eugenics. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um.

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Speaker 1: The factory in particular that we're talking about, quote unquote

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Speaker 1: factory in China, it's based out of the sun Yat

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Speaker 1: Sen University collaboration with Michigan State University. They have a

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Speaker 1: joint Center of Vector Control for Tropical Diseases there and

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Speaker 1: basically what they're doing is they're releasing this infected population

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Speaker 1: of mosquitoes on a place called shaw Zi Island and

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Speaker 1: they claim they've had a nine suppression rate of the

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Speaker 1: population of the species ADUs albo pictus there. Otherwise, that

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Speaker 1: one is known as the Asian tiger mosquito. That's the

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Speaker 1: one that carries Zeka in China. My question is, and

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Speaker 1: I didn't have time to look into this, and I

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Speaker 1: didn't get a sense of it from the Atlantic article.

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Speaker 1: But I'm wondering who lives on Shahzai Island, and in particular,

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Speaker 1: like what's their risk both of Zeka and from these

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Speaker 1: altered mosquitoes. Right, So there are a lot of pictures

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Speaker 1: in the Atlantic article showing families like kind of hiding

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Speaker 1: under mosquito nets and like dealing with their everyday life

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Speaker 1: just staying away from mosquitoes as much as possible. But

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Speaker 1: why is that the perfect place other than other than

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Speaker 1: that's an island, right. I look around for an answer

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Speaker 1: to this as well, and I didn't really get a

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Speaker 1: good sense of it. I have been to Guangzhou and

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Speaker 1: I have visited Shaman Island, which is um a little

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Speaker 1: bit up river, I believe, from it, and I was

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Speaker 1: looking at the map and trying to figure out how

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Speaker 1: closely word of each other. But I guess the important

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Speaker 1: thing to to keep in mind here is that, uh,

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Speaker 1: both of these islands in particular are on the Jojang River,

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Speaker 1: the Pearl River, which cuts through the gateway city, the

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Speaker 1: Chinese gateway city of Guangzhoe, which has a population of

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Speaker 1: thirteen point zero eight million people, So you compare that

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Speaker 1: to the eight point fifty five million people in New

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Speaker 1: York City, right, Yeah, that's and that's a veritable feeding

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Speaker 1: ground for mosquitoes. Yeah, I mean it's a it's a

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Speaker 1: staggering metropolis, quite a blood behink from mosquitoes, and you

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Speaker 1: have this major waterway and all these additional waterways just

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Speaker 1: running like veins through the whole thing. So it's a very, um,

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Speaker 1: very wet city. Yeahs you could say. So that's kind

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Speaker 1: of perfect for for what we're talking about, both for

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Speaker 1: breeding the mosquitoes to battle these diseases, but also just

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Speaker 1: for mosquitoes naturally. Um. The other thing that I was

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Speaker 1: wondering by looking at this photo essay was that they

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Speaker 1: show the lab text like I mentioned earlier, separating the

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Speaker 1: male larva from the female larva. Wondering how you do that, like, um,

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Speaker 1: not how to use sex mosquito larva? Yeah exactly, Yeah

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Speaker 1: not not, I don't mean like how like you know,

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Speaker 1: what are your tweezer size whatever? Yeah? Yeah, that was

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Speaker 1: interesting to me as well. So if there's anybody out

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Speaker 1: there listeners who know a little bit more about this,

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Speaker 1: uh and or you've been to this particular area in China.

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Speaker 1: Let us know, because I'd love to know more about

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Speaker 1: it and maybe we can catch up on it like

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Speaker 1: a listener mail episode. Yeah, I I I spent several

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Speaker 1: days there and it it was a very very hot month.

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Speaker 1: I remember a lot of staggering through parks to get

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Speaker 1: bit by mosquitoes. Did not I didn't. I don't remember

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Speaker 1: having any problem with mosquitoes while I was there, But

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Speaker 1: this was several years ago, so maybe the problem has

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Speaker 1: been more pervasive in recent years. Well. One of the

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Speaker 1: things that I found interesting, and it connects the Chinese

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Speaker 1: experiment to the Australian one we're going to talk about,

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Speaker 1: is that they're both supported by the Bill and Melinda

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Speaker 1: Gates Foundation. They may be part of the same project,

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Speaker 1: but one stat I saw said that the Wallbakier research

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Speaker 1: in China was given forty million dollars by the Gates Foundation,

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Speaker 1: whereas the research UH in Australia I think was like

