Google Requests Permission to Release 32 Million Mosquitoes In California and Florida (theguardian.com) 101
Google has asked the EPA for permission to release up to 32 million sterile male mosquitoes in California and Florida over two years. The effort is part of the company's Debug program, which uses Wolbachia-infected males to reduce populations of disease-spreading Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Google cites a similar approach in Singapore that helped suppress mosquito populations and reduce dengue cases. The Guardian reports: As part of its successful "Debug" program, Google is tapping into its tech expertise to raise an army of sterile male mosquitoes to lower the number of illness-spreading bugs. Mosquitoes -- the world's deadliest animal -- kill more people than any other creature in the world every year by spreading lethal diseases such as dengue, West Nile virus, Zika, chikungunya and malaria.
A notice (PDF) from the federal register shows the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is reviewing Google's request to release up to 16 million mosquitoes annually, in Florida and California, over the span of two years. The EPA will decide whether to greenlight Google's request for an experimental use permit after a public comment period, which ends on 5 June.
Male mosquitoes don't bite or carry disease. One of the main approaches Google is testing involves rearing male mosquitoes with a naturally occurring bacteria, called wolbachia, which stops them from having offspring with wild female mosquitoes. When an infected male tries to mate with a wild female, her eggs won't hatch; Google explains in a blog post: "the population gets smaller with each generation."
A notice (PDF) from the federal register shows the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is reviewing Google's request to release up to 16 million mosquitoes annually, in Florida and California, over the span of two years. The EPA will decide whether to greenlight Google's request for an experimental use permit after a public comment period, which ends on 5 June.
Male mosquitoes don't bite or carry disease. One of the main approaches Google is testing involves rearing male mosquitoes with a naturally occurring bacteria, called wolbachia, which stops them from having offspring with wild female mosquitoes. When an infected male tries to mate with a wild female, her eggs won't hatch; Google explains in a blog post: "the population gets smaller with each generation."
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Holy shit new product idea, you've heard of chocolate milk...
IVERMECTIN RAW MILK
Make sure the cap on the bottle is red. You literally will not be able to keep it in stock.
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Don't worry, RFK Jr. will put a stop to this! That or tell people to drink whole milk and take ivermectin.
Whole milk isn't much of a problem - as long as it's pasteurized. The brain worm is hawking raw milk [bbc.com].
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Just for pedantry:
Whole milk == 3.2% milkfat milk, pasteurized. Nothing wrong with this, other than personal nutrition advice against fat.
raw milk == 3.2% milkfat milk, unpasteurized. This is a health concern that shouldn't be one, as we've been successfully reducing milk-borne pathogens for like 100 years now through Pasteurization.
Drinking raw milk is about as smart as eating uncooked ground beef or pork right out of the packaging. We learned to cook food for a reason, and reducing food-borne pathogens
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cleraly their only reasoning is to stand by their long standing mission statement to do no evil... o wait
fuck google
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Meanwhile, X.AI has asked the EPA for permission to release up to 100 million hyperfecund pesticide-resistant male mosquitoes in California and New York over two years to own the libs.
Re:It just keeps getting worse!! Ahhhhh (Score:5, Funny)
nah those are just Elons kids
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Musk has no wife that I know of. Only contractual sperm recipients? Or maybe he's converted to one of those religions with the sister wives? But if you tried to film a Bond movie with the villain based on Musk, no one would believe it.
Re:It just keeps getting worse!! Ahhhhh (Score:4, Insightful)
>The vaccines ... and they have killed millions of people
where is your proof of this millions of dead people?!
you know that there is a much dangerous product than vaccines, it kills millions of people, is spread all around us and even used in baby food...
go check, it is the dhmo [dhmo.org], also known as dihydrogen-monoxide [snopes.com]
check both sites and i hope that make you understand, people believe in everything, that is why AI is so loved by many!
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please notice that every single fact in the dhmo site is 100% true, is up to the user to understand them
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yes... the solid version can even make you faint and even attack and break your bones!! it is awful !!
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Sir, this is a Wendys.
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Which means that if you survive then you are good for another year against odd diseases like Auto-brewery syndrome [wikipedia.org]
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Methodology to determine causality varies (that is, did the person die from the jab or something else), but for the set of COVID-19 vaccines specifically and taking data back to 2020 the number is dozens to hundreds of deaths. Not millions.
