Page 15 - HOH

A28 SCIENCE
Thursday 18 July 2019

This July 13, 2019 photo provided by Guangzhou Wolbaki Bio-
tech shows male Aedes albopictus mosquitoes in a container at
the company's lab in Guangzhou, China, prepared for release.
Associated Press
Scientists find new

In this Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013 file photo, a dealer resets a deck of cards at a casino in Las way to kill disease-
Vegas.
Associated Press carrying mosquitoes

Winners overlook rigged games'

lack of fairness, study finds NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists carrying mosquitoes.
say they nearly eliminated No technique so far has
mosqui-
had that kind of success, Xi
disease-carrying
toes on two islands in Chi- said.
BY SETH BORENSTEIN The research shows how the game was fair, based na using a new technique. The problem, though, was
AP Science Writer people who have advan- on luck or based on skill. The downside: It may not that it required swarm-
WASHINGTON (AP) — tages in life can give them- Molina said 60% of the win- be practical for larger ar- ing the islands with lots of
When it comes to fairness selves too much credit in ners thought the game was eas and may cost a lot of mosquitoes, up to 4 million
and privilege, a new study explaining how they got so fair, compared with 30% money. each week. Over the two
finds it really is not about far, Kane said. of the losers. And when it In the experiment, re- years, the number totaled
how you play the game. It all started when some came to explaining who searchers targeted Asian to around 200 million mos-
It's about whether you win Cornell University sociology won, winners attributed it tiger mosquitoes, invasive quitoes released.
or lose. graduate students were to talent three times more white-striped bugs that can The findings appear
A new experiment, played playing a card game that often than losers. spread dengue fever, Zika Wednesday in the journal
out as a card game, shows rewards someone who has Once the game got even and other diseases. They Nature.
that even when the deck is already won. Study lead more unfair, with a second used a novel approach for Scott O'Neill of the World
literally stacked in people's author Mario D. Molina no- round of card exchanges pest control: First, they in- Mosquito Program was
favor — and they know it ticed that people who won to further benefit the win- fected the bugs with a vi- concerned by the number
— most winners still think it's — because the rules ben- ners, far fewer winners rus-fighting bacterium, and of bugs needed for even
fair anyway. Losers don't, efited them — thought it thought the game was then zapped them with a these small islands, the
according to a study in was their skill, when it most- fair. Molina called that "the small dose of radiation. largest of which was three
Wednesday's journal Sci- ly wasn't. Warren Buffett effect," af- Zapping is meant to steril- times the size of New York's
ence Advances . So Molina and colleagues ter the billionaire who has ize the mosquitoes. And re- Central Park.
The study "tells us something created their own game called on higher taxes for leasing mosquitoes infect- "It's hard for me to see how
about privilege and about that would take away ran- the rich to level the playing ed with a bacterial strain this can be scaled up" to
society," said Bates College domness as much as pos- field. not found in wild mosqui- help residents, he said in an
sociologist Emily Kane, who sible and rewarded winners Molina said this is just a toes would stop them from email.
wasn't part of the research. by letting them discard game and noted that reproducing. Mosquitoes Biologist Brian Lovett at
"It reminds us how power- their worst cards and take the players tended to be need to have the same the University of Maryland
ful perceptions are — it's away the losers' best cards. younger, whiter and richer type to make young that in Bethesda said this isn't a
not just what is happening Nearly 1,000 players were than America as a whole — will survive. once and done process.
that matters, it's often more shown how it works and so using these results to ex- For 18 weeks in 2016 and "You have to keep doing it.
a matter of what we think how the game was rigged plain society more broadly 2017, the team led by Zhi- And if you don't keep do-
is happening," she wrote in to help the winners. could be too much of a yong Xi at Michigan State ing it, then populations can
an email. The players were asked if leap. University released male fairly quickly reestablish,"
Yet he said it is useful when mosquitoes onto two small he said.
thinking about economic islands near Guangzhou, That's exactly what hap-
privilege. China, a region plagued pened in the experiment:
The main message of the by dengue fever. The num- Mosquitoes either buzzed
study was pessimistic, said ber of female mosquitoes in or matured from young
Eliot Smith, a brain sciences responsible for disease larvae to replace those
professor at Indiana Univer- spread plummeted by 83% that died. It's going to re-
sity who wasn't involved in to 94% each year, similar to quire constant monitoring
the research: People have other methods like spray- and, potentially, a lot of
problems making moral ing insecticides and using money, Lovett said.
judgments about fairness genetically modified mos- Costs will go down as the
when it benefits them.q quitoes. Some weeks, there technology advances, the
were no signs of disease- researchers said. q