Society’s fourth Reddit AMA focused on Zika
On March 4, three聽Science News聽writers rushed to answer as many questions as they could during the Society’s fourth聽. The Ask Me Anything Q&A session, hosted in Reddit’s science community, focused on mosquitos, Zika, malaria, and chikungunya.
Life sciences writer Susan Milius, general assignment reporter Meghan Rosen, and molecular biology writer Tina Saey report for聽Science News,聽which is published by the Society, and worked together to answer 30 questions in an hour on Friday. Susan covers large and , Meghan recently reported on the , and Tina recently covered how .
Redditors posted more than 200 comments and upvoted (the site’s version of liking or favoriting) the conversation 1,269 times.聽AMAs allow people to ask hosts of the Q&A session anything. Questions can stay on topic or go off on interesting tangents.
Even in a densely-populated place like Singapore, mosquitoes will outnumber people.
鈥擳ina Saey
Questions included:聽Why is Zika suddenly perceived to be an imminent threat?聽As a man who doesn’t plan on having any children, is Zika a personal concern?聽Do we have any hope of genetically engineering silent mosquitoes? And how much progress is being made to wipe out human-biting mosquitoes?
The three reporters answered as many questions as they could within the AMA hour. “There鈥檚 still so much we don鈥檛 know about sexual transmission of Zika,” Meghan said.
Sterile insect releases have been combating insect problems for half a century now, Tina said, and CRISPR may make genetic engineering of mosquitoes easier.聽Susan explained that pyriproxyfen (a pesticide used in water tanks in Brazil in an effort to control mosquitos) is also used in the U.S. for mosquito control without seeing the same rise in microcephaly.