Both death and life-time disability are possible outcomes both for infectious disease and for vaccines. It's an exercise in statistics to attempt to do the least harm. MMR vaccine deaths are very low for example, but infant mortality is high for measles, mumps, and rubell
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If by untested you mean followed the same test requirements as any other drug, and by novel you mean just as novel as countless drugs that came before them of which we've created new ways to make drugs literally 100s of times in the past century, and if by killed millions you mean thousands (though maybe you meant many millions less than the virus it was protecting against) then you would be correct.
If you didn't mean these things you're a moron.
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Wow, I'm making a joke here and it's clear the mods never make it to the last sentence.
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Probably due to Poe's Law. There are actual people who would say the exact thing you posted. I weep for humanity some days.
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That's mostly due to the prevalence of fucking idiots to post things remarkably similar to your sarcasm.
Thankfully, a lot of idiots are figuring out that their idiocy is growing unpopular by the second, so anyone with a mote of self-respect might start shutting up with all the MAGA rot / conspiracy theory horseshit.
It's been almost 10 years of this shit. Some of us are very weary of it, so I'm willing to give out some grace if people are getting triggered.
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It started with gay frogs.
Unintended consequences... (Score:3)
With mosquitoes? Nothing. (Score:5, Interesting)
One specie of mosquito means nothing - there are just so many other ones.
That said, this does not even do that. Mosquitoes with wolbachia still survive and breed - but they don't live as long, and when the mosquito infected the dengue virus can't survive in the mozzie, so it doesn't get infected and so it can't spread the disease.
It is done pretty much everywhere - I'm a little surprised it isn't standard procedure in the US too.
Re:With mosquitoes? Nothing. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a little surprised it isn't standard procedure in the US too.
Then you don't know the US healthcare system very well, something inexpensive, effective, and easy to implement is anathema to the insurance cartels which control it.
Re: With mosquitoes? Nothing. (Score:2)
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The Public Health Department I worked for 5 years ago was releasing these mosquitos. We weren't the first either. Google wasn't involved and I've never heard their name in connection with these mosquitos until now.
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I don't want to sound alarmist and I am obviously not an expert but... we know what happens when you remove a species from the food chain. 1. Their predators die off. 2. Other species rise to take their place.
1. is not a significant problem. There are only a couple of species which survive entirely on mosquitoes, they are not common, and there are many kinds of mosquito. 2. is even less of a problem, there's nothing else just waiting in the wings to upstage mosquitoes as they don't compete with anything else.
Re:Unintended consequences... (Score:5, Funny)
Sucking blood and causing the death of millions? Politicians are their primary competitor.
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Deaths of millions? But the suffering of millions is so much more fun! Look at them go! All around the mideast, fighting for our amusement like the gladiators of old!
Maybe we'll set up a cage match in front of the White House and just have the G.I.s choke each other to death there. Watching on TV is cool, but it's hard to beat live entertainment.
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I know you're being sarcastic, but the first time I read this I was horrified.
https://cepr.net/newsroom/new-... [cepr.net]
A new study published in the British medical journal The Lancet Global Health finds that unilateral economic sanctions lead to about 564,000 excess deaths around the world each year. The findings, by economists Mark Weisbrot, Francisco Rodríguez, and Silvio Rendón, show that this human toll is roughly equivalent to total deaths from wars, including civilian casualties, and is more than th
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if you get west nile virus just sue google they ha (Score:2)
if you get west nile virus just sue google they have deep pockets
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These "tech" companies do not have "leaders" who think. They only want to destroy. That is their mindset.
We're moving carefully (Score:5, Informative)
I don't want to sound alarmist and I am obviously not an expert but... we know what happens when you remove a species from the food chain.
The Culex quinquefasciatus (from Google's EPA request [govinfo.gov]) is not native to N. America, it likely originated in Africa and came across due to human activity.
There are over 200 species of mosquito in N. America (worldwide about 3500). Taking one out will have negligible effect on the food chain.
Bats, specifically, will eat mosquitos but prefer larger insects. Mosquitos are small relative to the effort the bat takes to catch therm.
The specific mosquito mentioned is available in lots of places around the world (not native - see first point above), so we could repopulate if we notice a problem.
Google is breeding these mosquitos, so we have breeding populations and we could repopulate if needed.
It's the primary vector for West Nile virus, St. Louis encephalitis virus, Avian malaria, and Wuchereria bancrofti (a parasitic worm).