425
00:23:18,280 --> 00:23:21,440
Speaker 1: something like sixty maybe. Um, so maybe it's a combined

426
00:23:21,480 --> 00:23:25,320
Speaker 1: effort over time, but so this is something that they're

427
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:28,159
Speaker 1: very interested in helping out with, right and and stressing

428
00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:31,160
Speaker 1: again like both of these efforts are not only about

429
00:23:31,320 --> 00:23:35,080
Speaker 1: tackling a regional problem, but also developing techniques that could

430
00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:39,800
Speaker 1: be utilized elsewhere across the world. So the Australian project

431
00:23:39,840 --> 00:23:42,320
Speaker 1: that I mentioned, that's happening in a place called Townsville,

432
00:23:42,359 --> 00:23:45,960
Speaker 1: which is within Queensland, and that project is part of

433
00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:49,000
Speaker 1: a global initiative. Now China wasn't included in this list,

434
00:23:49,240 --> 00:23:52,880
Speaker 1: but it's also happening in Colombia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Brazil.

435
00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:56,960
Speaker 1: Brazil will be talking about later. And the basic idea

436
00:23:57,000 --> 00:23:58,760
Speaker 1: here is they want to test whether they can slow

437
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:01,359
Speaker 1: the spread of these disease is with wallbaccia. Like we

438
00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:04,639
Speaker 1: were talking about the same process. They injected hundreds of

439
00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:10,200
Speaker 1: thousands of adis at Gypti mosquito eggs with walbaccia. Uh

440
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:14,840
Speaker 1: and so far it seems like it's being somewhat successful, right, Yeah,

441
00:24:14,880 --> 00:24:19,760
Speaker 1: you already mentioned the suppression rate um in Guangzhou, and

442
00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:22,119
Speaker 1: then we I've I've also read and this was this

443
00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:25,359
Speaker 1: is from Eliminate DNA dot Com that has a lot

444
00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:28,560
Speaker 1: of material on on the efforts, with of course an

445
00:24:28,560 --> 00:24:32,199
Speaker 1: emphasis on eliminating DNA fever. But they point out that

446
00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:36,720
Speaker 1: research has shown that walbaccia can sustain itself in mosquito

447
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 1: populations without continual reapplication. So in other words, you know,

448
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:43,679
Speaker 1: it's talking about how it gets passed on, and you

449
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:46,320
Speaker 1: need the male and the female that both have waalbaki

450
00:24:46,359 --> 00:24:50,320
Speaker 1: in order to create walbakia infected offspring. Well, if all

451
00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:52,159
Speaker 1: you have, all we have to do, and not to

452
00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:54,679
Speaker 1: make it sound super easy, but you just have to

453
00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:58,800
Speaker 1: reach that that appropriate threshold of infection to where there's

454
00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 1: essentially no coming from the mosquitoes. Mosquitoes now in this region,

455
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:06,480
Speaker 1: in this area, on this continent in particular, are all

456
00:25:06,520 --> 00:25:09,280
Speaker 1: going to have lall bacia. On that note, we were

457
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:13,479
Speaker 1: going to look at another mosquito factory option, that of

458
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:18,800
Speaker 1: genetically modified mosquitoes. Let's talk about this. Uh, they're genetically

459
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:23,280
Speaker 1: modified mosquitoes, specifically Brazil is where they're being tested at.

460
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:27,920
Speaker 1: You seem to have coined an amazing title here. Uh,

461
00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 1: and if it hasn't yet, it's surely going to be

462
00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:33,919
Speaker 1: a science fiction horror movie in the next twenty years.

463
00:25:34,560 --> 00:25:39,679
Speaker 1: What is it? Gmosquito? Yeah, Gmo Squito. I love it.

464
00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:43,960
Speaker 1: Um it works better textually, I think, But yeah, it

465
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:47,080
Speaker 1: might be the name of the next man Squito s right,

466
00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:51,879
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a sequel to Mosquito. Um. So there's a

467
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:54,600
Speaker 1: company called ox a Tech and it's a UK company

468
00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:59,240
Speaker 1: and they specialize in this genetic modification of mosquitoes. They

469
00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:01,919
Speaker 1: changed the d nay of the mosquitoes so that they

470
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:05,440
Speaker 1: can only live for four days and so that their

471
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:09,200
Speaker 1: offspring won't get past the larval stage. They call these

472
00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:14,280
Speaker 1: the friendly eighties, I think, referring to that species title

473
00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:17,360
Speaker 1: that we've been using earlier. Now. Oxy Tech is owned

474
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:20,560
Speaker 1: by Intrexon. I love these names and X in there.

