Latest news with #ThePostMost
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Musk used X to boost Trump. Now he's wielding it against him.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the number of followers an account called DogeDesigner had on X. It has 1.4 million followers. - - - Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. For almost a year, Elon Musk marshaled the full force of X, his $45 billion social media platform, to boost Donald Trump's political fortunes and second presidency. On Thursday, as the two men publicly fought in a flurry of furious online posts, Musk revealed X to be a double-edged sword. Musk spent hours firing off mocking memes, curt put-downs and explosive allegations to his 220 million followers, just as he did during Trump's candidacy and as a member of his administration. Only this time, the target was Trump himself, not the president's critics. The attack deployed tactics familiar from Musk's many previous online battles. He dredged up old Trump tweets to suggest hypocrisy. He amplified posts from others critical of Trump. He accused the president of 'an obvious lie' about the cause of their falling-out and blasted him for 'ingratitude' for Musk's political support, claiming that 'without me, Trump would have lost the election.' As Trump lobbed disparaging posts back from his own social media platform, Truth Social, Musk also turned to a tactic he has used against others who have crossed him: insinuations of personal scandal. 'Time to drop the really big bomb,' Musk posted. Trump 'is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!' The tech mogul's about-face sent shock waves through X, the social network formerly known at Twitter that Musk acquired in 2022. His attack on Trump tested the loyalty of politicians and influencers active on the site, who scrambled to choose sides. And it set up a titanic political battle for the attention era: A pair of very online billionaires duking it out in public, each with his own social network and millions of acolytes ready to amplify his every post. Thursday's online drama underscored that while Musk's stewardship of X made it into a powerful tool for his allies and the conservative movement, he feels free to wrench it in whatever new direction he pleases. When he acquired Twitter, Musk drove some users and advertisers away from the platform by putting his personal views ahead of business concerns, loosening speech rules and reinstating accounts banned for harassment or spreading misinformation. His fight with Trump proved again that he is willing to risk an exodus of users - this time from the right - by using the platform as a bully pulpit. Trump commands an actual military, but Musk oversees the larger digital horde. He has 220 million X followers, while Trump has 100 million on X and another 10 million on Truth Social, where he has lately become more prolific than he ever was on Twitter. Musk also controls X's moderation policies and its algorithm, both of which he has used at times to boost his own reach and silence his critics. Musk's power to direct attention on X has helped drive the emergence of an ecosystem of pseudonymous conservative political and tech influencers. Many have built followings in the millions on X by praising Musk, denigrating his rivals and trumpeting his agenda. They've been rewarded with amplification from Musk and a cut of X ad revenue. All those advantages were arrayed in Trump's favor after Musk endorsed his candidacy on X less than an hour after Trump survived an attempted assassination in July. Musk donned a MAGA hat in his profile image, held an hours-long live audio event on X with Trump and posted fake AI-generated images of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in communist regalia. On more than one occasion, pro-Harris accounts found themselves throttled or temporarily suspended, leading some Democrats to cry foul. As Musk's U.S. DOGE Service, or Department of Government Efficiency, swept through Washington in February at Trump's behest, X became a digital command center of the new administration. Musk used it to amplify claims of waste and corruption, some of them unfounded, at the agencies and programs he targeted for elimination. He baited critics with memes of himself as the Godfather and polled his followers on what DOGE should cut next. Now it's Trump that Musk is trolling, after ending his government service a long way short of his stated goal of cutting $2 trillion in federal spending. He sent warning shots on Tuesday, calling Trump's massive tax and immigration bill - the president's top domestic priority - a 'disgusting abomination.' The conflict escalated in a hurry on Thursday after Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that his 'great relationship' with Musk might be over. Over the following hours, Musk accused Trump and other Republican leaders of betraying their principles and approvingly reposted criticisms of them from other accounts. That can have ripple effects across X as users vie to craft posts that will win a reply or amplification from Musk that can boost their own followings. At one point Musk posted a poll asking his 220 million followers if it was time to 'create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle.' Six hours into the 24-hour poll, the votes leaned heavily toward 'Yes.' Traffic to X surely spiked