I've been following the progress of these sorts of activities for many years. With proper care and monitoring, it's possible we could fix a lot of invasive species problem such as Cane Toads in Australia, Mongooses (mongeese?) in Hawaii, and Aedes aegypti. A. aegypti strongly prefers to bite humans and is carrier to disease, and is also not native to N. America.
The US used to have screw worms. The screw worm would lay eggs in an open wound on mammals (usually domestic animals such as livestock, but sometimes humans) and the larvae would develop under the skin by eating healthy tissue.
The US government began a program of releasing irradiated screw worm males, which are sterile, into the environment to compete with healthy males. This reduced the population, eventually down to zero, and now the US is largely screw worm free. This only took about 10 years.
Good riddance.
Now do ticks.
The full explanation is Sterile Insect Technique [wikipedia.org].
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I am obviously not an expert but... we know what happens when you remove a species from the food chain.
In other words: "I don't know what happens, but we (I) know what happens ... "
Like, honestly, dude.
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Fudge, obviously I meant to reply to the OP. Your post clearly has some basis in being informed on the subject.
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go view this for a similar situation with another mosquito specie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
we are talking about controlling one bad specie, other mosquito specie still exist. This is basically expanding the above to another specie that is showing up more and more in non tropical areas
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Specie is money. Species is one of those English words that is both the singular and plural.
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The plural of species is specieses. Obviously. However, the last "es" is silent.
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We've been controlling mosquito populations for quite a while, by various means. Malaria was endemic to much of the US. The guy who proposed to turn Florida into a vacation hotspot was insane because it was a disease ridden hellhole. Washington DC too. You can still catch malaria in many places in the US if you try hard enough.
Since mosquitos are such a scourge, controlling them has been pretty well studied. This isn't even the first release of this kind in the US. It's not even the first time Google's done
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Internet says yes:
https://www.msmosquito.org/mos... [msmosquito.org]
Re:Unintended consequences... (Score:5, Informative)
Adeptus aegypti, the mosquito that carries so many diseases and tends to bite humans a lot, is an invasive species all over the world; removing it would actually create more space for native species. The predators that feed on Adeptus aegypti like bats, birds and dragonflies are generalist predators; they can eat other things. Adeptus aegypti is actually a poor pollinator, so this would create space for better pollinators like bees and butterflies. And there are 3,500 species of mosquito known; most fill the same ecological niche but only a dozen or so tend to carry the bad diseases, and only Adeptus aegypti prefers humans over animals for biting.
This has been studied extensively, and by all science we have the world could do without this species and get along fine. And these "sterilizing male" strategies are highly targeted to just the one species so they are quite good solutions.
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In USA, Aedes Aegypti is invasive and new, and it won't be missed. In most places in America, it's been here less than 30 years. Less than 5 years, where I live. I am confident that the ecology of 2026 is plenty compatible with the ecology of 2021.
If some obscure bird species that just moved in 5 years ago can't settle for eating the slower, bigger, less stealthy classical mosquito strains we'll have left, then it can fly back down to Central America where it recently came from.
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In USA, Aedes Aegypti is invasive and new, and it won't be missed. In most places in America, it's been here less than 30 years. Less than 5 years, where I live. I am confident that the ecology of 2026 is plenty compatible with the ecology of 2021.
If some obscure bird species that just moved in 5 years ago can't settle for eating the slower, bigger, less stealthy classical mosquito strains we'll have left, then it can fly back down to Central America where it recently came from.
On the flip side, we really ought to get rid of the entire culex genus because of West Nile and various forms of encephalitis, and we also really ought to get rid of other Aedes albopictus as a secondary vector for several other diseases. There are few species of mosquitoes that aren't problematic to humans. This one is just slightly safer to get rid of because it is a recent invader, rather than something that has been part of the ecosystem longer.
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Aedes aegypti mosquitos are an invasive species. They should be completely eradicated in North America (at the very least).
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I don't want to sound alarmist and I am obviously not an expert but... we know what happens when you remove a species from the food chain. 1. Their predators die off. 2. Other species rise to take their place. While obviously mosquitos are the most harmful-to-humans animals on the planet, have the scientists really figured out what the potential adverse long-term effects of permanent mosquito reduction will be, or are we rushing headlong into solving one problem just to create a worse one further down the line?
