someone recently posted the transcript from an 80k hours podcast interview with an MIT scientist who invented something called the CRISPR drive, which the MIT scientist thinks could be used to make lots of male screwworms infertile so that they stop making larvae that eat the flesh of many millions of animals every year. New World Screwworm would be difficult to eradicate in South America, where it does most of its damage, but it is still endemic in Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Trinidad and Tobago, which are island nations who would be protected by the sea from re-infestation if NWSW were to be eradicated on their territories. I imagine it may also be problem on non-sovereign islands like Colombia’s San Andres and Providencia in the Caribbean, and maybe Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands, which definitely has a parasite that is endangering several bird species by invading the organisms of hatchlings. Uruguay is trying to eradicate NWSW on its territory now. maybe a megaproject could pay technicians from the Uruguay mission, if it turns out to be successful, to try to repeat the feat on a Caribbean island to try to bring the issue to the attention of more nation-states and donors.
someone recently posted the transcript from an 80k hours podcast interview with an MIT scientist who invented something called the CRISPR drive, which the MIT scientist thinks could be used to make lots of male screwworms infertile so that they stop making larvae that eat the flesh of many millions of animals every year. New World Screwworm would be difficult to eradicate in South America, where it does most of its damage, but it is still endemic in Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Trinidad and Tobago, which are island nations who would be protected by the sea from re-infestation if NWSW were to be eradicated on their territories. I imagine it may also be problem on non-sovereign islands like Colombia’s San Andres and Providencia in the Caribbean, and maybe Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands, which definitely has a parasite that is endangering several bird species by invading the organisms of hatchlings. Uruguay is trying to eradicate NWSW on its territory now. maybe a megaproject could pay technicians from the Uruguay mission, if it turns out to be successful, to try to repeat the feat on a Caribbean island to try to bring the issue to the attention of more nation-states and donors.