A Deadly Enemy Older than Man: The Buzz of Death

Mosquitoes transmit disease to over 700 million humans a year, with a resulting death toll in the millions (wikipedia). To this point, the insect repellant DEET is the most effective defensive weapon against these disease vectors, other than thick clothing and strong netting. But humans are slowly beginning to decode the language of mosquito smell rceptors.

Scientists at UC Riverside are discovering an array of common chemicals that can inhibit, blind, or lead astray the CO2 receptors of mosquitoes.

Vanderbilt University researchers have gone further, and developed an entirely new class of insect repellant which is thousands of times more effective than DEET.

NewScientist
But now that genetic engineers have become interested in the mosquito problem, we are beginning to see new strategies which are more clever than ever. The illustration above reveals two contrasting approaches to species eradication -- the sterile male technique vs the autocidal technique.

...if autocidal technology lives up to its promise, it could be about as environmentally friendly as pest control can get. It could largely or entirely replace pesticides, and it affects only the target species. Last but not least, it is hard to see what could go wrong. _NewScientist

The autocidal technique produces females which either die before maturation, or which are physically disabled and unable to mate.

Generally, genes that cause a reproductive disadvantage will tend to disappear from the population over time. But there are a number of factors which could alter that Darwinian equation.

If the autocidal mosquitoes were also given traits that conferred a reproductive advantage for themselves -- super powerful sexual attractant pheromones for example -- as part of an overall genetic package, the autocidal trait would spread more quickly.

Likewise, if automated stations were set up in the wild to periodically release new batches of autocidal males, the process could be reinforced over an extended period of time.

If the autocidal trait caused sterility in females, rather than death or disability, the process of species extermination would be accelerated.

And so on. It is easy to imagine dozens of ways to augment, accelerate, or perpetuate such a process of ongoing extermination.

Alert readers will have recognised the return to the New Scientist article on species extinction, applied here specifically to mosquitoes.

But as noted in the NS article, similar techniques could be applied to virtually any species that reproduces sexually. Also as noted in the NS article, the genetic engineers have just begun to think of different approaches to the mosquito problem. This ball has just begun to roll down the hill.

#1 Box Office Movie "Contagion": Realistic Prelude to Global Collapse?

NewScientist
The current movie box office champion, Contagion, is being praised for its realistic portrayal of a global outbreak of a killer virus. A wide range of experts were consulted in the attempt by movie producers to make the film as realistic as possible.

It's hard to name many Hollywood blockbusters that are as invested in the realities of science as Contagion....very few Hollywood productions realistically portray the process of science, both its successes and frustrations. That's what makes Contagion unique. Although it is by no means flawlessly accurate - it's not a NOVA documentary - Contagion has been well fact-checked compared to most science-y blockbusters.

The movie's exhilarating pace never sags, even in scenes that have the potential to bore people out of their minds: a meeting between an epidemic intelligence service officer (Winslet) and the Minnesota Department of Health, for example. But Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Burns practice what is in effect very successful science communication: they keep the viewer's attention as they explain statistics like the all-important R0 - the average number of people an infected person infects - and truths about the scientific process, such as the fact that before researchers can study a virus, they need to figure out how to grow it in cell cultures in the lab, without the virus destroying all the cells.

... _NewScientist

Given the assumptions about the fictitious virus, MEV-1:

• It can be spread by direct or indirect contact, by airborne droplets
• It kills quickly, within a few days of exposure
• The virus remains contagious in the environment for several hours or days
• It kills over 20% of those infected

etc, it is easy to see how such an infection could lead to a global economic collapse.

Such a virus would not lead to the extinction of humans -- unless it left survivors sterile -- but in the age of high volume global travel, such an easily spread virus would end up in most of the world's large cities within just a few days of hitting a busy airport such as O'Hare, Heathrow, or JFK. From there, it would spread radially to smaller cities and the countryside. Air, train, and bus travel would not likely be shut down until it was too late.

Hospitals and clinics would be particularly fertile foci for contagion. Most doctors, nurses, paramedical personnel, EMS, etc. would be infected.

Schools would likewise be hit early and hard. Teachers, children, bus drivers, would all carry the virus home with them. Any workplace where a lot of people work in close proximity, use the same machines, and share the same facilities, would provide the epidemic with a host of new victims.

Even if 80% of the infected eventually survived, a lot of society's most valuable members would have been lost. Regional and national economies would collapse and take time to restore. The transportation infrastructure and product supply lines would take many years to rebuild and replace. Power structures would quickly and radically shift. Central governmental control would be lost for years in many nations, and permanently in others.