on Thursday as political and tech insiders became glued to the conflict and citizens were left to wonder what it meant for the world's richest person to be at war with its most politically powerful. How the feud will affect Musk's influence and business empire is less certain. Tesla and SpaceX, his most valuable companies, depend heavily on government regulation and contracts, making them vulnerable to attacks by Trump and his administration. Tesla stock fell Thursday as investors appeared to fear retribution. Public spats between influencers are great for engagement on social platforms. But if the acrimony continues, Musk may have to reckon again with an exodus of users repelled by his politics. His embrace of Trump sent liberals scurrying to Meta's Threads and upstart Bluesky. His split with the president could give Trump an opening to lure more conservatives to Truth Social. On Thursday, some X influencers appeared to have calculated they had better prospects by sticking with Musk. An account called DogeDesigner with 1.4 million followers posted that Musk 'sacrificed a lot for Trump' and deserved better treatment. Just last week, Musk had sent it a heart emoji for a post promoting his alliance with the president. Another account called Shibetoshi Nakamoto mused, 'can i finally say that trump's tariffs are super stupid.' In a battle between Musk and Trump, 'My money's on Elon,' conservative commentator Ian Miles Cheong wrote, adding that 'Trump should be impeached and Vance should replace him.' Musk reposted it to his followers, adding only: 'Yes.' Related Content To save rhinos, conservationists are removing their horns Donald Trump and the art of the Oval Office confrontation Some advice from LGBTQ elders as WorldPride kicks off amid fears
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's travel ban triggers fear and uncertainty in affected countries
President Donald Trump's latest travel ban announcement has spread fear and uncertainty among those affected and is expected to trigger chaos and disruption to travel and daily life, especially for communities already facing precarious circumstances. On Wednesday night, Trump declared that, starting Monday, foreign nationals from 12 countries would be restricted from entry to the United States, and he imposed partial restrictions on another seven nations. There would be some exemptions, including lawful permanent residents and athletes participating in the World Cup or Olympics. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. The presidential proclamation would fully restrict the entry of individuals from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It also partially restricts the entry of travelers from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. Many on the list are Muslim-majority nations, including Iran, Somalia and Yemen. Others have adversarial relations with the U.S., such as Venezuela and Cuba. In Sudan, a civil war has raged since 2023, prompting tens of thousands of civilians to flee. The Trump administration cited visa overstays as justification in multiple cases. In some instances, the overstay rate was high, but the total number of visas issued was relatively small. It was not immediately clear why some nations were targeted while others with higher overstay rates were left off. In announcing the move, Trump referred to the attack Sunday that injured 15 demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado, marching for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Federal authorities said the attack was carried out by an immigrant from Egypt who arrived on a visa. Egypt is not on the list of restricted countries. Trump's first-term travel ban for predominantly Muslim countries in 2017 sparked widespread confusion and a wave of protests. Governments of most nations impacted by the new ban did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Human rights organizations decried the move. For Afghans, the ban's impact is likely to be most severe for people who fled the Taliban-run regime with the promise of relocation to the U.S. Aimal, 35, woke to news of the ban in Islamabad, the capital of neighboring Pakistan. He applied for resettlement to the United States after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in 2021 and moved his family to Pakistan, where he has been waiting for approval from U.S. authorities ever since. 'This just puts Afghans from a bad to a worse situation,' said Aimal, who spoke on the condition that only his first name be used for fear of drawing scrutiny from the Taliban and Pakistani authorities. 'I'm not sure where we'll end up.' The ban includes an exemption for those on Special Immigrant Visas, granted to Afghans who supported the U.S. war effort, including as interpreters. Shawn VanDiver, the president of #AfghanEvac - a coalition of 250 organizations that works to support those who worked alongside the U.S. in the country - said the proposed ban would disproportionately affect people seeking lawful entry to the U.S., despite exemptions. 'To include Afghanistan - a nation whose people stood alongside American service members for 20 years - is a moral disgrace. It spits in the face of our allies, our veterans, and every value we claim to uphold,' he said. The African Union Commission called for the U.S. to control its borders 'in a manner that is balanced, evidence-based, and reflective of the long-standing partnership between the United States and Africa.' A diplomat from Somalia struck a conciliatory note, promising to work with the U.S. to address Trump's concerns over terrorism and government control of territory. 