475
00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:23,160
Speaker 1: Why does the house of works? But we should start

476
00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:25,439
Speaker 1: spelling it with works, like with an X at the

477
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:28,560
Speaker 1: end of it. Oxy Tech is owned by in trucks On.

478
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 1: That's a US conglomerate and that owns This was a

479
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:34,359
Speaker 1: weird phrase, but I felt like we had to mention it.

480
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:38,479
Speaker 1: Quote a portfolio of transgenic organisms. Oh yeah, because if

481
00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:42,720
Speaker 1: you have the recipe, you exactly the dish. Yeah. And

482
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 1: so my understanding was that I was like, everything from

483
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:49,119
Speaker 1: fish to plants. They they have a lot of transgenic organisms. Uh,

484
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:52,040
Speaker 1: and now they have these mosquitoes as well. Yeah. And

485
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:53,840
Speaker 1: I think we've touched on this before on the show.

486
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:58,720
Speaker 1: But transgenic organisms are not. It's not all necessarily related

487
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:00,760
Speaker 1: to like here's a here's an new taken a wild

488
00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 1: animal going to release this. There's a lot of it's

489
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 1: experimental and a lot of it is industrial in nature

490
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:08,920
Speaker 1: and not necessarily something with a with a backbone and

491
00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:11,600
Speaker 1: a and uh in a brain. You know. There's a

492
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:16,000
Speaker 1: lot of transgenic bacteria and whatnot. Yeah, exactly. So this

493
00:27:16,119 --> 00:27:22,040
Speaker 1: pilot program is taking place in Pira Chicaba, Brazil, and

494
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:25,320
Speaker 1: basically the idea here is they want to design something

495
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 1: that will create a cost effective method for cities across

496
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:34,400
Speaker 1: the world to stop mosquito spread disease. They started in April. Now,

497
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:36,720
Speaker 1: this is the same year that there was a huge

498
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 1: epidemic of Dengey fever there that caused more than one

499
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:44,640
Speaker 1: point five million cases in Brazil. Now, the actual breeding

500
00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 1: factory for the similar to the one that we talked

501
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 1: about in China and the other one that's in Australia,

502
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 1: is in Campinas, Brazil. They produced two million mosquitoes a week.

503
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:57,320
Speaker 1: Basically what they do, same process. They made the mosquitoes

504
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:00,239
Speaker 1: and they divide them by sex. The workers actually use

505
00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 1: these little electrified tennis rackets to protect themselves. Oh yeah,

506
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:08,280
Speaker 1: These are the kinds you can buy at your local Walmart. Exactly. Yeah,

507
00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:10,560
Speaker 1: they show them in the lab. They felt one hand,

508
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:12,720
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know, separating out the larva, and

509
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:15,879
Speaker 1: the other hand is on this tennis racket just you know,

510
00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:20,520
Speaker 1: ready to whack mosquitoes around. Both zeka and dengue, as

511
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 1: we've previously mentioned, are spread by this ATIS mosquito, So

512
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:26,840
Speaker 1: that's why they're studying it there. Brazil in particular, as

513
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:31,080
Speaker 1: we mentioned, has this long history of mosquito problems. Uh so,

514
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 1: yet another reason. They declared that the Atis was eradicated,

515
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:38,560
Speaker 1: but they were not. Uh So, how much is this

516
00:28:38,640 --> 00:28:42,400
Speaker 1: actually working? How much are they changing? Um oxy tech.

517
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:45,440
Speaker 1: They first came up with the idea in two thousand twelve.

518
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:50,320
Speaker 1: They released sterile males to compete for mates out in

519
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:53,320
Speaker 1: the out in the wild. They engineered their mosquitoes so

520
00:28:53,360 --> 00:28:56,760
Speaker 1: that they would overproduce a protein that will kill them

521
00:28:57,160 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 1: unless they are fed an antibiotic called tetrapsyche lean. Without it,

522
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:04,640
Speaker 1: the mails and then subsequently their offspring just die off.

523
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:07,880
Speaker 1: It's a little different than what's going on with the

524
00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:10,760
Speaker 1: wall Baccia, but the same premise essentially. Yeah, and actually

525
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:13,320
Speaker 1: this is a similar strategy. That's that's rolled out with

526
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: a number of different transgenic organisms to prevent them from

527
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:19,200
Speaker 1: from thriving in the wild and make them depend on

528
00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 1: something that I can't want to get in the lap. Yeah.