No we are not solving one problem just to create a worse one further down the line. What animal(s) exists in the same environment as the targeted mosquitos that potentially could be worse? Keep in mind that there are many mosquito species sharing the same habitat and this remedy only targets one species.
Unpredictable Side Effects (Score:2)
There are myriad animals whose diet depends on mosquitos, many of which are threatened or endangered. I'm no biologist, but I would think that taking measures to preserve those species and their habitat would be the best way to control mosquito populations. Wiping out the base of the food chain, while beneficial to humans in the short term, is not something to be taken lightly.
Now is a time when I really wish the EPA hadn't been gutted, so I could have confidence that proper scientists were being consulted.
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Re: Unpredictable Side Effects (Score:5, Informative)
Aedes Egypti is not native to the Americas. They arrived with European colonists. There are about 3500 different species of mosquitoes so wiping out Aedes will leave about 3500 species.
There are many species that eat Aedes mosquitoes and their larvae as part of their diet, but none are dependent. Those fish that are known for being mosquito eaters are also not native and like everything else prefer to eat other things.
Mosquitoes are tiny and offer very little nutritional value, so the caloric cost of hunting them isn't profitable for anything significantly larger than the mosquito. Bats, for example, get less than 1% of their diet from mosquitoes.
After we deal with the Aedes, there is still Anopheles and Culex blood-sucking species to get rid of, and good riddance to all of them. They offer nothing and kill millions. It's not just humans that suffer, these blood suckers are a curse to many species.
FTFY Re: Unpredictable Side Effects (Score:2)
European colonist is not native to the Americas. /s
After we deal with the Europeans, there is still other blood-sucking species to get rid of, and good riddance to all of them. These blood suckers are a curse to many species.
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that!!
but please do not send them back, we do not want them too!!
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That is actually under debate.
Both the time and how they went there.
As that land bridge: actually did not exist at that time.
It was a gigantic pillar of ice.
Does not mean it was impossible to pass ... but to get there: you already have to pass thousands of miles of icy land, where nothing lived at all.
So: it might have sounded plausible when the books saying this were written, it is absolutely not plausible from a practical point of view.
Knowing that the oldest artefacts from "early settlers" are over 40k y
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Mosquitoes are tiny and offer very little nutritional value, so the caloric cost of hunting them isn't profitable for anything significantly larger than the mosquito. Bats, for example, get less than 1% of their diet from mosquitoes.
The larva are perhaps more important for the food chain. Fish food might be important, especially for the young,
But why Google?? (Score:5, Interesting)
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It's in their mandate to Be Evil
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Don't worry, I am sure they are getting a nice tax write off and some good PR
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They created Verily Health a long time ago, and Debug came out of that. It's one of their moonshot projects, hoping to develop the next big medical profit centre.
Governments and corporations will pay for this service if it works. Back when I was in an office, my employer would pay for flu vaccinations, because the cost was much lower than the lost productivity if I got sick.
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You have to pay for flu vaccines? Wow
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Some people get them for free, but most people do have to pay if they want them. Or not if their employer offers them.
Same with COVID now, those were free but now only certain people get them for nowt and the rest have to pay.
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You have to pay for flu vaccines? Wow
You pay for them in Norway too, unless you're a health care worker in contact with patients or in one of the at-risk groups - old people, people with chronic diseases etc.
Some employers will offer them for free - it's common for kindergartens and consultants, for different reasons. The cost is usually around 30 - 40 USD.
Re: But why Google?? (Score:2)
I believe they are talking about giving a small incentive to employees to go get the free shot, financially well worth it in the aggregate.
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Climate change allows mosquitoes that carry diseases to survive further north than they did before.
This is not doing anything against the root cause, only mitigating a side-effect.
Re:But why Google?? (Score:5, Informative)
In essence the real issue isn't about the science; that was solved. The problem was scale and sorting through large volumes of produced eggs (like data on the internet) to return sufficient results in volume and reasonable cost, so this actually leverages Google's technology focus over the last 10-15 years to solve the key bottleneck.
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Even if this is somehow honest, it risks bad P/R and fuels conspiracy chatter. I can see Google donating to a general environmental fund, but they shouldn't run specific programs. Google should stay in its lane.
Google Knows Best (Score:2)
They only have your best intentions at heart. Pay no attention to the sign that says "road closed - there has never been a bridge over this canyon". Obey Google Maps. Google knows best.You must take the most efficient route.