'Somalia remains a committed partner in the fight against terrorism and has taken significant steps to strengthen its institutions and improve national security,' Dahir Hassan Abdi, the Somali ambassador to the U.S., said in an email. The ban is the latest blow for diaspora communities from Haiti, Venezuela and Cuba after last week's Supreme Court decision revoked temporary legal residency granted under President Joe Biden's 'humanitarian parole' program for about 211,000 Haitians, 117,000 Venezuelans, 110,000 Cubans, and others. Separately, the court allowed the Trump administration to revoke temporary protections that permitted a different group of nearly 350,000 Venezuelans to remain in the U.S. It also comes as Haiti faces one of its worst crises in decades. Gangs have seized control of much of the capital and violence has displaced 10 percent of Haiti's population. The Trump administration cited threats to national security as a justification for the ban on Haiti. But analysts said there is little evidence Haitian gangs have much presence in the U.S. or that their members are among the small number of Haitians leaving the country by plane. 'The idea that Haitian gangs could be traveling to the U.S. by legal means is completely out of the realm of the possible,' said Renata Segura, director of the Latin America and Caribbean program at the International Crisis Group. Venezuela's interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, issued a warning during a television broadcast after Trump's announcement: 'Really, being in the United States is a great risk for any person, not only for Venezuelans.' Trump has targeted Venezuelans for deportation, tying Venezuelan migration to the Tren de Aragua gang. In invoking the Alien Enemies Act in March, Trump proclaimed, without evidence, that Tren de Aragua is perpetrating an 'invasion' of the U.S. 'at the direction' of the government of President Nicolás Maduro. U.S. intelligence contradicted that justification. In the travel ban, the Trump administration says Venezuela has historically refused to accept deportees. But in recent months, Maduro has accepted deportation flights, even sending Venezuelan planes to pick up deportees. After taking office, Trump reversed a decision by Biden to remove Cuba from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism. The new declaration appears to affect a relatively small number of Cubans: Last year, the State Department issued a total of 24,901 immigrant visas to Cubans intending to settle in the United States; and just 12,254 nonimmigrant visas. Human rights groups condemned Trump's order. Abby Maxman, the president and CEO of Oxfam America, said the proposed ban marked a 'chilling return to fear, discrimination, and division,' in a statement posted online. - - - Samantha Schmidt, Ana Herrero, Valentina Muñoz Castillo and Angie Orellana Hernandez contributed to this report. Related Content Donald Trump and the art of the Oval Office confrontation Some advice from LGBTQ elders as WorldPride kicks off amid fears Black Democrats fume over 2024 while 'searching for a leader' in 2028
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Why your job may face a double threat if the economy sours
Hardly a day passes without word that a major company is increasing its use of artificial intelligence, or a warning that AI will have dramatic impacts - one day - on the U.S. workforce. Now, some economists warn that a projected slowdown in the U.S. economy could accelerate the trend. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. With new reports suggesting that the U.S. economy will probably slow this year, economists and AI experts say more businesses may speed up AI use to cut costs, generate revenue and boost worker productivity. That could lead to more-rapid adoption but also downsides, including job losses and consumer harms. 'Economic downturns spur you to do more,' said Eric So, professor of global economics and management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 'There's a lot of focus on what we can do and not enough questions like 'Should we do that?' and 'Is it being done in a safe way?'' The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimated on Tuesday that economic growth in the United States will slow to 1.6 percent this year from 2.8 percent, while inflation is set to rise to 3.9 percent by the end of this year. Although trade tensions have cooled somewhat since President Donald Trump announced big tariffs in April, economists worry that higher trade barriers and uncertainty will continue to eat into growth, with some predictions of recession in the coming year. While a slowdown could encourage more use of AI, there's also evidence that some companies will pull back on heavy technological investments. A wide range of companies are increasingly turning to AI regardless of the economic environment. Wall Street firms including JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley are using AI to help boost sales and update legacy code. E-commerce company Shopify and cloud storage start-up Box are requiring workers to use AI regularly in their work to boost productivity and results. Social media firm Meta plans to automate risk assessment as it relates to the privacy reviews of its products. IBM, which recently announced job cuts, replaced a couple hundred human resource workers with 'AI agents' to do repetitive tasks such as onboarding and scheduling interviews. It said that over the past four years, AI saved the company 40 percent in its HR budget. Dario Amodei, CEO of billion-dollar AI start-up Anthropic, received attention last week for suggesting that half of all white-collar entry-level jobs may be eliminated by AI within five years. Most people 'are unaware that this is about to happen,' Amodei told Axios. 