529
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:23,280
Speaker 1: In fact, I was actually talking to Joe about this

530
00:29:23,320 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 1: before we jumped in the studio, our co host and

531
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind, and Joe told me that

532
00:29:28,160 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 1: on his other podcast, Forward Thinking, they've talked about this before,

533
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:35,240
Speaker 1: in particular using crisper to gene edit, and it's referred

534
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 1: to as a gene drive. Uh. And they've talked about

535
00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 1: that sort of broader implication not just mosquitoes but other

536
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:46,440
Speaker 1: species as well. Um, so another part of the genetic

537
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 1: modification process. This is interesting. They make the larvae glow

538
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:53,760
Speaker 1: with the fluorescence that only shows up when they're exposed

539
00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 1: to a special light. So this allows them to sort of,

540
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 1: you know, they find breeding grounds. They hover this light

541
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:00,120
Speaker 1: sort of like the strain. That's what I'm thinking. You know,

542
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 1: they've got these ultra violet lights. They hover it over

543
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:06,880
Speaker 1: and they can see which ones are are there, gmosquitoes

544
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 1: or not. So there's very much like the not the

545
00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 1: notched ear on a feral cat. That has been spared. Yeah. Yeah,

546
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 1: so they're looking to see, you know, how successful their

547
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 1: efforts are with that. There's also work being done in

548
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 1: other u S labs in California and Virginia, and they're

549
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 1: using crisper to cause the gene drive that I mentioned,

550
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:27,960
Speaker 1: same premise here. This would be used to drive adis

551
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:32,360
Speaker 1: a gypty into extinction. They weave the insects DNA differently

552
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 1: than the given genes, spreads to all of the mosquitoes offspring,

553
00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:38,200
Speaker 1: and this is a process that is referred to as

554
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 1: super inheritance. Uh. This leads to a population replacement by

555
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:46,600
Speaker 1: spreading the gene, and it makes mosquitoes unsuitable hosts for

556
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 1: certain pathogens like Zeka danae, all these things that we're

557
00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 1: worried about. Basically, it makes all the offsering mail so

558
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:57,240
Speaker 1: they they're just going to eventually die off. Now, this

559
00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 1: is hotly debated, and we've we've hinted at this already,

560
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of concerns about how this would

561
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:04,520
Speaker 1: affect the ecosystem, especially as you noted, whenever you bring

562
00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 1: up the terms GMO about anything, people people's tackles get raised. Uh.

563
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:12,000
Speaker 1: So there's some fear out there, that the DNA could

564
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 1: change and might jump to other insects, or that if

565
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 1: something went wrong, these scientists wouldn't be able to recall it. Uh,

566
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 1: And what if there was a biological niche that these

567
00:31:22,160 --> 00:31:25,640
Speaker 1: mosquitoes were feeling that you know, we need and we

568
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:27,640
Speaker 1: get rid of it. And we'll talk a little bit

569
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 1: about that at the end of the episode. But you know,

570
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:32,160
Speaker 1: there's some concerns there, rightfully. So, I mean when I

571
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:35,280
Speaker 1: hear stuff like this, I immediately think of, like again

572
00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 1: sci fi movies, Like I think of something like Children

573
00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 1: of Men, Like you know, Children of Men begins, and

574
00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:42,760
Speaker 1: like there's you can no longer breed children. And they

575
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 1: I don't think they ever really like give any kind

576
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: of like science e reason as to why. But you know,

577
00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:51,960
Speaker 1: if you wanted to conspiracy theorist, wise you could extrapolate

578
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:54,480
Speaker 1: from this something like that. Right. Well, it's funny that

579
00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 1: you mentioned conspiracy theories, but because of course there has

580
00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:01,960
Speaker 1: been a specific conspiracy theory that has proven rather difficult

581
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:06,840
Speaker 1: to eradicate in Brazil based on these activities. Yeah. In fact,

582
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 1: the conspiracy theory is is that because of the genetic

583
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 1: modification that they're doing, they think that this caused zica.

584
00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't make scientific sense, but it makes

585
00:32:17,800 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 1: no but but it makes conspiracy theories sense because you

586
00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 1: have here, you have this mosquito you're toying with. It's

587
00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:28,000
Speaker 1: a its ability to create healthy offspring. And then we

588
00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:30,880
Speaker 1: look at some of the ramifications of of zica, particularly

589
00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 1: on on pregnant humans, and you can see how that

590
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 1: feeds into this, uh, this conspiracy narrative. Yeah. Absolutely, So

591
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:40,719
Speaker 1: you know a lot of debate about that. We're going

592
00:32:40,760 --> 00:32:42,600
Speaker 1: to talk about sort of the good and and and

593
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:45,640
Speaker 1: you know, risky aspects of this a little bit later.

