YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → Et si on faisait disparaître tous les moustiques de la planète ?

Et si on faisait disparaître tous les moustiques de la planète ? — Transcript

by TRY · 3,401 words · 532 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:02Today, we're going to try to save a few
0:04lives from an enemy that nobody takes
0:06seriously: the mosquito. As you watch
0:09this video, every minute that passes,
0:11someone will die because of it. So, why
0:14is it still here? Can we finally make
0:16it disappear? And above all, should we?
0:20Right now, in Brazil, factories are
0:22producing billions of mosquitoes every
0:23year to ensure there are fewer of them.
0:26For our part, scientists have found a
0:28miracle solution. And don't even use it
0:31. Welcome to the most paradoxical topic
0:33I've ever covered, because for over a
0:35century, a strange war has been playing
0:37out against it. An almost paradoxical
0:39war that we have, in a way, already won
0:42, yet we continue to lose. And this war
0:46starts here on a small Chinese island
0:49called Colano. Just before I tell you
0:54about these technologies, there is one
0:56that is a bit special that I have to
0:57show you. Since I spend my weekends and
1:00nights editing, I sometimes need to
1:02switch off and relax. And for that, I
1:04use the most stylish tablet on Earth,
1:06the Red Magic Astra 2. Just look for a
1:09second at this design that you won't
1:11find anywhere else. It almost looks
1:13like it comes from the future. Well,
1:14inside, it’s just as unique with the
1:16latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. A
1:19super-powerful processor. Needless to
1:22say, any game you run on it will run at
1:24its best settings for a good long time.
1:26If you already own a Red Magic product,
1:29you know the OS is also highly
1:30customizable. In games, you have plenty
1:33of plugins to improve your experience.
1:35OK, you might say, "That's nice, but
1:37it's 104 ° F outside anyway. It's a
1:39heatwave, how am I supposed to play
1:41comfortably without it turning into a
1:43radiator?" Well, behind this small
1:45facade hides the most advanced tablet
1:47cooling system in the industry. This
1:50time, we find liquid metal, a vapor
1:52chamber, but most importantly, a new
1:54system that prevents battery
1:56overheating. This results in a tablet
1:59that withstands extreme temperatures,
2:00which you can use anywhere for a long
2:02time. Thanks to Red Magic for once
2:04again sponsoring the channel. Feel free
2:07to go take a look, the link is in the
2:08description. 1877, Patrick Manson, a
2:13Scottish doctor, is working on
2:15lymphatic filariasis. A serious disease
2:18causing deformation of the limbs. While
2:21observing his patients 'blood, he
2:23notices microscopic worms. How can
2:25these worms spread from one patient to
2:27another so quickly? To study this
2:30phenomenon, he deliberately lets
2:32mosquitoes bite his patients while they
2:34sleep, including his own gardener, who
2:36never asked for this. He collects the
2:38mosquitoes after they feed, and upon
2:40opening them, he discovers the worms
2:42are developing and migrating inside the
2:43insect's body. This was the discovery
2:46of the biological vector concept. The
2:48mosquito shelters, nourishes, and
2:50transports the pathogen. It acts as a
2:52vehicle, a real little biological bomb.
2:55And that was just the beginning. We
2:56would soon understand just how
2:58destructive this insect really is. 1881
3:01, between the Atlantic and Pacific
3:03oceans lies this thin strip of land. It
3:07creates problems for ships that must
3:09sail all the way down South America,
3:11around Cape Horn—among the world's
3:13most dangerous seas—and back up. It
3:16might not look like much on a map, but
3:18it's a massive detour of about 8,000
3:20miles. To solve the problem, they call
3:23in a Frenchman, Ferdinand de Lesseps,
3:24who had dug the Suez Canal a few years
3:26earlier. 50 miles of earth to excavate.
