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On June 25 2017 19:58 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 25 2017 18:25 Simberto wrote:On June 25 2017 10:49 Uldridge wrote:
The bit about the blind person was a different question. It was alluding to having a new niche for blind people to fill in: being mosquito hunters. You then have your cleaning ladies and mosquito hunters.
Getting callous skin everywhere wouldn't be easily attained. You need to put pressure on the skin, often with very narrow surfaces (like metal string or whatever). Self inflicting and inflicting upon others these pressures is a form of sado-masochism, because it's pretty painful (start playing guitar with metal strings, you'll know what I mean). It's only masochism if you derive pleasure from the pain. If you just accept the pain as a necessary sideeffect that you need to endure to achieve a different goal, it is not. Otherwise, getting a tattoo or waxing your legs would also be masochistic rituals. The Sado only comes in when someone else derives pleasure from inflicting the pain. I've never met a tattoo artist that didn't get pleasure from inflicting pain on people, also most of the people with tattoos report feeling an "addiction to tattoos" and not the art part, but the actual needle. That is to say that there's usually some masochism involved in tattoos, pretty sure some waxers get off on inflicting pain too. I'm wondering what the sound I'm hearing is when I drive by stationary vehicles with my windows down. Similar sounds are caused by other various objects/structures near the side of the road. I thought it was just air displaced by my car bouncing off of stationary objects as I drive past them, but that it happens at low speeds made me think there might be more at play? Totally unrelated question: Is not pooping in public restrooms a mostly American thing? I'm not counting pooping on the clock at work, but almost universally Americans report avoiding pooping in public restrooms unless absolutely necessary. Wasn't sure if this is a prudish/disgusting bathroom in US thing, or a more general human experience?
The sound is your car's sound being reflected by the object. Gives you perspective on how much noise you make
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On June 26 2017 14:55 opisska wrote:Show nested quote +On June 25 2017 19:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 25 2017 18:25 Simberto wrote:On June 25 2017 10:49 Uldridge wrote:
The bit about the blind person was a different question. It was alluding to having a new niche for blind people to fill in: being mosquito hunters. You then have your cleaning ladies and mosquito hunters.
Getting callous skin everywhere wouldn't be easily attained. You need to put pressure on the skin, often with very narrow surfaces (like metal string or whatever). Self inflicting and inflicting upon others these pressures is a form of sado-masochism, because it's pretty painful (start playing guitar with metal strings, you'll know what I mean). It's only masochism if you derive pleasure from the pain. If you just accept the pain as a necessary sideeffect that you need to endure to achieve a different goal, it is not. Otherwise, getting a tattoo or waxing your legs would also be masochistic rituals. The Sado only comes in when someone else derives pleasure from inflicting the pain. I've never met a tattoo artist that didn't get pleasure from inflicting pain on people, also most of the people with tattoos report feeling an "addiction to tattoos" and not the art part, but the actual needle. That is to say that there's usually some masochism involved in tattoos, pretty sure some waxers get off on inflicting pain too. I'm wondering what the sound I'm hearing is when I drive by stationary vehicles with my windows down. Similar sounds are caused by other various objects/structures near the side of the road. I thought it was just air displaced by my car bouncing off of stationary objects as I drive past them, but that it happens at low speeds made me think there might be more at play? Totally unrelated question: Is not pooping in public restrooms a mostly American thing? I'm not counting pooping on the clock at work, but almost universally Americans report avoiding pooping in public restrooms unless absolutely necessary. Wasn't sure if this is a prudish/disgusting bathroom in US thing, or a more general human experience? The sound is your car's sound being reflected by the object. Gives you perspective on how much noise you make
Coincidentally, sound is exactly that: air displaced by the car. 
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One thing I don't understand about mosquito is how they didn't manage to evolve in such a way to primarly sting out of vision areas. Why don't they just bite the back of humans? Surely those who do must have a higher survivability rates than those who get squashed
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On June 26 2017 18:20 SoSexy wrote:
One thing I don't understand about mosquito is how they didn't manage to evolve in such a way to primarly sting out of vision areas. Why don't they just bite the back of humans? Surely those who do must have a higher survivability rates than those who get squashed
Because they don't only sting humans. For most of evolutionary time, there were barely any humans to be stung at all. Maybe their algorithm to find "less likely to be killed at" location on some jungle rats or moose doesn't map very well onto humans.
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Zurich15366 Posts
Or, there is simply no such trait in Mosquitos that could be selected for.
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It's directly related to their survival, so I believe it might exist...
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On June 26 2017 19:48 SoSexy wrote:
It's directly related to their survival, so I believe it might exist...
Developing subsonic flight speed and reactions is also directly related to survival, but that is unlikely to happen still.
You are right that evolution selects some inheritable traits over others, but the trait has to appear to start with, and that is a random process. So for a new trait to appear in a species, you need two step
1) Trait randomly appears in an individual.
2) Trait is selected for so descendants of the mutant take over species.