Raising an army of incels (Score:2, Funny)
No wonder it's on Slashdot
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No wonder it's on Slashdot
They won't be involuntarily celibate. In fact part of the point is that they - in sheer numbers - cuck the existing, fertile male population.
Now.. if you'd made a joke about there being so many of them running a train on the unsuspecting females and maybe mentioned your mom, that might've been funny, if only speculatively more accurate.
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What could possibly... (Score:2)
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This has been done for years around the world. It's only new to the US because our government health protection programs are almost nonexistent.
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It's not even really new to the US. Google was doing it a decade ago. The US army was dropping Aedes aegypti out of airplanes over Georgia, for rather different purposes, in the 50s.
Google? (Score:2)
Mosquitos as "animals" (Score:2)
Yes, scientifically speaking, mosquitos are classified within Kingdom animalia. But in everyday speech, do most people think of insects as animals? If you asked a thousand random people to list three animals they'd hate to be trapped in a room with, I expect you'd get things like crocodile, tiger, grizzly. I would not expect people to reply with wasps and roaches.
Is this something that is regional/cultural?
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Education does vary regionally.
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Yes, it is regional.
As I never lived in a country that has Gizzlies, or Crocodiles. Well, in Thailand we have water monitors (harmless) and something that resembles a Kaiman, but is called different.
The Tigers prefer to live in the forest. Nearly all are GPS tagged and it is unlikely that one ever comes into my room. Germany has no Tigers or Crocodiles, and brown bears only very recently.
So, cockroaches, spiders, mosquitos would actually be on the top of my list: both in Germany (or Europe) and Thailand.
Obv
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Yes, it is regional.
As I never lived in a country that has Gizzlies, or Crocodiles. Well, in Thailand we have water monitors (harmless) and something that resembles a Kaiman, but is called different.
The Tigers prefer to live in the forest. Nearly all are GPS tagged and it is unlikely that one ever comes into my room. Germany has no Tigers or Crocodiles, and brown bears only very recently.
So, cockroaches, spiders, mosquitos would actually be on the top of my list: both in Germany (or Europe) and Thailand.
Obviously an animal is an animal, so no idea about that part of your question.
Very interesting.
If someone asked me to make a list of animals with wings, or animals that prey on other animals, or any other quality, I would never think to include any insects on the list. To me, there is a difference between Animalia the scientific category, and animals the living things we talk about.
If someone said "I just moved out of the city to retire in a country house, so now pretty much every day I see animals outside" it would never occur to me that they might be referring to insects. Quite the
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At some point, at least in USA, most people started thinking only of mammals when using the term animals. At least that's my perception. I don't know any stats about it.
99 bugs in the code... (Score:3)
Sounds more like bug replacement, not debugging. At least short term. Sort of like with AI coding. You ask it to fix a bug and it does it by introducing another one.
Bug Zappers For Profit. (Score:2)
Putting aside all those zero-day "bug" jokes about Google being involved with literal pest control, can someone explain why the hell Google is involved? Does AI get even more delusional with the sound of mosquito buzzing within 3 acres of an AI data center or something? The hell is this Kraptonite story actually about anyway?
Perhaps mega-corps are wanting to suddenly provide what I would define as "social charity" in lieu of the damage they've done. A Prime example of this is Amazon graciously allowing t
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As someone else described it (can't remember who), Google discovered a hose out of which money pours. Ever since they've been looking for another one.
Biotech is often seen as the next revolution after computing. Google started a life sciences research division around 2010. They bought a company that makes spoons for Parkinson's patients and another that makes clinical trial management software, and have dabbled in lots of stuff from robotic surgery, and climate change resistant crop modification, to contact
Out of their league (Score:2)
As much as I hate Google/Alphabet (Score:2)
They do have a lot of random divisions that have nothing to do with their core business of advertising that can do a lot of good in the world if management would just stop killing off the projects.
Did They Not Read Jurassic Park? (Score:3)
Nature will always find a way...
"Successful"? (Score:2)
I spent all of two minutes looking, but I can't find any evidence this program has done anything yet. So it what sense is it "successful"?
How (Score:2)
How exactly is this supposed to improve my search results?
So Sterile, but not Incels (Score:2)
Because it does seem that Google is already good at breeding Incels. :)
Wee need to ... (Score:2)
Hold on (Score:2)