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Science

Nuclear Mutant Flies Are Good For Africa? 679

Posted by Hemos from the where's-homer dept.
D\monix writes "According to this article in Reuters, the International Atomic Energy Agency is going to start releasing massive numbers of tsetse flies "sterilized by a burst of radiation" into sub Saharan Africa in order to outnumber and thus eradicate the local fly population. My favorite quote? "The impact of the fly is difficult to exaggerate." You're damn right it is. Anyone else out there think pumping large numbers of mutant insects into the environment might be a bad idea?"
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Nuclear Mutant Flies Are Good For Africa? More

Nuclear Mutant Flies Are Good For Africa?

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  • Spiderman (Score:4, Funny)

    by JohnHegarty ( 453016 ) on Thursday February 21, 2002 @06:42AM (#3043510) Homepage
    Now .... if one just bites a person....

    • Just wanted to correct something... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The article referenced does NOT say "The impact ON the fly is difficult to exaggerate." it actually says, ""The impact OF the fly is difficult to exaggerate." Not a quick commentary on how bad the radiation is for the fly, but on how bad the fly is for Africa.

      ...just saying. :)

      • Re:Just wanted to correct something... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Thursday February 21, 2002 @10:28AM (#3044322) Journal
        Not a quick commentary on how bad the radiation is for the fly, but on how bad the fly is for Africa.

        [Sarcasm=1]

        let's see - the Tsetse Fly is responsible for disease in millions of people, causing untold suffering. If we spread millions of Sterile (unable to reproduce = no offspring) flies, this means that the population will not suffer the disease rate, and so the native african population will not suffer the diseases and increased death rates associated with it. As a result the population will boom, and many more people will die for other reason, such as Aids.

        So I guess you are right, we should not sterilize the flies and release them into the wild, crashing the fly population, and attempting fly genocide, because the sterile (unable to reproduce flies = no offspring) might cross breed producing dangerous young, spreading their infertility to lots of other species.

        [Sarcasm=0]

        you get the idea

  • You bet! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 21, 2002 @06:42AM (#3043513)
    They might reproduce and produce more sterile insects!
  • I find this slightly confusing. So the basic idea is that these tsetse flies will overpower the non genetically engineered flies, but being unable to reproduce they will be the last generation. But when the modified flies die out, if there are even 2 original flies left, they will easily repopulate (and have less competition because the rest of the flies will be dead). So basically all this will do is screw up natural selection a bit, maybe increasing resistances of the remaining flies and what not.
    • ok so injecting more flies into the problem does what?

    • Re:The principle concept eludes me (Score:5, Informative)

      by Baki ( 72515 ) on Thursday February 21, 2002 @07:19AM (#3043618)
      The non-sterilized (genetically engineered is something entirely different) flies chance to find each other to mate amongst massive number of sterilized flies is drastically reduced. Thus also the amount of offspring.

      Moreover, if only 2 flies were left on, say, 100 square kilometer, what do you think the chance is that they meet?
      • Many animals experience something called the "Alee Effect." If you can drive down the population to a small enough number then they will eventually die out. For example, maggots can feed more efficently in large groups. If their numbers are low enough it then becomes more difficult to feed which lowers their probability of survival.

        The problem here is that insects are notorious for getting through these sorts of "bottlenecks." They are much better adapted to recover from small numbers than larger animals (especially the charismatic mega-fauna that we all know and love).

        They can spend a boat load of money to have the population reduced for a few years, but the population has a very high probability of bouncing back to its current levels.

    • As said in the article, the first step is to reduce the number of flies drastically by using pesticides. Depending on the sort of pesticide (resistance) and the geographical situation (exchange of flies between different populations), a fraction of the flies might survive and keep the fly-population from being exterminated. Theoretically, subsequent release of sterile flies will eventually do the job right permanently. A bigger concern however is the use of the pesticide: in order to let this strategy succeed, they will have to use a very big amount of hardcore pesticide. The release of vast amounts of a very toxic compound will not only affect insects, but also plants and even mammals. Ecological impact of the disabled flies won't be that big, unless the flies have a grudge for mankind because of their impotency..
    • Basically.

      The sterile flies with compete with the non-sterile flies for resources. So some sterile flies will die. This will leave a lot more than 2 sterile flies left.

      It won't screw up natural selection one bit. The most fit will still pass on their genes. It might actually improve it. Remember, natural selection isn't the survival of the strongest, but of the fittest. So the flies most fit for thier environment will reproduce. Yeah, there will be some blanks in there when the fit but sterile flies try to mate. But fit non-sterile flies will still reproduce, breeding a larger percentage of 'more fit' flies for the next generation.

      That's bad.

      This is what happens with antibacterial stuff. So the weak bacteria get killed, but the fit reproduce, and the fit are the ones that resisted the antibiotics in the first place. And now antibacterials don't work as well. Go figure.
      • "The sterile flies with compete with the non-sterile flies for resources. So some sterile flies will die. This will leave a lot more than 2 sterile flies left."