It can be that traits that would be very selected for maybe just are extremely unlikely to happen to start with, even summing over all mosquitos through history, as my example above. Is the trait of sucking only out of sight from humans such a trait? Not sure. Evolution is usually pretty good at coming up with solutions for things, but who knows... It could also be a matter of 2) lacking. They mostly don't drink from humans, so such a trait wouldn't confer enough advantage. Or well, maybe both missing.
Personally I'd guess that it could happen, but as humans is such a small part of their diet, the extra brain power it'd require just isn't worth the tiny increase in surviveability. But again, based on essentially nothing.
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Other animals swat mosquitos with their tails.
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On June 26 2017 20:14 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Other animals swat mosquitos with their tails.
That might be it :D
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Flying noiseless would be a much better upgrade.
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Well there is an incredible variety of mosquitoes around the world, of different sizes and habits - some of them are noisy, some are pretty silent, some have the tendency to stay close to the ground and bite mostly legs, others put their stupid heads right in your face ... One would almost thing that all are adapted to something
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If the human race we're to slowly eradicate the world's nuisance mosquito populations over the course of say, 20 years, would there be any hope of a stable ecosystem without these filthy winged fucking leeches?
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Basicaly 0. Eventually the ecosystem would stabilize, as that is something that it just does no matter what you do, but in the short term, anything that eats mosquitos starves, then anything that eats those animals. Leading to some uncalculated results that are probably not pretty.
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On June 26 2017 21:44 Simberto wrote:
Basicaly 0. Eventually the ecosystem would stabilize, as that is something that it just does no matter what you do, but in the short term, anything that eats mosquitos starves, then anything that eats those animals. Leading to some uncalculated results that are probably not pretty.
I'm pretty sure the first effect would be that other animals would take over the niche that mosquitos occupy: most mosquitos don't live on blood, but feed on nectar and plant juices. So with that resource free up, other insects (and other animals in general) could take advantage of that. If it's insects, there might be a surge in other flying insects that feed on plants, and if these other insects are also edible for spiders, frogs, flycatchers, bats and other animals that feed on mosquitos nothing much would change for them. Mosquitos seem like one of the parts of the food chain that could easily be replaced. Even if nothing takes mosquitos' niche, there's a good chance that mosquito-eating animals could simply replace them with other flying insects: insofar as I know there is no animal that feeds exclusively on mosquitos.
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On June 26 2017 21:44 Simberto wrote:
Basicaly 0. Eventually the ecosystem would stabilize, as that is something that it just does no matter what you do, but in the short term, anything that eats mosquitos starves, then anything that eats those animals. Leading to some uncalculated results that are probably not pretty.
I don't actually think this is the case with mosquitoes. I think it's actually kinda the opposite. Mosquitoes are the most deadly creature on the planet (for humans) other than humans. I doubt not having them around would net out to a worse ecosystem from a human perspective (conceding the ripples could devastate some other species).
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On June 26 2017 22:15 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2017 21:44 Simberto wrote:
Basicaly 0. Eventually the ecosystem would stabilize, as that is something that it just does no matter what you do, but in the short term, anything that eats mosquitos starves, then anything that eats those animals. Leading to some uncalculated results that are probably not pretty. I don't actually think this is the case with mosquitoes. I think it's actually kinda the opposite. Mosquitoes are the most deadly creature on the planet (for humans) other than humans. I doubt not having them around would net out to a worse ecosystem from a human perspective (conceding the ripples could devastate some other species).
We are doing pretty well in the status quo. This makes me think that disturbing the status quo in a way that has consequences which are impossible to foresee is generally a bad idea. Historically, whenever we tried, it turned out to result in more trouble than good. (See asian ladybugs in europe, rabbits in australia, basically any case people brought in foreign invasive species into an ecosystem) This is the reason there are strict laws determining where you can bring new species.
Killing of an entire species (Or more, as there are many types of mosquitos) is probably gonna lead to something weird like some parasite that fed on something that mosquitos killed destroying all the strawberries.
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Is the effects of highways on insect populations a significant one and how could one combat that? Because I'm worrying it might be extremely relevant (even to us) in the long run.
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On June 27 2017 20:25 Uldridge wrote:
Is the effects of highways on insect populations a significant one and how could one combat that? Because I'm worrying it might be extremely relevant (even to us) in the long run.
The effect of highways? Why would highways affect insect populations significantly? :/
I'm pretty sure you have worse things to worry about than highways having such a significant impact on insect that we as humans feel it in an extremely relevant way.
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Oh, I don't know, the hundreds of insects being squashed (and that's merely the visible part) against the window of a car in a few hundred kms.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadkill#Insects
The last sentence in particular, seems very worrying to me. We are not doing good things as humans. Insects are like THE main factor in maintaining ecological stability (short lifespans, abundance, nutrition, pollination, provision, ...) If this collapses, we're doomed. But somehow people don't talk about it. And it's not just bees, it's every small critter being fucked by us.
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EPT
