deutrinowow, a WIRED article on #genedrives mentioning that US intelligence director James Clapper (yeah, *that* James Clapper) gave them a nod as a WMD/proliferation concern. Um, yeah... did anybody else see that breathless TED talk on eliminating malaria with gene drives and wonder what the presenter was smoking to have such rose-colored glasses? You can force a sterility mutation through a population in 3 generations. The described self-destructing a fruitfly population in the debut paper!
The plan: release mosquitos with a sterility gene drive into the wild to wipe out malaria mosquitos... by mass-editing, in the environment, the genomes of entire living mosquito populations to insert a sterility gene. The woman who gave the TED talk on it a while back was *excited* about the prospect. I was truly amazed - how the fuck do you think that up and not IMMEDIATELY know it is a BAD IDEA?
anyway yeah here's the article on the latest existential hazard coming soon to a theater (of war) near you courtesy of CRISPR/Cas9 https://www.wired.com/story/this-gene-editing-tech-might-be-too-dangerous-to-unleash/
and the bonus TED talk, I overstated the presenter's enthusiasm in my prior toot but yeahhhhh https://youtu.be/OI_OhvOumT0
I dunno man, I hope that if the Great Sieve event which fishes us out of the tadpole pond of galactic civilization candidates is one of our own making, it's at least some really cool and unexpected emergent property rather than boring stuff like nukes or climate change. We are definitely getting closer now 😁
Hallå Kitteh@deutrino I think the reason you think it's a bad idea is because you know something about how the gene editing works and what the risks of it are.
When I heard the idea expressed simply as sterile mosquitoes competing with fertile mosquitoes I thought it sounded like a brilliant idea. Much better than, say, spraying a whole region with DDT.
When I heard the idea expressed simply as sterile mosquitoes competing with fertile mosquitoes I thought it sounded like a brilliant idea. Much better than, say, spraying a whole region with DDT.