'It sounds crazy, and people just don't believe it.' College graduates may already be losing jobs to AI, according to a report last month from the global economic advisory firm Oxford Economics. The unemployment rate for recent college graduates has risen 1.6 percentage points since mid-2023, nearly triple the increase of the national unemployment rate. 'There are signs that entry-level positions are being displaced by artificial intelligence at higher rates,' Matthew Martin, Oxford Economics senior economist, wrote in the report, while noting that some of the change may be normal. Since the debut of OpenAI's ChatGPT in late 2022, companies have been relatively slow in their adoption of generative AI. About 8.7 percent of U.S. companies used AI to produce their products and services in the two weeks between April 21 and May 4, up from 4.8 percent a year earlier, according to the Business Trends and Outlook Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. ChatGPT, meanwhile, has more than 400 million weekly active users. (OpenAI has a content partnership with The Washington Post.) AI's broader use could save companies money but also more quickly expose some of the downsides of the services, especially when they struggle with accuracy or have biases, experts say. That could be especially problematic in fields like medicine, finance and law, said Columbia Business School professor Laura Veldkamp. 'When we have tech shifts, you will get things right and wrong,' said Veldkamp, whose research explores how companies' use of AI affects the macroeconomy. 'As the tech grows up, it goes through a painful stage. We have to get through that to hone the benefits from it.' Another impact will probably be job displacement, experts say. So far, companies have mostly touted AI as a tool to aid human workers. But as the tech gets better and budgets get tighter in a slowing economy, companies may be more willing to outsource work to AI, slowing hiring or even cutting jobs, experts say. Klarna, a Swedish fintech company, said AI helped it lower vendor expenses, increase internal productivity and better manage operations with fewer employees (the company reduced head count by 38 percent from 2022 to 2024), according to filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission in March. It has since suggested it went too far in cuts and is hiring more people. 'The hope is that AI will be utilized to improve work and productivity and create new work,' said Mark Muro, a Brookings Institution fellow who has studied AI and its impacts. 'But there's no guarantee.' Historically, automation has been one solution for labor cost-savings during difficult economic conditions, Muro said. In some cases, investments in automation allow companies to cut costs through head count reduction. When consumer demand falls, companies can take time to make a big technological switch that would have been too disruptive in the regular course of business, Veldkamp said. An AI revolution has the potential to impact a wide range of industries - from customer service to health care to financial services and beyond - because the technology is able to do tasks such as data-crunching, research and writing that are part of white-collar work. And it comes at a lower cost than some previous technological revolutions like automating a manufacturing facility with machines, Veldkamp said. Microsoft recently found that some companies are considering using AI to reduce head count in the next year or so, according to a study it conducted. But more of them aim to maintain head count and retrain their workforce. 'You have a class of companies going all in and reinventing themselves with AI,' said Colette Stallbaumer, co-founder of Microsoft WorkLab and general manager of Microsoft 365 Copilot. 'But you've also got a lot of companies and enterprises still figuring it out. It'll still take time, and every company is going to be different.' Economic strain may lead some companies to delay AI investments, deeming the risks to be higher than the rewards, said Brett House, an economics professor at Columbia Business School. 'If there's uncertainty, it's not clear there's a market, or you can't determine the prices of your goods, it puts a huge chill on investing in any tech,' he said. 