3:29The project is of enormous complexity
3:31for the time. Thousands of workers
3:33arrive, along with colossal machines
3:35and mountains of money. Then, they
3:39start dying one after another, by the
3:41thousands. Men fall with fever, yellow
3:45skin, vomiting blood; they are devoured
3:47from within. They bury them, again and
3:52again. And to protect the sick, they
3:54place basins of water at the foot of
3:56their beds, unknowingly. By doing this,
3:58they are empowering the enemy. Before
4:00it ended, the French project would
4:02claim nearly 22,000 lives, decimated by
4:04yellow fever. It didn't take long to
4:07discover other viruses carried by the
4:09mosquito, such as dengue, Zika, and
4:11chikungunya. But that is nothing
4:14compared to the real monster. Malaria
4:16kills with unparalleled aggression. The
4:20parasite enters the body. It multiplies
4:22in the liver for one to two weeks. So
4:24far, so good. Then, it begins to invade
4:28the red blood cells. It multiplies
4:31inside each one until they burst in
4:33regular, small waves. They block
4:35vessels and cause complications in the
4:38kidneys, lungs, brain, and sometimes
4:40death. Without the mosquito, all these
4:42parasites would be far less problematic
4:44, or even almost non-existent in humans
4:46. The mosquito is the slow killer. It
4:49doesn't scare anyone. It looks nothing
4:50like an imposing enemy. It isn't
4:52spectacular like natural disasters, and
4:54it isn't as brutal as a bomb or a war.
4:57And yet, its damage over the years is
4:59colossal. To this day, it is estimated
5:01that mosquitoes kill between 700,000
5:03and over a million people every year.
5:05That makes it by far the deadliest
5:07animal on the planet for human beings.
5:13When you see all that, the first
5:15instinct is logically to think that
5:17mosquitoes should have been
5:18exterminated a long time ago. That is,
5:20in fact, what we tried to do, and we
5:22very nearly succeeded. In 1939, a Swiss
5:25chemist discovered
5:27dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, also
5:30called DDT. It’s what’s known as an
5:33organic pollutant, and it is almost too
5:35effective. You spray a little bit on
5:37the walls and all the mosquitoes die,
5:40after years of trying to control
5:42malaria while hoping to eradicate it
5:44entirely. So, we sprayed it all over
5:51Europe, all over the United States, we
5:52put it on our lawns, we threw it on
5:54children, we applied it in paints, and
5:56we even found wallpaper in stores that
5:58contained it. We began to find DDT
6:01absolutely everywhere. Some even went
6:04so far as to eat it to prove how safe
6:05and revolutionary it was. And at first
6:08glance, it worked. We sometimes went
6:11from hundreds of thousands of cases per
6:13country to just a handful. So we
6:15continued, again and again. And while
6:22the plan worked at first, little by
6:24little, the weapon became less and less
6:26effective. By spraying it in every
6:28direction, the rare survivors of the
6:30DDT became the only ones to reproduce.
6:33Over generations, they became
6:35insensitive and more resistant. The
6:37weapon meant to destroy them only made
6:39them stronger. Worse still, a few years
6:44later, we discovered the hidden cost of
6:46DDT. It is a poison that does not
6:48disappear. It infiltrates the soil. It
6:52accumulates in the water, in fish, and
6:54in birds. It poisons much more than
6:56just mosquitoes. So, we stopped
6:59everything. Malaria sometimes came back
7:01stronger than before. It returned to
7:03areas where we had almost eradicated it
7:04. OK, if I’m giving this history,
7:07it’s not just to pass the time;
7:08it’s to show you the insane
7:10complexity of eradicating an entire
7:11species like the mosquito. And that was
7:13almost a century ago. We now have new,
7:16much more effective weapons that we
7:17will discover in a few seconds. But
7:21before using them, there is still one
7:23question to ask ourselves. One could
7:25say that once again, we are eliminating
7:27a species for our own comfort, and it
7:29wouldn't be the first time. We don't
7:30always do it with full awareness. The
7:32fact remains that the collapse of
7:34biodiversity is largely caused by human
7:36activity. The dodo, whose habitat was
7:39destroyed, hunted, its eggs eaten by
7:41species that we introduced. The Great
7:43Auk hunted for its meat, the Caribbean
7:45monk seal hunted for its oil and
7:47blubber to the point of extinction. It
7:50is impossible to list all the species
7:51that have already disappeared because
7:53of us. Is the mosquito just another
7:57target? It's more complicated than that
8:02. First of all, there is no question of
8:04eradicating all the mosquitoes on Earth
8:05. Out of 3,700 different species, only
8:07a few dozen would be targeted. We
8:09aren't banking on complete eradication,
8:11quite the contrary. A second reason is
8:14that we must realize one thing: the
8:16mosquito doesn't target us specifically
8:18; it targets blood—that of birds,
8:21dogs—and everywhere it goes, it
8:23carries diseases for every species. It
8:26creates constant stress for animals. It
8:28causes deaths among the young or among
8:30weakened animals. So, not acting is
8:33also a problem. On the other hand, here
8:36is something to further complicate the
8:38debate. The mosquito belongs to the
8:40food chain. It serves as food for other
8:42species. Removing a link from the chain
8:44might be lighting the fuse of an
8:46explosion with repercussions we don't
8:48know about. However, if we limit
8:51ourselves only to certain dangerous
8:53species, the ecological impact seems
8:55rather small. Studies on the Anopheles
8:57show that its disappearance would have
8:59very limited consequences. No predator
9:02is entirely dependent on it. Once
9:04that’s said, well, the problem is
9:06still there. We are extinguishing
9:08species 35 times faster than nature.
