https://www.inkstonenews.com/science/chinese-scientists-invent-new-technique-wipe-out-mosquitoes/article/3019133
[links and images in online article]
Scientists wiped out mosquitoes on two islands using new method
Jul 18 2019
by Stephen Chen
Itchy from mosquito bites?
Scientists have wiped out the entire population of mosquitoes on two
islands in southern China, using a radical technique to make the males
infertile.
The study, published in the journal Nature, could transform the fight
against a range of deadly diseases carried by mosquitoes.
Over nearly two years, scientists released more than 200 million
specially bred male Asian tiger mosquitoes on the Shazai and Dadaosha
islands in the delta to the south of Guangzhou, the area with the
highest number of dengue fever cases in China.
TRANSLATING CHINA
Society
Air China incident highlights stigma against mental illness
Photo: Shutterstock
by
Qin Chen
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China is embroiled in a debate about whether people with a history of
mental illness should be allowed to use public transportation, which was
sparked by an incident last week at Air China.
The airline was criticized after an off-duty employee made a scene
during a flight and accused three passengers of attacking her, leading
them to be questioned by police for hours after their arrival in Beijing.
Later, it emerged that the employee had bipolar disorder. The passengers
were eventually released.
On China’s Twitter-like Weibo, a poll titled “Should mentally ill
patients be allowed to take a flight?” gathered 85,000 votes by Thursday.
Caijing, a Beijing-based magazine, started the poll on Weibo.
Caijing, a Beijing-based magazine, started the poll on Weibo.
About 55% of the respondents voted “no,” saying that patients were
emotionally unstable and a public liability. A quarter of respondents
voted to establish a travel blacklist to restrict some patients.
Eleven percent of the respondents said they were unsure. Only 9% of
respondents said the patients should be allowed to fly.
China has about 250 million people living with mental illness, according
to People's Daily, a state newspaper. That's 17% of the country’s 1.4
billion population.
The Beijing News also ran a poll asking people about the Air China
incident, including who should be held responsible for what happened.
Christina Wang, a mental health counselor in Shanghai, told Inkstone
that the Weibo poll showed many people did not understand mental illness.
Many Chinese think Air China should bear the responsibility for this
incident.
Many Chinese think Air China should bear the responsibility for this
incident. Photo: Shutterstock
“This poll is really oversimplifying the matter,” she said.
“How do you define mental illness patients? Do you include all types of
mental illness? Can a patient of depression, which is a kind of mental
illness, take a flight?”
Instead of asking whether patients have the right to travel publicly,
Wang said it would be better to raise awareness about the treatment and
symptoms of different mental illnesses.
“The more important thing is to tell the public the types of mental
illness and the different symptoms, and what to do when a patient gets
sick.”
A passenger recorded part of the incident and shared it on Chinese
social media.
A passenger recorded part of the incident and shared it on Chinese
social media. Photo: Weibo
Wang added that people with mental illness also had rights, including
the right to travel on public transportation.
According to China’s civil aviation rules, passengers with mental
illness or other health conditions who could pose a danger to themselves
or to others should not fly.
The Air China incident was sparked when the off-duty employee, surnamed
Niu, began scolding her fellow passengers loudly after she discovered
that they were using cellphones when the plane was preparing to take off
from the southwestern city of Chengdu.
Niu kept shouting during the three-hour flight and eventually called the
police, leading to the detention of the passengers after the plane
landed in Beijing.
Qin Chen
Qin Chen
Qin is a multimedia producer at Inkstone. Most recently, she was a
senior video producer for The New Yorker’s video team. Prior to that she
was at CNBC, making short documentaries and writing about how technology
shapes lives.
Translating China
editionJul 18
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Science
Scientists wiped out mosquitoes on two islands using new method
Photo: AFP
by
Stephen Chen
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Itchy from mosquito bites?
Scientists have wiped out the entire population of mosquitoes on two
islands in southern China, using a radical technique to make the males
infertile.
The study, published in the journal Nature, could transform the fight
against a range of deadly diseases carried by mosquitoes.
Over nearly two years, scientists released more than 200 million
specially bred male Asian tiger mosquitoes on the Shazai and Dadaosha
islands in the delta to the south of Guangzhou, the area with the
highest number of dengue fever cases in China.
The mosquitoes, also known as Aedes albopictus, had been exposed to
short bursts of gamma radiation and received three artificially induced
infections from three different species of Wolbachia, a parasitic
microorganism, to make them infertile.
The males were also fed with sugar in the hope of making them bigger and
stronger – and therefore more attractive to female mosquitoes during the
mating season.
This, combined with the sheer weight of numbers of the infertile
mosquitoes, was intended to tip the evolutionary balance by ensuring
that the females’ eggs, if any were laid at all, would not hatch.
By the end of the experiment, the native mosquito populations on the
islands had vanished completely.
The scientists did find a few individual mosquitoes still living on the
islands, but genetic analysis suggested their origins lay elsewhere and
that they had probably been carried there by cars or ships.
Asian tiger mosquitoes are so named because of their distinctive white
stripes. They can transmit a range of diseases, including the Zika and
West Nile viruses as well as dengue fever.
Even so, many islanders were initially skeptical about the project. They
felt uncomfortable about having so many mosquitoes into their
neighborhood, even if they didn’t bite.
But by the end of the experiment, opinion polls showed that almost all
the locals supported, or at least did not oppose, the project after the
number of bites recorded fell by more than 96%.
“In the past there were so many mosquitoes we dared not stay outside in
late afternoon. Now mosquitoes can barely be seen, and those few
remaining rarely bite,” a Shazai restaurant owner surnamed Li said in a
phone interview.
“The technology is a miracle. We used to be skeptics. Now we are fans.”
The government-run mosquito-breeding facility in the southern province
of Guangdong can produce 10 million modified males a week, but the
ecological impact of this project poses a dilemma for scientists.
Mosquito larvae is an important food source food fish, while the fully
grown insects serve as prey for birds.
But a survey conducted by Nature in 2010 suggested that most biologists
would prefer to see mosquitoes wiped out completely because they carried
a lot of deadly diseases.
They kill more than 700,000 people around the globe each year, according
to some studies, which makes them the most deadly creatures of all for
humans.
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