'Companies that are cash-constrained, have thin margins or a smaller labor component may just pull back on investment to preserve their current business model.' Recent earnings reports from two Big Tech companies suggest that a slowdown in the economy is spurring them to rethink their aggressive spending. Microsoft, which has been pouring money into AI, reported that it's spending $1 billion less in capital expenditures from the previous quarter, though that still amounts to $21.4 billion. The company also recently said it is 'slowing or pausing' some early-stage data center projects, which are needed to power AI. Amazon Web Services is reportedly pausing some of its data center leasing discussions, particularly international ones, according to a recent note from Wells Fargo analysts citing economic uncertainty. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Big technological shifts like AI take time, many economists say. AI might move faster given how quickly companies can roll it out, but the shift won't be overnight, Veldkamp said. As the technology develops, new jobs will probably also emerge, even ones that aren't yet imaginable, say experts. Five years ago, few would have heard of prompt engineers - those who specialize in crafting effective prompts for AI bots. But there will be a period in which some roles either disappear or decrease in quantity before new jobs are created. Government data may already indicate that computer programmers are feeling the squeeze, Muro said. 'This is all new. We haven't gone through a down economy with a technology at this early stage, so it'll be interesting to see how this plays out,' he said. Related Content Donald Trump and the art of the Oval Office confrontation Some advice from LGBTQ elders as WorldPride kicks off amid fears Black Democrats fume over 2024 while 'searching for a leader' in 2028
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
We finally may be able to rid the world of mosquitoes. But should we?
They buzz, they bite, and they cause some of the deadliest diseases known to humanity. Mosquitoes are perhaps the planet's most universally reviled animals. If we could zap them off the face of the Earth, should we? Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. The question is no longer hypothetical. In recent years, scientists have devised powerful genetic tools that may be able to eradicate mosquitoes and other pests once and for all. Now, some doctors and scientists say it is time to take the extraordinary step of unleashing gene editing to suppress mosquitoes and avoid human suffering from malaria, dengue, West Nile virus and other serious diseases. 'There are so many lives at stake with malaria that we want to make sure that this technology could be used in the near future,' said Alekos Simoni, a molecular biologist with Target Malaria, a project aiming to target vector mosquitoes in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet the development of this technology also raises a profound ethical question: When, if ever, is it okay to intentionally drive a species out of existence? Even the famed naturalist E.O. Wilson once said: 'I would gladly throw the switch and be the executioner myself' for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. But some researchers and ethicists warn it may be too dangerous to tinker with the underpinnings of life itself. Even irritating, itty-bitty mosquitoes, they say, may have enough inherent value to keep around. - - - How to exterminate mosquitoes Target Malaria is one of the most ambitious mosquito suppression efforts in the works. Simoni and his colleagues are seeking to diminish populations of mosquitoes in the Anopheles gambiae complex that are responsible for spreading the deadly disease. In their labs, the scientists have introduced a gene mutation that causes female mosquito offspring to hatch without functional ovaries, rendering them infertile. Male mosquito offspring can carry the gene but remain physically unaffected. The concept is that when female mosquitoes inherit the gene from both their mother and father, they will go on to die without producing offspring. Meanwhile, when males and females carrying just one copy of the gene mate with wild mosquitoes, they will spread the gene further until no fertile females are left - and the population crashes. Simoni said he hopes Target Malaria can move beyond the lab and deploy some of the genetically modified mosquitoes in their natural habitats within the next five years. The nonprofit research consortium gets its core funding from the Gates Foundation, backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and Open Philanthropy, backed by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife, Cari Tuna. 'We believe that this technology can really be transformative,' Simoni said. At the heart of Target Malaria's work is a powerful genetic tool called a gene drive. Under the normal rules of inheritance, a parent has a 50-50 chance of passing a particular gene on to an offspring. But by adding special genetic machinery - dubbed a gene drive - to segments of DNA, scientists can rig the coin flip and ensure a gene is included in an animal's eggs and sperm, nearly guaranteeing it will be passed along. Over successive generations, gene drives can cause a trait to spread across an entire species's population, even if that gene doesn't benefit the organism. In that way, gene drives do something remarkable: They allow humans to override Charles Darwin's rules for natural selection, which normally prods populations of plants and animals to adapt to their environment over time. 'Technology is presenting new options to us,' said Christopher Preston, a University of Montana environmental philosopher. 