4300 years ago...

I guess the Sixth Dynasty of Old Kingdom Egypt didn't notice they got washed away, and went on building their pyramids like nothing had happened.

And Sargon must have clung to the side of the ark - or snuck on disguised as a dinosaur - so he could get back to building his empire as soon as the ground dried out.

I reckon the author is better at manipulating reality than he is at manipulating search results.

How did that work out for him?

I had the same thought -- what would that do to relieve stress on the host populations? Some might expand to where they're better off if we harvest more of 'em.

Fleas, ticks, chiggers, hookworms, whipworms, horseflies, deerflies, doubtless others (especially the wide array of parasites found in Africa and Australia) ... can't think of any downside, other than possibly to their own parasites. Oh well!

I read somewhere that anemia due to the arctic's twin-engine mosquitoes is the leading cause of death in caribou.

Not that I know of. No loss to the world if they went away. Tho I wonder how it would affect the flea population that's their primary vector?

Very interesting. Now if they can target the other species that feed on humans... I'm sure there will be plenty left of the species that only feed on plants, or not at all in the adult phase.

Ironic that some folks scream "GMO!" on the one hand, and ignore "invasive species" on the other...

Ah yes, the land of twin-engine mosquitoes...

Q: What does a tundra mosquito call a bus full of kids?
A: Sardines!!

Actually roundworms, at least in dogs, are a symbiote, not a parasite. Recent research found that they serve to stimulate development of the puppy's immune system. It's possible to produce puppies that never experience roundworms, but they are very prone to neonatal diarrhea and pre-weaning unthriftiness, which is a lot more of a problem for the puppy.

As I point out above, it's probable that the ecological niche will be filled by crane flies, and probably gnats and other small pests, but that's a pretty good trade for being rid of mosquitoes.

I suspect the niche will be filled by crane flies, which are both edible and harmless. That's what I've observed in the wild already -- one has a population that is predominantly mosquitoes, or predominantly crane flies, without appearing to change much else. Sure, the balance may change at some levels, but wholesale collapse? Not unless something is so narrowly adapted that it feeds ONLY on mosquitoes. Doubtless there are some specialty parasite that would suffer, or have to adapt to a new host. I can't think of any mosquito predators that are so limited.

Yep, but if you can rig things so most females only produce males, you can radically shrink the population. And that would be good enough for a start. Worry about eliminating pocket populations later.

As to their ecological niche, I've noticed that when there are a lot of crane flies, there are few or no mosquitoes, and v.v. I take this to mean they can more or less substitute. Crane flies are harmless, and just as edible for mosquito predators.

UK & Greece: no porn and no money.

Another consequence is that because it digs deeper in the pile, it tends to put a lot of affirmatively-actioned applicants in over their heads, who otherwise wouldn't have qualified academically. So it actually increases the failure rates among those minorities. And this is somehow seen as evidence that we need more affirmative action...

I bought the Hacking Exposed books.... they were enlightening: Linux isn't really 'safer' than Windows; it just has a different set of vulnerable points (fewer of 'em, but penetrating deeper into the system and more likely to persist across versions). If you want true security, run Netware.

The patching system may be the real culprit, tho: It's been pointed out that when a Windows version becomes "unsupported" there's an abrupt cessation of newly-found vulnerabilities. Why? Because the bad guys discover the holes mostly (perhaps entirely) by reverse-engineering the official patches ... which with Windows, tend to be monofocused on a single bug, making the hole fairly easy to ID, and thereby paint a handy target on unpatched machines. Conversely linux updates are, to my grok, more likely to address a bunch of stuff at once, making any single hole harder to identify. Likewise, Windows service packs (which address a bunch of stuff at once) have not typically been followed by a rash of newly-found vulnerabilities.

"Religious Right" in the USA is a euphemism for "sex obsessed control freaks".

catatonic