594
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:48,720
Speaker 1: The question is is this successful? Does this work? You know,

595
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:52,720
Speaker 1: same as the wall Baccia. Well, after ten months of

596
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 1: testing it in two small neighborhoods in Brazil, they say

597
00:32:55,840 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 1: that the number of Dengee cases there went from a

598
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty three to one per year. They also

599
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:05,800
Speaker 1: say that the program has decreased wild mosquitoes by more

600
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:08,880
Speaker 1: than eighty percent in the neighborhoods that they treated. Now,

601
00:33:08,920 --> 00:33:11,360
Speaker 1: this is just two neighborhoods. For it to really work

602
00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 1: on a large scale, they're gonna have to release massive

603
00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 1: numbers of these mosquitoes and continuously to protect all of

604
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 1: the pyre at Chicaba City. It's gonna take three billion

605
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 1: bugs a year. That would cost seven dollars in fifty

606
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:30,720
Speaker 1: cents per person per year, which means that the city

607
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:33,400
Speaker 1: would have to spend around two point seven million dollars

608
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:37,680
Speaker 1: a year. Now here's the rub that's almost exactly the

609
00:33:37,720 --> 00:33:41,040
Speaker 1: same amount of money that they currently spend on sprays,

610
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 1: larva sides and all of their sick leave costs related

611
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 1: to these mosquito spread disease. So city officials are looking

612
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:50,760
Speaker 1: forward to making this switch. They kind of see it

613
00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:54,960
Speaker 1: as like a one for one swap. Uh, But there's

614
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 1: a problem. Brazil barely has the money to pay for

615
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:01,440
Speaker 1: something like this right now. Mean, certainly this is a

616
00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 1: Brazil's money problem, so that this has been an important

617
00:34:05,320 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 1: news story of late. Yeah, I mean we hear about

618
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:10,120
Speaker 1: it in relation to the Olympics. But like you know,

619
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:12,879
Speaker 1: think about your city manager and you're trying to deal

620
00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:15,759
Speaker 1: with a problem like this, Uh, do you have the

621
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:19,239
Speaker 1: two point seven million dollars a year to spend on

622
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:22,640
Speaker 1: this experimental gmo mosquito that you're gonna release. And they're

623
00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:27,080
Speaker 1: already conspiracy theories about gaining traction with the populace. What

624
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 1: do you do? And here's the thing, Brazil's bio safety

625
00:34:29,719 --> 00:34:33,040
Speaker 1: agency has actually approved them, but they still can't be

626
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 1: sold commercially because they actually require this is oxy tech

627
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 1: here requires certification from Brazil's medical regulator. Now, despite this,

628
00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:46,240
Speaker 1: the city has already entered into an agreement to spend

629
00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:49,879
Speaker 1: eight hundred thousand dollars over two years to protect something

630
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:55,320
Speaker 1: around sixty people using this method. Now, the actual gene

631
00:34:55,560 --> 00:34:59,120
Speaker 1: editing that that would eradicate mosquitoes, that's a couple of

632
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:02,359
Speaker 1: years away from actual use here. And then that leads

633
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:04,839
Speaker 1: to the conspiracy theory that you mentioned earlier, which is

634
00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 1: that these GM mosquitoes are causing ZEKA, that they're part

635
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 1: of the problem. And you know, I can only imagine

636
00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:14,360
Speaker 1: where it goes next from there, you know, there, I

637
00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:16,759
Speaker 1: don't know, we're gonna start turning into Oh, maybe that's

638
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:20,400
Speaker 1: the origin story for man squito is the GM mosquito

639
00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:22,920
Speaker 1: comes and stings you and then you give birth to

640
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:25,440
Speaker 1: a man squito. Okay, it still doesn't explain why why

641
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:30,080
Speaker 1: man squito is sucking blood. But yeah, now for this

642
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 1: last portion of the podcast episode, I'm I'm going to

643
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:37,400
Speaker 1: discuss some of the arguments for keeping mosquitoes. But before

644
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:39,000
Speaker 1: we do that, go ahead and just hit us with

645
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 1: all the bad mosquito talking points you can whip out. Well. So, yeah,

646
00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:47,719
Speaker 1: I looked at an article justifying why we should just

647
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:51,839
Speaker 1: annihilate mosquitoes. Basically, uh, and this isn't me speaking, this

648
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 1: is the article, but the source mainly comes from Walter

649
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:59,480
Speaker 1: Reed Army Institute of Research, which is based in Silver Spring, Maryland.