'We might've been able to make a species go extinct 150 years ago by harpooning it too much or shooting it out of the sky. But today, we have different options, and extinction could be completed or could be started in a lab.' - - - How far should we go in eradicating mosquitoes? When so many wildlife conservationists are trying to save plants and animals from disappearing, the mosquito is one of the few creatures that people argue is actually worthy of extinction. Forget about tigers or bears; it's the tiny mosquito that is the deadliest animal on Earth. The human misery caused by malaria is undeniable. Nearly 600,000 people died of the disease in 2023, according to the World Health Organization, with the majority of cases in Africa. On the continent, the death toll is akin to 'crashing two Boeing 747s into Kilimanjaro' every day, said Paul Ndebele, a bioethicist at George Washington University. For gene-drive advocates, making the case for releasing genetically modified mosquitoes in nations such as Burkina Faso or Uganda is straightforward. 'This is not a difficult audience, because these are people that are living in an area where children are dying,' said Krystal Birungi, an entomologist for Target Malaria in Uganda, though she added that she sometimes has to fight misinformation, such as the false idea that bites from genetically modified mosquitoes can make people sterile. But recently, the Hastings Center for Bioethics, a research institute in New York, and Arizona State University brought together a group of bioethicists to discuss the potential pitfalls of intentionally trying to drive a species to extinction. In a policy paper published in the journal Science last month, the group concluded that 'deliberate full extinction might occasionally be acceptable, but only extremely rarely.' A compelling candidate for total eradication, according to the bioethicists, is the New World screwworm. This parasitic fly, which lays eggs in wounds and eats the flesh of both humans and livestock, appears to play little role in ecosystems. Infections are difficult to treat and can lead to slow and painful deaths. Yet it may be too risky, they say, to use gene drives on invasive rodents on remote Pacific islands where they decimate native birds, given the nonzero chance of a gene-edited rat or mouse jumping ship to the mainland and spreading across a continent. 'Even at a microbial level, it became plain in our conversations, we are not in favor of remaking the world to suit human desires,' said Gregory Kaebnick, a senior research scholar at the institute. It's unclear how important malaria-carrying mosquitoes are to broader ecosystems. Little research has been done to figure out whether frogs or other animals that eat the insects would be able to find their meals elsewhere. Scientists are hotly debating whether a broader 'insect apocalypse' is underway in many parts of the world, which may imperil other creatures that depend on them for food and pollination. 'The eradication of the mosquito through a genetic technology would have the potential to create global eradication in a way that just felt a little risky,' said Preston, who contributed with Ndebele to the discussion published in Science. Instead, the authors said, geneticists should be able to use gene editing, vaccines and other tools to target not the mosquito itself, but the single-celled Plasmodium parasite that is responsible for malaria. That invisible microorganism - which a mosquito transfers from its saliva to a person's blood when it bites - is the real culprit. 'You can get rid of malaria without actually getting rid of the mosquito,' Kaebnick said. He added that, at a time when the Trump administration talks cavalierly about animals going extinct, intentional extinction should be an option for only 'particularly horrific species.' But Ndebele, who is from Zimbabwe, noted that most of the people opposed to the elimination of the mosquitoes 'are not based in Africa.' Ndebele has intimate experience with malaria; he once had to rush his sick son to a hospital after the disease manifested as a hallucinatory episode. 'We're just in panic mode,' he recalled. 'You can just imagine - we're not sure what's happening with this young guy.' Still, Ndebele and his colleagues expressed caution about using gene-drive technology. Even if people were to agree to rid the globe of every mosquito - not just Anopheles gambiae but also ones that transmit other diseases or merely bite and irritate - it would be a 'herculean undertaking,' according to Kaebnick. There are more than 3,500 known species, each potentially requiring its own specially designed gene drive. And there is no guarantee a gene drive would wipe out a population as intended. Simoni, the gene-drive researcher, agreed that there are limits to what the technology can do. His team's modeling suggests it would suppress malaria-carrying mosquitoes only locally without outright eliminating them. Mosquitoes have been 'around for hundreds of millions of years,' he said. 'It's a very difficult species to eliminate.' Related Content Donald Trump and the art of the Oval Office confrontation Some advice from LGBTQ elders as WorldPride kicks off amid fears Black Democrats fume over 2024 while 'searching for a leader' in 2028
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
We finally may be able to rid the world of mosquitoes. But should we?
