Science Memes

11047 readers

3574 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
Keep it rooted (on topic).
No spam.
Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.

Research Committee

[email protected]

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

727

Horrors We've Unleashed (mander.xyz)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

215 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I think there was a campaign in china in the mid 20th century that tried to exterminate a bunch of pests like this and it lead to catastrophic famines or something.

"The Four Evils Campaign" I think it was called.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Sparrows. China killed them all then freaked when locust are all the crops. Millions died from famine. They had to import and reintroduce sparrows.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Not sure about that, but there was an account of something similar in India, I believe, where there was a chemical agent involved that buzzards were extremely susceptible to and wound up killing off most, if not all of the population. This led to carcasses being left to rot and then became vectors for disease and basically led to a chain reaction of events that caused a few million people to die.

I don't know if killing off mosquitos would have quite as a profound effect as this, but there are so many things I feel like we have almost no understanding of when it comes to the natural world to say either way.

I've read in a few comments here that there are studies saying that it wouldn't have a crazy effect - if anyone could link them so I can give them a read, I would appreciate it.