New Yorker magazine alert thread

I was scared in the "Jurassic Park" sense: releasing genetically modified insects into the wild, particularly insects know for efficiently spreading disease and killing millions, sounds scary. I kept thinking of all the other famous cases of introducing animals (let alone inventing animals) to an environment to solve a problem but ultimately causing more problems; does this ever work right? Anyway, as I read it, I was constantly struck with dread, like, in 10 years, when we're all dying of the mutant mosquito plague, we'll be citing this article.

(Im a big fan of a previous New Yorker mosquito article, the one about DDT, which basically illustrated how close we were to eradicating mosquitos and malaria until the release of "Silent Spring." Sort of the flipside of this article: there was never any proof that DDT was particularly dangerous, especially compared to the demonstrably massively lethal malaria, but western fears of the potential food chain damage of DDT put the kibosh on the mosquito holocaust)

the mosquito project seems v well thought out and safe, the risk is a slippery slope where introducing mutant creatures becomes common place and then one day someone fucks up, but w/e its inevitable might as well have a few mosquito free years before we all succumb to hedgehog fever

josh are you frightened by trap-neuter-return programs for stray animals also?

or of the idea of genetically modified grey wolves and african wildcats living among us also?

I kept thinking of all the other famous cases of introducing animals (let alone inventing animals) to an environment to solve a problem but ultimately causing more problems; does this ever work right?

Honeybees in North America.

Honeybees were introduced to North America?

The honey bee is not native to North America; it was introduced from Europe for honey production in the early 1600s, Johnston said. Subspecies were introduced from Italy in 1859, and later from Spain, Portugal and elsewhere.

When honey bees collected in Europe and Africa were studied, they separated genetically into four distinct groups, he said.

However, the genome of U.S. bees "was a complete mix of the three different introduced European subspecies," he said.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061211220927.htm

But I assume there were bees before then? Honey bees? Or was there no honey in the Americas until the 1600s?

That's still pretty cool to learn. Thanks.

More here: http://bugguide.net/node/view/475348

Summary: Europeans brought HBs over for their honey, they escaped, and have become indispensable for much of US agriculture. Nonetheless:

The honey bee, remarkable as it is, doesn’t know how to pollinate a tomato or an eggplant flower, while some native bees are masters at this. The same thing happens with a number of native plants, such as pumpkins and watermelons, blueberries and cranberries, which are more efficiently pollinated by native bees than by honey bees.

So HBs haven't COMPLETELY displaced native species.

TED talk piece is really kinda pointless
surprise, these people had a plan to do this and it happened and these talks are popular and somewhat dumbed down pop sociology/business 101 hmmm fascinating tell me more oh that's it huh?

I haven't read that article yet because that's exactly what I'm expecting from it. It's just the kind of thing the NYer tends toward glibness on. See also the recent bit on Davos -- big yawn, even with the Mick Jagger cameo.

honestly the davos one was more interesting if that gives you any sense of the pointlessness of the TED one

William Finnegan bringing the noize as always with his thing on narcos in guadalajara. I'm so glad he has been writing more stuff for the mag. Have been a major Finnegan stan since reading Cold New World in the 90s.

Balls, difference is that mosquitos are a notorious deadly vector for the spread of disease, highly resistant to eradication. Unlike wolves or cats or whatever.

there's a quote in there that mosquitos are responsible over history for about half the deaths of humankind.
how much worse could it get? I can't help but feel that this is just not a western world problem so it's easier for us to overlook as we don't have relatives that died of dengue.

"…yet" being the subtext of this whole thing.

i think the subtext is really more that we'll come around to these measures once we do.

That's why I brought up the earlier article. We had cleared so many regions of mosquitos by the 70s, thus saving countless lives from malaria, but western fears of ddt trumped eradicating malaria.

i'm sorry but is this - Balls, difference is that mosquitos are a notorious deadly vector for the spread of disease, highly resistant to eradication. Unlike wolves or cats or whatever. - supposed to be an argument in YOUR favor???

