bbleeker comments on Crazy Ideas Thread - Less Wrong

22 Post author: Gunnar_Zarncke 07 July 2015 09:40PM

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Comment author: XFrequentist 09 July 2015 03:25:59AM 11 points [-]

Aedes aegypti (the "Dengue mosquito") should be eradicated from the Americas by releasing genetically-modified mosquitoes carrying self-perpetuating lethal mutations.

Comment author: bbleeker 09 July 2015 11:10:32AM 1 point [-]

Why limit it to the Americas? And can a lethal mutation be self-perpetuating?

Comment author: XFrequentist 09 July 2015 01:23:19PM *  8 points [-]

Why limit it to the Americas?

Proof of concept, capacity, and feasibility. I'd love to see this done for all disease-carrying mosquitoes, but you've got to start somewhere.

can a lethal mutation be self-perpetuating?

Yes. I'm actually not sure if this would work at a continental scale (or rather, how many modified mosquito releases would be required, is this number infeasible, etc). This is something I'm interested in modelling.