They buzz, they bite, and they cause some of the deadliest diseases known to humanity. Mosquitoes are perhaps the planet's most universally reviled animals. If we could zap them off the face of the Earth, should we? Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. The question is no longer hypothetical. In recent years, scientists have devised powerful genetic tools that may be able to eradicate mosquitoes and other pests once and for all. Now, some doctors and scientists say it is time to take the extraordinary step of unleashing gene editing to suppress mosquitoes and avoid human suffering from malaria, dengue, West Nile virus and other serious diseases. 'There are so many lives at stake with malaria that we want to make sure that this technology could be used in the near future,' said Alekos Simoni, a molecular biologist with Target Malaria, a project aiming to target vector mosquitoes in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet the development of this technology also raises a profound ethical question: When, if ever, is it okay to intentionally drive a species out of existence? Even the famed naturalist E.O. Wilson once said: 'I would gladly throw the switch and be the executioner myself' for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. But some researchers and ethicists warn it may be too dangerous to tinker with the underpinnings of life itself. Even irritating, itty-bitty mosquitoes, they say, may have enough inherent value to keep around. - - - How to exterminate mosquitoes Target Malaria is one of the most ambitious mosquito suppression efforts in the works. Simoni and his colleagues are seeking to diminish populations of mosquitoes in the Anopheles gambiae complex that are responsible for spreading the deadly disease. In their labs, the scientists have introduced a gene mutation that causes female mosquito offspring to hatch without functional ovaries, rendering them infertile. Male mosquito offspring can carry the gene but remain physically unaffected. The concept is that when female mosquitoes inherit the gene from both their mother and father, they will go on to die without producing offspring. Meanwhile, when males and females carrying just one copy of the gene mate with wild mosquitoes, they will spread the gene further until no fertile females are left - and the population crashes. Simoni said he hopes Target Malaria can move beyond the lab and deploy some of the genetically modified mosquitoes in their natural habitats within the next five years. The nonprofit research consortium gets its core funding from the Gates Foundation, backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and Open Philanthropy, backed by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife, Cari Tuna. 'We believe that this technology can really be transformative,' Simoni said. At the heart of Target Malaria's work is a powerful genetic tool called a gene drive. Under the normal rules of inheritance, a parent has a 50-50 chance of passing a particular gene on to an offspring. But by adding special genetic machinery - dubbed a gene drive - to segments of DNA, scientists can rig the coin flip and ensure a gene is included in an animal's eggs and sperm, nearly guaranteeing it will be passed along. Over successive generations, gene drives can cause a trait to spread across an entire species's population, even if that gene doesn't benefit the organism. In that way, gene drives do something remarkable: They allow humans to override Charles Darwin's rules for natural selection, which normally prods populations of plants and animals to adapt to their environment over time. 'Technology is presenting new options to us,' said Christopher Preston, a University of Montana environmental philosopher. 'We might've been able to make a species go extinct 150 years ago by harpooning it too much or shooting it out of the sky. But today, we have different options, and extinction could be completed or could be started in a lab.' - - - How far should we go in eradicating mosquitoes? When so many wildlife conservationists are trying to save plants and animals from disappearing, the mosquito is one of the few creatures that people argue is actually worthy of extinction. Forget about tigers or bears; it's the tiny mosquito that is the deadliest animal on Earth. The human misery caused by malaria is undeniable. Nearly 600,000 people died of the disease in 2023, according to the World Health Organization, with the majority of cases in Africa. On the continent, the death toll is akin to 'crashing two Boeing 747s into Kilimanjaro' every day, said Paul Ndebele, a bioethicist at George Washington University. For gene-drive advocates, making the case for releasing genetically modified mosquitoes in nations such as Burkina Faso or Uganda is straightforward. 