I am describing what would be the best case scenario. In real life, an effective vaccine would not be developed or produced nearly so quickly as in the film. The dying would probably continue for months and years as the virus mutated and came back through the same populations a second, third, or fourth time.

So, what do you do, given this very real (although perhaps unlikely) scenario?

How the Green Movement Can Trigger the Great Human Dieoff

Powerful persons in the global green movement would like to see the human population of Earth reduced by at least 90%. For several decades, many of them believed that resource depletion, energy scarcity, mass starvation, or voluntary sterilisation might achieve their grand goal. But it is slowly dawning on them that if they are to slash the human population of the planet to a size that they consider manageable, they will have to be a bit more proactive.

Just in time for the great green engineered human dieoff, biological scientists have devised the perfect method of genocidal species extinction.

IN THE urban jungle of Juazeiro in Brazil, an army is being unleashed. It is an army like no other: the soldiers' mission is to copulate rather than fight. But they are harbingers of death, not love. Their children appear healthy at first but die just before they reach adulthood, struck down by the killer genes their fathers passed on to them.

These soldiers are the first of a new kind of creature - "autocidal" maniacs genetically modified to wipe out their own kind without harming other creatures....the approach should work with just about any animal - from invasive fish and frogs to rats and rabbits....it could transform the way we think about genetically engineered animals.

... the autocidal approach could not only be used to control invasive species such as cane toads, but that it is the only method that could work in many cases. "It's the only hope we have for the long-term control and eradication of these pests," he says. "Other efforts help, but in the end they are Band-Aids in the absence of a real solution."

Thresher has come up with a way to create fish that produce only male offspring. Releasing enough of these "daughterless" fish into the wild, with each passing on the daughterless habit, would turn a thriving invasive population into a bunch of reluctant bachelors destined for extinction.

...Models suggest that releasing enough daughterless carp to make up 5 per cent of the total population would effectively eradicate carp in the Murray-Darling basin by 2030. Thresher's models also suggest pests such as cane toads and rats could be tackled this way.

... One [approach] that has particular promise exploits chunks of "selfish" DNA that can spread themselves through the population and kill only when two copies are inherited. In theory a one-time release of just a few insects, rather than the continual release of millions, could wipe out a wild population (New Scientist, 22 March 2003).
_NewScientist

ArmageddonOnline.org
The last paragraph from the excerpt above describes the most subtle approach, and perhaps the easiest approach to genocide for greens to take. But they should be prepared to wait several generations to see the completion of their grand project. Such an approach should also allow environmentalists to create an antidote, so they they themselves and their associates could continue to live and procreate indefinitely. Think of it: a master race of environmentalists, sitting back and watching most of the rest of humanity fade away.

It is an approach without gas chambers, without germs, poisons, bullets, or bombs. A clean, test-tube approach that could propagate death and genocide far more broadly than any method previously devised.

Taking Overpopulation Seriously: Forced Mass Sterilisation

A program of sterilizing women...despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men.
...
The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin...opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births.

...Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods... would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems....To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective... _Obama Science Advisor John Holdren

More ideas here

World Without HumansIf humans are to deal with overpopulation, they may need to take some extreme measures, such as those favoured by people very close to US President Obama. Involuntary sterilisation and spiking water supplies with contraceptives are two of the suggestions that leftists of the environmentalist persuasion tend to throw around a lot, at get-togethers. Fortunately for such concerned leftists, Oregon health scientists are developing a new generation of contraceptives which might fit their needs:

... the contraceptive OHSU researchers are developing is not hormonal and [is] more focused on mechanisms that directly result in the release of an egg. This new approach targets the key enzymes responsible for the release of an egg.

...This research...has demonstrated that targeting these enzymes can prevent the release of an egg from the ovary. The next step for Hennebold and colleagues is to determine the delivery method of such a drug and the timetable for medication.

"Our hope is that the next generation of birth control is more targeted and has a higher effectiveness level," added Hennebold. _SD

Mass sterilisation is a common topic in fiction and in speculative writing. Sometimes the act of mass sterilisation is initiated by humans, and sometimes extraterrestrials or natural forces are to blame.

A program of mass sterilisation was actually carried out on remote villagers in Peru, and was attempted unsuccessfully in India.