I actually thought the TED piece was more interesting than it could have been! Some interesting asides about the place of education/intellectualism in the U.S. and the kinds of people who gravitate toward TED.

Just meant that i'm not concerned with genetically modified stuff in general,.just the idea of mutant mosquitos.

well as long as this country weighs concerns based on ignorance and superstition has heavily as concerns based on science and public health i'm sure we'll be ok. meanwhile jenny mccarthy is in playboy again this month apparently.

Vaccines cause dengue fever.

Husband just assured me he had been vaccinated for dengue, which is a lie.

Topic came up because we are figuring out what we do/do not need to do as far as travel medicine for an upcoming trip to Sri Lanka.

Does anyone really take antimalarials? Everyone I know who has traveled/lived in a malaria-endemic place has "not bothered."

Anyway mosquitos are part of the food chain so, y'know, beware unintended consequences and whatnot. What will the bats eat?

ive taken anti antimalarials and not taken antimalarials, its really much better to just take them, people sometime die and more often get sick and have their trip ruined, its not that much of a hassle, just dont get the ones that give you nightmares

"Page gives a restrained but brilliantly satirical performance as an intellectual and emotional faker. She's one of the greatest of Allen's female creations."

because if anyone knows about being an intellectual faker...

they make a lengthy point in that article about how egyptian mosquitos are not a keystone in the ecological food chain
they're sort of at the top of their chain and are feeding off of one of the few other megafauna species that function as ultrapredators, i.e. us

aedes mosquitos are a nonnative species in north america, are not 'part of the food chain'. also curious how bombing aedes w/ insecticide (which does affect native species along w/ o yeah humans)(but then again that's only if you believe biochemists and ecologists whose 'opinions' clearly aren't as valid as average joe) would somehow be less disruptive on this nonexistent place in the food chain that effectively breeding them out. maybe the bats can feed on the blood of christ.

balls and i just want what's best for you why can't you see that
*sets frankensquito to "kill"*

http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/file.php?40,file=36695,filename=MansquitoPromo.jpg

^ chemtrails pic?

i too want what's best for balls

That was a still from Mansquito, and it was funny.

Does anyone really take antimalarials? Everyone I know who has traveled/lived in a malaria-endemic place has "not bothered."

I had a friend in college who forgot to take them before going to Central America and then got malaria. But I think he "forgot" rather than forgot, and now I can't remember if he was lying about the malaria.

Huh, this friend has a Wikipedia entry, and I have now learned he was interviewed for a New Yorker article.

The Gladwell/DDT article exaggerates the effectiveness of DDT and has lead to a lot of right wing cranks writing nonsense. Mosquitos were becoming resistant to it around the time it got stopped being sprayed, and the replacement chemicals that were just as good if not better. Right now bug nets really are the best way to fight it.

some posts about it here, mostly going on about it not being "banned" which can be skipped: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/category/ddt/

Gladwell wrong? =0

W/E Malcolm Gladwell just gets off on flipping you over on your back like "You think it's one way, but it's another! BLAOW!"

But all the bad stuff about DDT, its effectiveness and/or dangers, were discovered after the US more or less stopped using it, no?

I just read the Christian Marclay profile from a few months ago. Good stuff.

But all the bad stuff about DDT, its effectiveness and/or dangers, were discovered after the US more or less stopped using it, no?

the version i'd heard was that it was the anti-DDT stuff in Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" that brought about the US ban (eventually).

Many of the younger female staff writers are kind of rowr, is this some kind of NYC thing.

uh

JUST SAYING.

No but I mean it's not hard to figure out why that might happen

Who are we talking about? Lauren Collins? Ariel Levy?

Larissa Macfqurharar?

the version i'd heard was that it was the anti-DDT stuff in Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" that brought about the US ban (eventually).

Isn't that in the piece I noted? Where DDT was well on its way to ending malaria, then along comes "Silent Spring" to put the end to that, even though the scientific verdict was out?