9:09What we destroyed in 500 years should
9:12have taken 18,000 years. And the
9:14mosquito, the animal most dangerous to
9:16humans, is still there. We could start
9:18talking about some kind of karma, but
9:20science has many other words to
9:22describe the phenomenon. So, before we
9:24deal with it, here is our enemy as you
9:26have never seen it. To start, the head:
9:29two large compound eyes, two antennae,
9:30and especially the proboscis. A rigid
9:32tube that pierces the skin. It carries
9:36two wings that can beat several hundred
9:39times per second. That is, in fact,
9:41what causes that rather annoying noise.
9:43To mate, the male and female agree on
9:45the same frequency for their wingbeats.
9:47Also, a thing to remember: only the
9:49female bites. She performs what we call
9:51blood meals. This provides her with the
9:53protein to lay as many eggs as possible
9:55. And, incidentally, that too is our
9:58big problem. Billions on every
10:00continent. Leave only one percent alive
10:03and they will reproduce at a crazy
10:05speed. In a few days, the female lays
10:07hundreds of them. And that's
10:09devastating because it means
10:10accelerated evolution. The more
10:12individuals there are, the more
10:14mutations occur, which are themselves
10:16accelerated by the speed of
10:17reproduction. So, facing the mosquito
10:19means facing natural selection. If
10:21every weapon, every poison we throw at
10:23them only makes them stronger, what do
10:26we do? First strategy, the idea is
10:31extremely simple. We raise millions of
10:34males. Male mosquitoes don't bite; they
10:37are harmless. We make them sterile or
10:39unable to produce viable offspring.
10:41Then we release them. Don't
10:43hesitate
10:44to shake it.
10:45These males will seek out wild females
10:47and mate with them. But the eggs of
10:49these females never hatch. And since
10:52the females have a short life and
10:53generally only mate once, that's the
10:55end for all her offspring. We multiply
10:58that by millions of males released week
11:00after week, and the population
11:01collapses. It’s not just a theory,
11:03it’s even a strategy used by Google.
11:06Nearly a million sterile males per week
11:08are released by its subsidiary Verily
11:10in California. We see good results, up
11:13to a 96%reduction of mosquitoes in the
11:15treated areas. In France too, we are
11:18releasing sterile mosquitoes in
11:20Toulouse, Montpellier, and towns near
11:22Lyon. The drawback of this technique is
11:26that eliminating 99%just isn't enough.
11:28The mosquito always comes back. If you
11:30stop the sterile male releases, it will
11:33return quickly. We're going to need to
11:35think a little bigger. Second strategy.
11:41Okay. Well, this one is a bit unique.
11:44Instead of releasing mosquitoes
11:46infinitely, couldn't we create just one
11:48? One single mosquito to rule them all,
11:52capable of contaminating the entire
11:53species all on its own? Forget any
11:57sense of morality you may have. Here,
11:59we are going to play with the rules of
12:01nature. DNA, letters that follow each
12:05other and form a code in a specific
12:08order that we can consider a recipe
12:10book for making proteins. These are the
12:13proteins that allow us to build our
12:15body, our genes, and ensure it
12:17functions. The fact that you are you
12:20and not a mosquito or a hot dog is due
12:22to a variation in this sequence of
12:24letters. And this sequence of letters,
12:28we know how to partially modify today
12:30thanks to a technique called CRISPR.