In the context of widespread modern anxiety related to climate change, resource depletion, global pollution, animal species extinction, peak oil, and overpopulation, the idea of forced mass sterilisation of humans seems a very attractive idea to many in the left environmentalist movement. The news item below has been re-written by Al Fin political scientists to better reflect much of the modern thought current among leftist environmentalist thought leaders:

Tomorrow They Vote for Either Mass Sterilisation or Mass Killing

On Tuesday, April 5, the United States Department of Populations will choose between mass sterilization or killing, life or death, for residents in the states of Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New York, in the first use of new overpopulation legislation passed recently by the US Congress, and signed by the president.

The legislative project adopted by the US Congress promoting mass sterilisation was completely altered by the USDP to allow for the possibility of mass killings in certain situations where the need to reduce populations is particularly dire.

If the choice were left to the states themselves, it is likely that they would choose mass sterilisation over mass euthanasia. The federal government of the United States has decided that the issue is too important to be left to the states.

Environmental advisors to the president and to the congress prefer the use of mass euthanasia -- "to get it over with as quickly as possible." But overpopulation denialists continue to lobby the federal government, as protestors from across the US fill the Washington DC mall into the millions.
_Original Unaltered News Item

As you can see, Al Fin political scientists have mutilated the original item almost beyond recognition. But when it comes to the overpopulation crisis -- or any environmental crisis -- the ends justify the means.

In the interest of fairness, we will present a contrary viewpoint from pro-natalist Bryan Caplan:

The sterilization of half mankind would...be a horrible tragedy of epic proportions. But we wouldn't be losing the society we've got. We'd just be losing the society we could have had: Millions of new creative geniuses, and billions of additional people who'd enjoy being alive. If human beings were built differently, we might inconsolably miss the descendents we never had. For most of us, though, it's "out of sight, out of mind." We miss people we knew and lost a thousand times more than people who were never conceived. _BryanCaplan

Mr. Caplan brings up an interesting point: Once the mass sterilisation program is carried out, the people will never know the difference. They cannot possibly miss the people who are never conceived, never born -- people they never knew. Can they?

It is important that any program of mass sterilisation and/or euthanasia incorporate a wide range of safeguards to be sure that nothing goes wrong with the planning or execution. Most importantly, the elite environmentalists among us who have designed this program to save the planet and its many non-human species, must survive and prosper in the brave new world we create. Denialists and non-believers will be left in the dustbin of history, by any means necessary.

How Quickly Could Humans Re-Populate After a Die-Off?

Although the European population of the world has been shrinking steadily for a number of decades, the global population continues to expand -- almost exclusively among third world populations, and populations of low average IQ. As higher IQ populations shrink, and lower IQ populations grow, one might detect the beginnings of a self-correcting mechanism for the planet's supposed human population problem. After all, it is the innovations of the high IQ populations which have allowed the lower IQ populations to grow out of their normal bounds.

The politically correct intelligentsia of the western world has been obsessed with the "population bomb" and the dangers of overpopulation, for several decades now, but they cannot bring themselves to point to the distinct populations which are growing. That would not be politically correct.

According to the chattering class, all humans are now doomed to a planetary blowback, or die off. Whether the die-off will come via climate doom, resource depletion doom, starvation doom, emerging infection doom ... it doesn't really matter. However it falls, the coming doom and dieoff will be the fault of human hubris, human greed. It is absolutely necessary that humans -- particular humans -- are to be blamed for whatever massive doom and dieoff is to come.

The goal of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, the Dieoff.orgiasts, and the entire leftist-linked faux environmental movement, is the reduction of global human population to approximately 100 million persons or fewer. Even well respected academics at large universities have publicly advocated for an "ecological re-balancing" of the planet by the forced reduction of the human population.

Suppose the dieoff.orgiasts succeed, using the mechanisms of national and international governmental bodies to enact policies of energy starvation, and other draconian measures and mischief which largely lead to the extinction of economic activity and its accompanying intellectual innovation in high IQ populations. With an accelerated dieoff of high IQ groups will come an accompanying rapid genocide of lower IQ groups. Natural losses due to starvation, disease, warfare, and dysfunctional culture -- which have been held off by the paternalistic interference of outside groups -- will resume with a vengeance.

Assume the population of the planet shrinks to roughly 100 million persons, as the left-Luddites of the dieoff.orgy wish. How will that population be distributed? The answer to the question is complicated by the presence of large, growing third world populations residing within the boundaries of the first world. A large global dieoff would certainly trigger massive ethnic bloodshed within ethnically mixed populations which had failed to assimilate. Such localised but widespread civic disorder would disrupt food supplies and normal services, leading to yet more death and loss of human capital.

