Should We Make Mosquitoes Extinct?

this episode has been brought to you by our super generous supporters on patreon I probably don't have to tell you this mosquitoes are a nuisance but did you know that through the transmission of disease they kill more people than any other animal earning them the title of deadliest organisms on the planet we've tried many ways of killing them and keeping them away but nothing has worked completely but now we might have the means to kill them all actually make them extinct but should we good stuff producer Matt Weber looks at how we could genetically engineer an extinction yikes the last mosquito on earth is born this way three days after the egg is laid the larvae emerges its childhood is spent on the surface of a stagnant puddle and it lasts the entirety of a week if it's male he Wiles away his days feeding on flowers before succumbing to old age within a week if it's female she will have an entire month to gorge herself on the blood of nearby vertebrates either way the mosquito will be extinct within a matter of weeks it will take with it not only the capacity to spread death and disease amongst its vertebrate prey but the secret to its own demise buried deep within the genetic code of that last mosquito is a gene that renders the organism sterile this deadly heirloom only appeared in her species a few years before placed there by her vertebrate prey only a tiny fraction of the population even harbored this gene at first but these first of the last mosquitoes weren't born in a puddle or a swampy marsh they came to be in the confines of a laboratory somewhere conceived in petri dishes and engineered by scientists each one won't look any different than any other member of its species but each one will Harbor a gene so insidious that within a few dozen generations the entire population will be a sterile as the laboratory where they were born their vertebrate prey especially a certain super abundant primate have shown an uncommon ingenuity when it comes to Authority in their mosquito predator and we have good reason through the transmission of disease mosquitoes kill over a million people every year earning them the distinction of deadliest organisms on the planet we have deployed chemical repellents and insecticides on grand scales drained their nurseries and habitats and introduced natural predators to control the mosquito population but not has completely eliminated the mosquito but now we might have the technology to eradicate the mosquito thanks to CRISPR CRISPR is a gene editing technique that allows us to make changes to DNA with surgical precision the technique was first developed in the 90s but has become more and more commonplace in the last few years with it we could remove genes that cause disease or remove undesirable characteristics or we could insert specially tailored genes to cultivate whatever traits we want even harmful traits it could help eliminate diseases that have plagued humanity since the beginning of time but that only works of a gene specifically codes for disease if the disease is spread through say the bite of a mosquito that approach would be ineffective but instead of removing the gene that caused the disease we could use CRISPR to remove the entire species responsible for the spread of the disease using a technique called a gene drive and this is how it works insert a gene into a mosquito that renders the species less fit to survive in this case a gene that makes the mosquito sterile since the mom and dad mosquito are only contributing 50% of their genome to the next generation any given gene in a single organism will have a 50% chance of being passed on but a gene drive increases the chance of transmission so even though a gene might have a deleterious side effect like sterility the gene drive keeps the gene in the population at higher than expected rates the genes presence keeps increasing with each successive generation until most if not all mosquitoes are sterile and once an organism can't reproduce extinction is imminent we could do this to the mosquito and since mosquitoes go through a dozen generations per year the gene would quickly propagate throughout the entire species until every individual was sterile within a couple years the deadliest organisms on the planet would be extinct nobody has done this yet but that doesn't mean they're trying as a proof of concept researchers successfully used a gene drive to change the dominant color of a species of fruit fly to yellow and it only took two researchers working on their own to accomplish this a lab at Imperial College London is in the process of crafting one of these self defeating mosquitos and a half-dozen other research institutions are working toward the same goal these genetically modified mosquitoes already exist in laboratories whether we release them into the wild whether on purpose or by accident might be only a matter of time but this technology isn't just limited to mosquitoes any species with a fast reproductive cycle could be a candidate for the gene dr vampire bats could be targeted with gene Drive techniques to reduce the transmission of rabies in 2017 the New Zealand government announced that it would pursue gene Drive technology to eliminate eight invasive mammalian species from their island rats possums and stoats were all introduced to New Zealand accidentally through shipping and migration the presence has wreaked havoc on the fragile ecosystem pushing native species to the brink of extinction gene drive techniques could eliminate or drastically reduce the populations of these invasive predators by 2050 but mosquitoes are not an invasive species for all the death they caused the fulfill a role in the ecosystem the male's act as pollinators for flowering plants and we can't remove the deadly females without also removing the harmless males it's hard to predict what exactly would happen if the mosquito disappeared from its ecosystem another species would probably fill the void left by the mosquito which one is hard to say but it's entirely possible the mosquito could be replaced by an even more deadly and pervasive disease vector where the gene Drive could jump species leading to the unintended extinction of a whole other organism or a natural mutation could render the gene drive ineffective possibly creating a mosquito population even more resistant to our eradication efforts then again maybe nothing at all would happen the scientific genius of the mosquito that transmits malaria is an awfully in Greek this literally means useless but the inherent ecological value of a species even one is deadly and seemingly expendable as the mosquito is hard to estimate we have no qualms eradicating smallpox no one is lamenting the demise of the guinea worm should we feel guilty for causing the extinction of the deadliest organisms on the planet extinction is a natural process 99% of all life that has ever existed is now extinct and every species will eventually die out this certainly isn't the first time we've caused the extinction of the species the dodo the passenger pigeon the Tasmanian Tiger and hundreds of other species have all disappeared because of our actions we are in the middle of one of the greatest mass extinction events in the history of the planet and it is being perpetrated by us overhunting habitat loss climate change and are generally reckless and thoughtless behavior have all contributed to this mass extinction it is the result of our mistakes but for the first time ever our species can make the conscious decision to make another species extinct in this time it won't be a mistake we'll have it down to a science if we decide to go forward with the extinction of the mosquito there will be no reason to lament the loss of the deadliest organisms on the planet I have no doubt there is already another species ready to fill that void so what do you think should we actually make the mosquito extinct are there any other species that we could do without I for one can do without Eagles let me know in the comments don't forget to Like and subscribe and share this video with the gusto of a virulent disease vector special thanks to our patreon subscribers for making this episode of the good stuff possible without you this just would not happen so if you like what we do here consider heading over to our patreon page and supporting the show thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: The Good Stuff

Views: 1,348,058

Rating: 4.8030667 out of 5

Keywords: the good stuff, scishow, crash course, vsauce, idea channel, education, wheezy waiter, wheezywaiter, joe hanson, craig benzine, vlogbrothers, CRISPR, Mosquito, Repellant, Extinction, Genes, Gene, Genetic Engineering, Malaria, Disease, science, Mosquitoes, Mosquito bite, mosquito repellent, genome, gene editing, insects, genetics, dna, biology, mosquitos, anopheles, how mosquitoes bite

Id: 1nNzxKM-3Ew

Length: 7min 36sec (456 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 29 2017