650
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:03,120
Speaker 1: They study mosquitoes. They're uh. In fact that the stories

651
00:36:03,160 --> 00:36:05,720
Speaker 1: about how they study the mosquitoes they are absolutely insane.

652
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:08,839
Speaker 1: Like they feed them ground up fish food and then

653
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:13,120
Speaker 1: they offer them bellies of unconscious mice to drain the

654
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:15,600
Speaker 1: blood out of. And they said that the mosquitoes drain

655
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:18,640
Speaker 1: the blood out of twenty four mice a month. Um,

656
00:36:18,680 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 1: so I'm assuming that they actually kill these mice, but

657
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:25,960
Speaker 1: they knock them out first. Now, even these scientists who

658
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:29,200
Speaker 1: spend all day interacting with these mosquitoes and studying them,

659
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 1: when they were asked about this, we're like, oh, yeah,

660
00:36:31,160 --> 00:36:34,120
Speaker 1: we'd be much better off about them kill them. Uh.

661
00:36:34,239 --> 00:36:37,760
Speaker 1: Malarious bread by mosquitoes infects two hundred and forty seven

662
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:41,600
Speaker 1: million people per year and it kills one million people

663
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:44,640
Speaker 1: per year, not to mention all those other diseases we've

664
00:36:44,640 --> 00:36:48,239
Speaker 1: already mentioned. So the question here really is would mosquitoes

665
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 1: be missed in the ecological system if we just utterly

666
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 1: exterminated them. Well, we know they're everywhere, right, so they

667
00:36:56,120 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 1: probably have a lot of role in the cyst them

668
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:03,320
Speaker 1: And that's true. It could leave a predator without a prey,

669
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:06,000
Speaker 1: or it could leave a plant without a pollinator. Yeah,

670
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:08,960
Speaker 1: I mean these are both really important factors because mosquitoes,

671
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:10,640
Speaker 1: first of all, they make up a fairly huge slice

672
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: of the biomass on our planet. They serve as food

673
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:19,000
Speaker 1: for various invertebrate and vertebrate species. We're talking beetles, fish, birds, bats, dragonflies,

674
00:37:19,040 --> 00:37:22,880
Speaker 1: et cetera. The larva are especially uh an important gobbled

675
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 1: up in aquatic environments. And you can also look at

676
00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:29,759
Speaker 1: it this way. They're providing an important uh benefit here

677
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:35,000
Speaker 1: to aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems by converting pyramisium and other

678
00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:39,319
Speaker 1: first level consumers into high quality insect proteins. Oh yeah,

679
00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:42,319
Speaker 1: that is a good point. I Uh. I mentioned Bill

680
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:45,799
Speaker 1: shoots uh excellent book Dark Banquet earlier in that he

681
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:48,959
Speaker 1: rolls out some various estimates for how many mosquitoes bats eat,

682
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 1: and the the upper estimate, and this is one that

683
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:54,440
Speaker 1: that he actually has some problems with, but just to

684
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:56,439
Speaker 1: give you an idea, the upper estimate is as many

685
00:37:56,480 --> 00:38:00,680
Speaker 1: as six hundred mosquitoes per hour. So even IF's if

686
00:38:00,680 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 1: it's less than that, bats eat a lot of mosquito.

687
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:05,920
Speaker 1: So if you remove that, what are they going to eat? Well,

688
00:38:05,960 --> 00:38:07,959
Speaker 1: that's interesting because one of the things that I read

689
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:10,839
Speaker 1: said that bats are the perfect model to look at

690
00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:14,799
Speaker 1: how some predators would move to other insects because when

691
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:18,320
Speaker 1: they have the option, that's prefer to eat moths and

692
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:21,759
Speaker 1: they have a much smaller percentage of mosquitoes in their

693
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:25,360
Speaker 1: bellies when they're opened up. Okay, So so the bats

694
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:29,600
Speaker 1: might be okay, maybe we don't know. Um. Also, just

695
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:33,520
Speaker 1: a quick note on the pollination issue. We already mentioned

696
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:38,200
Speaker 1: about how both both sexes of mosquitoes visit flowers and

697
00:38:38,239 --> 00:38:41,920
Speaker 1: are involved in pollination. Uh, they're particularly involved in various

