/sci/ - Science & Math » Thread #10907854

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Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 08:34:52 2019 No.10907854 View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>10907864 >>10907872 >>10908409 >>10909586

what would happen if rats evolved to start eating humans? would the human race unironicaly lose to rats of all things? what happens if an evil scientist out there fucked with a rat to create a bioweapon?

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 08:45:17 No.10907864 Report

Quoted By: >>10908218 >>10908405

>>10907854
rats do eat people, just not often because most of us have enough muscle to fight back

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 08:51:18 No.10907872 Report

Quoted By: >>10907877 >>10908113

>>10907854
We've reached the point where we can wipe out species whenever we want there are even plans to do the same for mosquitoes the only reason we don't is because it's potentially dangerous

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 08:56:40 No.10907877 Report

Quoted By: >>10908088 >>10908227

>>10907872
I don't think it would be possible to wipe out rats... The population is too large for biological or chemical weapons to work and there are plenty of population reservoirs outside of cities.
Unless you want to do it via total ecological collapse

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 12:23:40 No.10908088 Report

Quoted By: >>10908113 >>10908204

>>10907877
We've been working on genes that after a few generations in a population will surface and cause sterility effectively in theory being able to wipe out all of them

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 12:39:52 No.10908113 Report

Quoted By: >>10908215 >>10908217 >>10908235

>>10908088
>>10907872
This is highly unlikely. Even when you think you've effectively controlled the genome, nature has a way to roll back and overcome. I'd imagine something rather interesting would happen though. Would be interesting to find out.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 13:35:45 No.10908204 Report

Quoted By: >>10908219

>>10908088
Well, even with a gene drive, it would be hard for you to spread the timer gene to the whole population. Even if you deployed your modified rats all over the place, there could still be populations that you would fail to reach. And even then, the odds for a random mutation to knock out your sterility gene would be very high, with such a large population

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 13:38:22 No.10908215 Report

Quoted By:

>>10908113
Probably not that interesting... The most likely scenario would be for a knockout of the timer gene, since there is nothing selecting against it.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 13:40:01 No.10908217 Report

Quoted By:

>>10908113
imagine typing this post

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 13:40:06 No.10908218 Report

Quoted By: >>10908749

>>10907864
What if I can't build muscle?

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 13:40:24 No.10908219 Report

Quoted By: >>10908254

>>10908204
You'd honestly be amazed at how rapidly genes are able to spread within a population and a random mutation could render the gene useless however that simply doesn't matter when introducing it by the tens of thousands

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 13:46:25 No.10908227 Report

Quoted By: >>10908247

>>10907877
It's totally possible to wipe out rats. The question you need to be asking is how much collateral damage would you be willing to cause? We could bury the rat population under a fucking mountain of warfarin and it'd be so easy.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 13:49:31 No.10908235 Report

Quoted By:

>>10908113
You didn't go to college

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 13:56:18 No.10908247 Report

Quoted By: >>10908268

>>10908227
So do you mean covering the surface of the planet, along with every boat, etc with warfarin? To which rats are already resistant in some places...

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 14:00:14 No.10908254 Report

Quoted By: >>10908303

>>10908219
Sure but a single individual with the mutated gene is enough to prevent total population collapse, and that mutated gene would also be equipped with the drive mechanism and as such would compete with the original one.
When we're talking about billions of individuals, total extermination becomes a war against the law of large numbers, and that is something you always loose

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 14:09:10 No.10908268 Report

Quoted By: >>10908278 >>10908294

>>10908247
It wouldn't need to be as comprehensive as you think. It would just need to be enough to drastically reduce the fit population by 90%, the last 10 will fade away as they become sparse enough that they don't find suitable breeding partners. Also the gene for warfarin resistance makes them less fit for mating. That being said though, warfarin is easy enough to produce that yeah, you could mandate carrying a couple kilos on every boat and in every building.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 14:16:01 No.10908278 Report

Quoted By: >>10908286

>>10908268
>you could mandate
just like having a driver's licence is mandatory to be able to drive

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 14:19:41 No.10908286 Report

Quoted By: >>10908298

>>10908278
Sure not everyone has a driver's license that drives, but it's enough that the system works, just like you don't have to kill 100% of rats, kill enough that the population can't sustain itself and then it'll fizzle out. We almost did it successfully with DDT and bedbugs until we realized DDT was killing fucking everything.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 14:23:29 No.10908294 Report

Quoted By: >>10908302

>>10908268
Less fit doesn't mean totally unfit, so there you go... Also in New your, for instance, there are 2M rats, if evenly spaced this puts 2550 rats per square Km, kill 90% you get 255, so about 256 breeding pairs. A male as a territory with about 600m radius... 90 % death is ot nearly enough for population collapse

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 14:26:02 No.10908298 Report

Quoted By: >>10908336

>>10908286
>was killing fucking everything.
See, we couldn't do it, and I'm sure bedbugs would also become resistant, even if we hadn't stopped. And then there're the issue of cost, talking tax payers into funding your extermination campaign is also not trivial

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 14:27:13 No.10908302 Report

Quoted By:

>>10908294
128 pairs, I'm retarded...

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 14:27:42 No.10908303 Report

Quoted By: >>10908320

>>10908254
Potentially could have a pair that renders it useless but you can just engineer a new gene and repeat even then it's extremely unlikely to happen

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 14:34:42 No.10908317 Report

Quoted By:

ITT: this is the power of the enginigger and cslet mind

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 14:35:17 No.10908320 Report

Quoted By:

>>10908303
But then they're so scarce that it will be hard for you to deliver your gene. The resistance can also become more subtle.
Some bacterial have genes that specifically target bacteriphages, kind of like a dna based immune system. With enough rats involved, a similar mechanism can arise, that simply nukes highly conserved parts of your construct, meaning you would have to start from scratch.
Then there are also conservationists that would purposely protect populations of rats because reasons, defying your extermination order

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 14:39:14 No.10908336 Report

Quoted By: >>10908346

>>10908298
You're overthinking it. The thought experiment was the question is not whether or not we are even capable of eliminating rats, we ARE 100% capable, the question is how much damage would we be willing to cause to complete this goal? Which is clearly more in line with what you're thinking of.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 14:42:34 No.10908346 Report

Quoted By:

>>10908336
I know, I've just had this exact discussion before, with friends and wanted to see what other people would think of. If we would disregards all economic/ecological constrains, we could probably smash enough rocks into the earth and set off enough nukes to ensure all the rats died

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 15:22:56 No.10908405 Report

Quoted By: >>10908550 >>10908749

>>10907864
I can't build muscle

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 15:25:36 No.10908409 Report

Quoted By:

>>10907854
>what happens if an evil scientist out there fucked with a rat to create a bioweapon?
They were already bioweapons back when the bubonic plague was active.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 16:44:15 No.10908550 Report

Quoted By:

>>10908405
kek

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Aug 2019 18:25:17 No.10908749 Report

Quoted By:

>>10908218
>>10908405
stay away from rats then, if you get in their way they'll eat you

Anonymous

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Anonymous Fri 23 Aug 2019 02:09:59 No.10909586 Report

Quoted By: >>10909591

>>10907854
Hypothetically speaking anons, just how easy would it be to modify rat behaviour to target humans as a new food source and to work together to take down a human? Couldn't someone just modify toxoplasma to control their brains differently?

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 23 Aug 2019 02:11:13 No.10909591 Report

Quoted By:

>>10909586
It would be extremely painful

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