Here is a rough guestimate of population distribution post-dieoff, if the lefty-Luddites succeed:
Europe: 15 million survivours
East and South Asia: 50 million survivours
MENA: 5 million survivours
North America: 20 million survivours
South America: 5 million survivours
SubSaharan Africa: 1 million survivours
Oceania and islands: 4 million survivours

Clearly advanced technology will take a huge hit from such a dieoff.orgy, as most scientists, technicians, engineers, and technologists will have died along with the masses of other victims. Industrial infrastructure would be virtually non-existent. Any militaries which have planned ahead to provide alternative fuels and power generation schemes will naturally be in a better position to establish local and regional order of sorts.

Give the vestigial governments 50 to 100 years after the dieoff, to establish basic civil order and infrastructure in parts of Asia, Europe, North America, and Oceania. Once it is safe again to live, learn, trade, and innovate, how long would it take for human neo-civilisation to re-populate, re-build, and establish a pathway to the solar system and beyond?

In the absence of a functional artificial uterus, women of neo-civilisation will need to have many more children than civilised women would consider having today. It is likely that much of advanced technology -- including biotechnology -- will be saved and revived during the recovery from the lefty-Luddite dieoff. Among the saved biotech knowledge will probably be the genetic knowledge for controlling the age of menarche -- the onset of ovulation -- in girls.

The girl in the photo -- Lina Medina -- is over 7 months pregnant, at the age of 5 1/2 years old. She gave birth to a healthy boy by Caesarean Section in 1933, well before the age of modern genetic therapies and IVF fertilisation.

In 1669 Elizabeth Greenhill gave birth to her last (39th) child at the age of 54. The boy grew up to be a London surgeon and author, Thomas Greenhill. Clearly this was before the age of IVF treatments.

So girls and women are historically capable of childbirth from the ages of 5 to 55, without advanced technology. But with the use of advanced biotechnology, women have given birth as late as age 70. And with an advanced knowledge of how early menarche can be triggered, girls as young as 6 could certainly carry and deliver children -- as demonstrated by Lina Medina and other cases.

So assume an age window for pregnancy between the ages of 10 and 60, to be conservative. That is a 50 year window, but women are not cattle, so although they will probably be treated somewhat like brood mares under such extraordinary circumstances, their health and mental / emotional well-being would certainly be watched over, at least inside the nations of neo-civilisation.

Assume one child born every other year, with 5 one-year periods for intensive rehabilitation of lean body mass -- including body calcium. That allows time for each healthy woman to produce 20 children over her reproductive lifetime, by conservative estimate.

Given what we know about pregnancy's potentially rejuvenating affect on the bodies of middle-aged women, one would expect the healthy lifespans of such prolific mothers to extend into the late 80s and 90s. In other words, they would live to see even their youngest children reach adulthood.

So, over a period of 100 years of intensive re-population, a population of 10 million breeding pairs could easily bring the human population back into the billions. The same reasoning would apply to the settlement of new planets or solar systems.

It is unlikely that such a policy would survive for long, however, since among these prolific mothers would undoubtedly be some very intelligent and inventive technologists, capable of inventing, testing, and perfecting a functional artificial womb. Necessity is the mother of invention.

So we see that the popular chimera of the dieoff.orgiasts -- which they cling to under the name of "sustainability" -- is itself unsustainable in the face of a determined nucleus of intelligent, forward minded humans. No one wants to exercise this extreme re-population option -- unless a faster-than-light drive is invented -- for many reasons. But the option is there, and it will grow easier to achieve with every passing year -- if it ever becomes necessary.

The left-Luddite world is a world totally without balance or rationality. It cannot stand for contradictory viewpoints to be voiced, or for skeptical researches to be carried out. Its predictions of doom have been failing in abysmal fashion for several decades now -- without any sign that the delusional doomists have learned anything from their faulty assumptions and reasoning.

In a sense, the predicted dooms were never expected to come about. They were only memetic bludgeons to sway public opinion. Once the right people achieved political power, doom-from-incompetence was certain to follow. We are seeing the beginnings of this destructive incompetence in much of the western world.

Human ingenuity is certainly in short supply -- and the supply grows shorter the longer the Luddites are in control of most of the media, academia, politics, and general intelligentsia. But ingenuity and invention can flare up in places least expected, and they certainly will do if necessary.

Think about it. Unless you want your daughters and grand-daughters to be doomed to a life of perpetual procreation.