12:35But this time, we aren't just going to
12:37modify the mosquito's DNA sequence. We
12:39are going to use CRISPR to create one
12:41of the most controversial technologies
12:43in biology. We call it gene drive, or
12:45in French, "forçage génétique." It's
12:49used to bypass the laws of heredity to
12:51accelerate the spread of a modified
12:53gene. Normally, a gene has a one-in-two
12:56chance of being passed on to its
12:58offspring. With CRISPR, we modify it so
13:00it copies itself onto the other
13:02chromosome. It will no longer be passed
13:08to 50%of the offspring, but to almost
13:10all of them. And there, the work
13:16becomes significantly easier. You
13:18release a few carrier mosquitoes, and
13:20generation by generation, the
13:22modification spreads on its own. Like
13:25wildfire, until it invades the entire
13:27population. And given the mosquito's
13:29reproduction speed, well, it's the
13:31perfect tool. OK, that's all well and
13:33good, but now the question is: what do
13:35we put in that gene? Well, we have a
13:37choice. A gene that makes females
13:38sterile, for example, and we’d just
13:40have to watch the species collapse on
13:42its own. Or, a gene that prevents the
13:44mosquito from transmitting malaria. And
13:46there, the species survives, but it
13:48becomes harmless. What I'm telling you
13:52here is very far from science fiction.
13:55In 2018, at Imperial College London, a
13:58team of researchers put a large number
14:00of mosquitoes in cages, and that is
14:03where the very first gene drive
14:05succeeded, proving we could decimate a
14:07specific species in just a few
14:09generations. It is the ultimate weapon.
14:12We are moving from a poison that works
14:14poorly to a technology that works
14:16almost too well with a strategy like
14:17this. We can already imagine that in a
14:19few months, there would be no more
14:21mosquitoes on Earth. So why are they
14:29still here? Why, 8 years later, does
14:32malaria still kill more than 600,000
14:34people a year? The mosquito is still
14:37the most dangerous animal to humans.
14:39Nothing has happened. Well, nothing has
14:42happened because, in reality, no gene
14:45drive has been released anywhere on
14:48Earth. It never happened. We still have
14:515 to 10 years to go before seeing the
14:52very first trials. And even then, these
14:56trials will likely be done in Uganda,
14:59Mali, or Burkina Faso. Moreover, in
15:022019 and then in 2025, genetically
15:04modified mosquitoes were indeed
15:05released in Burkina Faso. But they had
15:08no gene drive. They were just males
15:10with lower fertility to start timidly
15:12observing the results. And in August
15:152025, after 13 years of work, the
15:17government of Burkina Faso flat-out
15:19decided to stop everything. The
15:21scientists were reportedly treated
15:23almost like criminals. Their offices
15:25were sealed and marked as if a crime
15:26had taken place. We can attribute
15:30several reasons to this failure.
15:31Already targeted Russian propaganda
15:33from social media that allegedly swayed
15:35public opinion across much of the
15:36country. And even without that, we
15:39observe a global distrust of science,
15:41and more specifically, biology. The
15:44Gene Drive has this mystical and almost
15:46uncontrollable side, despite the good
15:48intentions of scientists. Because the
15:51Gene Drive, if misused, doesn't stop at
15:53the border; it crosses countries and
15:55spreads across the entire planet. It
15:57has the capacity to destroy an entire
15:59species and will have impacts that we
16:01won't even be able to calculate. After
16:06setting the atmosphere ablaze with
16:08multiple bombs and testing gases and
16:10poisons ever more harmful than the last
16:12, we may be facing a new madness whose
16:15full consequences we cannot control.