698
00:38:42,040 --> 00:38:45,560
Speaker 1: orchids species. So if you if you value a beautiful

699
00:38:45,680 --> 00:38:49,320
Speaker 1: orchid like like a lot of people, bear in mind

700
00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:53,680
Speaker 1: that mosquitoes may play an important role in and in

701
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:57,520
Speaker 1: carrying on that species through pollination. So there's here's a

702
00:38:57,600 --> 00:39:01,960
Speaker 1: really weird repercussion that I have never thought of, but

703
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:03,759
Speaker 1: it goes to show you sort of that circle of

704
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:07,400
Speaker 1: life thing that just like there's a or a butterfly

705
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:11,439
Speaker 1: effect that we could never predict. Uh. So, apparently mosquitoes

706
00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:15,640
Speaker 1: highly affect caribou herds and what their migratory patterns are

707
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:18,759
Speaker 1: because if there's clouds of mosquitoes along a certain way,

708
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:21,359
Speaker 1: the caribous sense that they swerve out of the way

709
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:25,000
Speaker 1: and it changes their directional patterns. I've seen, Yeah, I've

710
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:29,000
Speaker 1: seen this featured on documentaries before concerning cariboo and perhaps

711
00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:33,400
Speaker 1: maybe misremembering here, but perhaps reindeer as well, where the

712
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:37,799
Speaker 1: the the airborne parasites become just such a problem that

713
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:40,920
Speaker 1: they'll they'll go to higher altitudes where they're not bothered

714
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:43,080
Speaker 1: by but of course there they don't have is as

715
00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:46,719
Speaker 1: as good in access to food exactly. So, So how

716
00:39:46,800 --> 00:39:49,799
Speaker 1: does all of that change if we just utterly get

717
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:53,279
Speaker 1: rid of mosquitoes, you know, uh, what does that do

718
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:55,759
Speaker 1: to cariboo and then subsequently what does that do to

719
00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:59,360
Speaker 1: the human population. Yeah, this is interesting because basically with

720
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:02,800
Speaker 1: the cariboo, the mosquitoes are an obstacle and the pattern

721
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 1: of their life revolves around circumventing those obstacles, and we

722
00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:11,480
Speaker 1: see that in human history as well. UH science writer

723
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 1: David Quaman proposed this several years back, and I believe

724
00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:19,239
Speaker 1: Robert Kroulwitch talked about this in a blog post that

725
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:23,280
Speaker 1: also picked up additional attraction in recent years. But uh

726
00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:27,560
Speaker 1: Kuaman proposed that the ravages of mosquito born illnesses in

727
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 1: many equatorial rainforest at forest areas actually staved off the

728
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:35,480
Speaker 1: advance of human exploitation until the twenty one century. I

729
00:40:35,719 --> 00:40:38,000
Speaker 1: remember seeing this as well, that they're sort of like

730
00:40:38,080 --> 00:40:41,319
Speaker 1: the guardians of the rainforest. Yeah, they're the swamp thing

731
00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:46,320
Speaker 1: that evil here because just of the the pervasive nature

732
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:49,640
Speaker 1: of mosquito born malaria and other illnesses just keeping us

733
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:54,360
Speaker 1: from from just completely tearing it down and exploriting it. Well.

734
00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 1: And then the other argument in favor of destroying mosquitoes is,

735
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:02,880
Speaker 1: let's face it, if we eradicated them, there would be

736
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:07,920
Speaker 1: more people, right, Like mosquitoes spread, These diseases killed millions

737
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:09,879
Speaker 1: of people every year, and in a sense they are

738
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:14,440
Speaker 1: managing our population exactly. So do the costs of an

739
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:21,680
Speaker 1: increased human population outweigh the benefits of a healthier human population. Yeah,

740
00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:24,120
Speaker 1: that's because you can't. That is not something you can

741
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:27,800
Speaker 1: argue in a political environment, or you can barely argue

742
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:31,240
Speaker 1: with just in in human conversation and say, hey, sure

743
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:34,480
Speaker 1: malaria related deaths are horrible, but they're keeping our numbers down,

744
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:36,880
Speaker 1: so we should you know, you just can't argue that

745
00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:39,839
Speaker 1: we should, that we should keep an illness around, right

746
00:41:39,880 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 1: if we can fight it. Yeah, So, I mean it's

747
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 1: it's a tough one and scientists on both sides of

748
00:41:45,680 --> 00:41:48,399
Speaker 1: it are they're arguing about it, but they're also kind