'This is not a difficult audience, because these are people that are living in an area where children are dying,' said Krystal Birungi, an entomologist for Target Malaria in Uganda, though she added that she sometimes has to fight misinformation, such as the false idea that bites from genetically modified mosquitoes can make people sterile. But recently, the Hastings Center for Bioethics, a research institute in New York, and Arizona State University brought together a group of bioethicists to discuss the potential pitfalls of intentionally trying to drive a species to extinction. In a policy paper published in the journal Science last month, the group concluded that 'deliberate full extinction might occasionally be acceptable, but only extremely rarely.' A compelling candidate for total eradication, according to the bioethicists, is the New World screwworm. This parasitic fly, which lays eggs in wounds and eats the flesh of both humans and livestock, appears to play little role in ecosystems. Infections are difficult to treat and can lead to slow and painful deaths. Yet it may be too risky, they say, to use gene drives on invasive rodents on remote Pacific islands where they decimate native birds, given the nonzero chance of a gene-edited rat or mouse jumping ship to the mainland and spreading across a continent. 'Even at a microbial level, it became plain in our conversations, we are not in favor of remaking the world to suit human desires,' said Gregory Kaebnick, a senior research scholar at the institute. It's unclear how important malaria-carrying mosquitoes are to broader ecosystems. Little research has been done to figure out whether frogs or other animals that eat the insects would be able to find their meals elsewhere. Scientists are hotly debating whether a broader 'insect apocalypse' is underway in many parts of the world, which may imperil other creatures that depend on them for food and pollination. 'The eradication of the mosquito through a genetic technology would have the potential to create global eradication in a way that just felt a little risky,' said Preston, who contributed with Ndebele to the discussion published in Science. Instead, the authors said, geneticists should be able to use gene editing, vaccines and other tools to target not the mosquito itself, but the single-celled Plasmodium parasite that is responsible for malaria. That invisible microorganism - which a mosquito transfers from its saliva to a person's blood when it bites - is the real culprit. 'You can get rid of malaria without actually getting rid of the mosquito,' Kaebnick said. He added that, at a time when the Trump administration talks cavalierly about animals going extinct, intentional extinction should be an option for only 'particularly horrific species.' But Ndebele, who is from Zimbabwe, noted that most of the people opposed to the elimination of the mosquitoes 'are not based in Africa.' Ndebele has intimate experience with malaria; he once had to rush his sick son to a hospital after the disease manifested as a hallucinatory episode. 'We're just in panic mode,' he recalled. 'You can just imagine - we're not sure what's happening with this young guy.' Still, Ndebele and his colleagues expressed caution about using gene-drive technology. Even if people were to agree to rid the globe of every mosquito - not just Anopheles gambiae but also ones that transmit other diseases or merely bite and irritate - it would be a 'herculean undertaking,' according to Kaebnick. There are more than 3,500 known species, each potentially requiring its own specially designed gene drive. And there is no guarantee a gene drive would wipe out a population as intended. Simoni, the gene-drive researcher, agreed that there are limits to what the technology can do. His team's modeling suggests it would suppress malaria-carrying mosquitoes only locally without outright eliminating them. Mosquitoes have been 'around for hundreds of millions of years,' he said. 'It's a very difficult species to eliminate.' Related Content Some advice from LGBTQ elders as WorldPride kicks off amid fears Black Democrats fume over 2024 while 'searching for a leader' in 2028 Joy, tension collide as WorldPride arrives in Trump's Washington