16:18And for once, this is a line we do not
16:21wish to cross. This strategy is so
16:23effective that we are terrified at the
16:25thought of using it. So, back to Brazil
16:33, where we started in a mosquito
16:36factory. Producing as many as possible
16:39without genetically modifying them as a
16:41weapon is almost paradoxical. Its name
16:44is Wolbachia. It is found naturally in
16:48more than half of the insect species on
16:50the planet, except, notably, for
16:52certain mosquito species. The idea,
16:55therefore, is to add this bacterium to
16:56them. And this bacterium is almost
16:58magical. It enables two completely
17:01opposite strategies. The first is the
17:03suppression strategy. Actually, you
17:05already know it because it's the Google
17:07one we saw just before. In reality,
17:09there are several ways to sterilize
17:11male mosquitoes, and we can
17:13specifically use Wolbachia. If an
17:15uninfected female mates with one of our
17:18males carrying this bacterium,
17:20reproduction is blocked. But it goes
17:23far beyond that because this bacterium
17:24does much more than just block
17:26reproduction. It renders the mosquito
17:28totally harmless. Wolbachia prevents
17:30the viruses contained within the
17:31mosquito from multiplying. It stays
17:33alive and still bites, but it transmits
17:35almost nothing. And Google decided to
17:39release only males, and definitely not
17:41females. So the question is, what
17:43happens if we release a female? Well,
17:46this bacterium is transmitted from the
17:48mother to her offspring. If a female is
17:50infected, all her offspring are born
17:51infected. Do you understand what is
17:53happening? This bacterium invades the
17:55entire population, generation after
17:57generation. No need to keep releasing
17:59them repeatedly. And since the carriers
18:01of this bacterium become nearly
18:02harmless, we solve the problem for good
18:04. So Google’s suppression strategy
18:08will kill off one wave of mosquitoes,
18:10while another strategy, called
18:11replacement, will solve the problem for
18:14good. And this second strategy is
18:16actually preferred by many mosquito
18:18factories because it releases females
18:20in very large quantities. In Curitiba
18:23in 2025, for example, a true industrial
18:25monster capable of producing 5 billion
18:28mosquitoes per year. Another factory in
18:31Belo Horizonte, also in Brazil,
18:33produces about 100 million per year.
18:35Then Medellín in Colombia, which
18:36closed recently, produced 1.5 billion
18:38per year. We’re onto something solid
18:40here. The results are spectacular. And
18:46you might be saying, just like me, well
18:47, if we have the solution, why is
18:49nobody talking about it? Because if
18:51they spread everywhere, it’s a matter
18:53of months at most before the mosquito
18:55will never carry anything again. It’s
18:59almost like that. This bacteria works
19:02very well on certain mosquito species,
19:04for example, the ones that primarily
19:06carry dengue. The problem is that it
19:08works a bit less effectively for
19:09Anopheles and malaria. And malaria is
19:11the disease that kills the most people.
19:14So, in a few years, given the speed at
19:16which research is advancing, we might
19:18have a solution. But in the meantime,
19:20we have no equivalent, no miracle
19:22bacteria. And the most spectacular
19:24weapons like gene drive or GMOs, as
19:27we've seen, are blocked for years or
19:29will never be used. Except that for
19:33malaria, time isn't measured in years,
19:35it's measured in minutes. Every 60
19:37seconds, malaria takes the life of a
19:39person on Earth, the vast majority
19:41being children. 600,000 people per year
19:44. If things were heading in the right
19:51direction, I wouldn't really need to
19:53make this video, but that’s not the
19:54case. The United States, historically
19:57the world's largest funder of malaria
19:59control, providing an average of 37%of
20:01global funding, withdrew massively in
20:032025. And without these resources, we
20:06are talking about nearly 15 million
20:07more cases and 107,000 more deaths. The
20:11worst part of this story is that we
20:13know how to avoid malaria relatively
20:15well with few resources. Not solving
20:17the problem entirely, but reducing the
20:19number of victims. It is even one of
20:21the causes in the world where every
20:23euro spent saves the most lives. So,
20:25that doesn't mean you should only
20:26donate to this cause, but in my opinion
20:28, and according to many organizations,
20:29it's one of the most useful donations
20:31one can make. There are organizations
20:35whose job it is to turn a few euros
20:37into mosquito nets and effective
20:38treatments. I’ve put one in the
20:41description that I’ve verified, which
20:42you can find on sites like Give. If you
20:46can and want to, it’s probably one of
20:49the most useful things you can do this
20:51year to save lives.

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of Et si on faisait disparaître tous les moustiques de la planète ? by TRY, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 3,401 words across 532 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to translate the transcript into 100+ languages.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, translation to 100+ languages, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.