749
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:51,040
Speaker 1: of at a loss, like do we do this? I mean, now,

750
00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:52,680
Speaker 1: keep in mind, like the stuff that we talked about

751
00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:55,440
Speaker 1: today of the walbakia and the genetically modified thing, this

752
00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:58,680
Speaker 1: is restricted to one species of mosquito. They're not they're

753
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:01,799
Speaker 1: not destroying all mosquitoes. But because again, only like two

754
00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:05,160
Speaker 1: hundred out of dred are actually a past to us,

755
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:09,280
Speaker 1: So we wouldn't be taking out all the mosquitoes. But certainly,

756
00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:12,320
Speaker 1: as we've discussed, just focusing on a few taking them

757
00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:17,000
Speaker 1: on entirely, are we pulling the biological jinga block out

758
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:20,000
Speaker 1: too too close to the bottom that who knows. Only

759
00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:22,480
Speaker 1: time will tell, but it it definitely sounds like the

760
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:26,919
Speaker 1: origin story for some kind of science fiction horror masterpiece, so,

761
00:42:27,280 --> 00:42:29,719
Speaker 1: you know, or a utopian dream it might be in

762
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 1: which you don't have to worry about going. Maybe this

763
00:42:31,680 --> 00:42:36,160
Speaker 1: will fix everything. Maybe this is the answer to wicked problems.

764
00:42:36,200 --> 00:42:39,040
Speaker 1: Just kill all the mosquitoes. Well, I'm sure some of

765
00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:41,239
Speaker 1: you out there listening and are like, I have an

766
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:43,920
Speaker 1: opinion on this. Well, you want to share that opinion

767
00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:46,080
Speaker 1: with us. There's lots of ways to do so. You

768
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:48,880
Speaker 1: can reach out to us on social media. We're on Facebook,

769
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 1: we're on Twitter, we're on Tumbler, we're on Instagram. All

770
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:55,160
Speaker 1: those platforms were Blow the Mind or something close to that.

771
00:42:55,239 --> 00:42:57,160
Speaker 1: If you search for Blow the Mind, you'll find us.

772
00:42:57,680 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 1: Look look for the little head with the exploding symbol.

773
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:04,520
Speaker 1: Although our logo might be changing soon. That's exciting, true. Yeah, uh.

774
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:06,719
Speaker 1: And then you can always go to stuff to Blow

775
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:09,359
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. That's not just where the podcasts live.

776
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:11,279
Speaker 1: We've got all kinds of stuff there. We've got the

777
00:43:11,400 --> 00:43:13,960
Speaker 1: videos that we do, we've got articles that we write.

778
00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:17,360
Speaker 1: Robert's blog posts about electronic music that we mentioned in

779
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:20,759
Speaker 1: the last episode about a musea. So there's lots of

780
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:23,040
Speaker 1: stuff going on in the Stuff to blow your mind,

781
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:25,400
Speaker 1: eCos system that you might be missing out on that

782
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:28,160
Speaker 1: aren't just podcasts, and maybe their pokemon there. I don't

783
00:43:28,200 --> 00:43:30,399
Speaker 1: know if there could be there everywhere. Yeah, they could

784
00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:33,600
Speaker 1: be in I bet that's where mew two lives. Which

785
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:37,480
Speaker 1: that's like the super powerful one. That's crazy rare. That's

786
00:43:37,480 --> 00:43:41,399
Speaker 1: actually Pikachus, a super powerful one. Pika choose the protagonist man.

787
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:45,440
Speaker 1: But mew two is like the it's genetically modified. Actually,

788
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:48,960
Speaker 1: wait are they all? So they're heroes and villains among

789
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:51,680
Speaker 1: the Pokemon. It's more along the lines of that they're

790
00:43:51,719 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 1: all the neutral depending on who catches them and what

791
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:57,520
Speaker 1: they do with them. But mewtwo was genetically modified and

792
00:43:57,600 --> 00:44:02,200
Speaker 1: evolved into like a super sentience psychic Pokemon that wanted

793
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:04,520
Speaker 1: to take over in destroy the world. Okay, well, hopefully

794
00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:08,480
Speaker 1: Mosquito Factories won't go in that direct. Yes, and as always,

795
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:10,319
Speaker 1: if you want to reach out to us the old

796
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 1: fashioned way, the email address is blow the Mind and

797
00:44:12,719 --> 00:44:23,839
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. For more on this than

798
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:26,439
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works dot

799
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:49,560
Speaker 1: com