        That's not how it works. It works like this: The sterile flies compete for MATES, not resources. These boys are sterile, but still have all their natural instincts. Lots of mating takes place, but no fertilization. Satisfied but deceived she-flies lay eggs that will never hatch.

        And, the way to tell if it'll never work, is to look at where it's been tried. This technique has worked very well over the last 40 or 50 years in screwworm eradication [usda.gov].
        • OK, they give birth to larvae, not lay eggs like ordinary respectable arthropods. Principle is the same, anyway. Here [tulane.edu] is all you probably want to know about sleeping sickness with large drawings of the brain-eating microbes, from a professor at Tulane.

          The World Health Organization's page on trypanosomiasis [who.int].

          For population control, predators (including parasites) don't work nearly as well as the demographic transition. Learn about this concept, because it controls your future. Definition with nice graph [sru.edu].
    • But when the modified flies die out, if there are even 2 original flies left, they will easily repopulate. [....] So basically all this will do is screw up natural selection a bit, maybe increasing resistances of the remaining flies and what not.

      Natural selection is helped a lot by creating "hard times" for a while, and then easing up on the conditions.

      So, the moment you stop injecting the modified flies into the environment, the remaining flies will be much better than the average before....

      Roger.

  • Dont get your ilinformed knickers in a knot. (Score:5, Informative)

    by myosin ( 214390 ) on Thursday February 21, 2002 @06:48AM (#3043531)
    Of course these arent /mutant/ flys. theve just been sterilised. No more radioactive than usual, and cetainly not going to pass in theyre sterility to the next generation :).

    I for one do NOT A think pumping large numbers of mutant insects into the environment might be a bad idea.

    • Actually the sterility caused by the radiation is a mutation (a change from the original form). So they are mutant flies, as long as they don't have laser vision I am fine with it though.

    • Re:Dont get your ilinformed knickers in a knot. (Score:5, Informative)

      by HerringFlavoredFowl ( 170182 ) on Thursday February 21, 2002 @09:12AM (#3043928)
      Ummm ... hate to break this to you but they have been doing this kind of stuff since I was a kid. It is one of the standard method used to control fruit flies in florida ...

      The new twist here is that they are doing it on a new type of insect that apears to have a fairly long life.

      TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
    • But it's so much more fun to imagine little glowing green radioactive flies hovering about and nipping innocent people, transforming them into kickass superheroes.

      oh wait, that's _spiders_
      my bad.

    • do get angry (Score:5, Informative)

      by twitter ( 104583 ) on Thursday February 21, 2002 @09:56AM (#3044159) Homepage Journal
      I used to work for Dr. Edward Lambremont, who did some pioneering work in this area, back in the 60's. The idea is to elliminate a vector of human disease, sleeping sickness in this case. The idea worked. Sterile flies, captured or raised fat and happy in captivity, overwhelm the breeding population and can eliminate the wild population. Tests were done on various islands and both the vector and the disease were erradicated. The island's echo systems were not destroyed as other non disease carrying insects took the place of the erradicated flies. Anyone really interested can look up the work and go visit the test sites.

      Those opposed might do the same, before their ill founded fears keep the world from using a 40 year old, tested and verified idea to spare some 400,000 lives and untold livestock a year. Yes, ludites piss me off.

  • Mutant flies, oh no! (Score:4, Informative)

    by NullAndVoid ( 181397 ) on Thursday February 21, 2002 @06:48AM (#3043532)
    Anyone else out there think pumping large numbers of mutant insects into the environment might be a bad idea?

    Comic books and technophobic hysteria notwithstanding, exposing something to radiation doesn't make it a mutant. If it reproduces and produces weird offspring, that's mutation. If the radiation sterilizes the flies, there's not much to worry about.

    • Hemos' commentary is quite the misinformed hysteria.

      What will he complain about next: those half-dead virii that are intentionally injected into people!?!

      Ha Ha Ha! The tetse fly carries the sleeping sickness that threatens the lives and livelihoods [who.int] of 60 million people.

      Boy, what a hoot!

      We would hate to use an innovative idea to fight this scurge. Better for people to basically die of insomnia [tulane.edu] than Hemo's hippy-dippy sensibilities to be offended by the use of ,*horror*, radiation in a completely safe way.

  • In Other News (Score:2, Funny)

    by jchawk ( 127686 )
    New York - USA plans on releases mutant pigeons into the wild. These mutant pigeons are sterle but are equiped with lazer beams. The hope is they will eradicate the pigeon population.

    "The hope is that after these birds elimate the other pigeons they will go after vigrant humans." - One offical said.

    When asked what would be done if these mutant pigeons got out of hand - "We have a backup plan to release mutant wolverines that will go after the mutant pigeons"

    Is anyone else reminded of that Simpson's episode with the lizards?
  • Just imagine millions of Jeff Goldblums running around puking on people!

    (Huh? [imdb.com])

  • Not genetic variants (Score:5, Informative)

    by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Thursday February 21, 2002 @06:51AM (#3043540)
    The original poster does not understand the issue.

    These are flys that have been sterilized by radiation. They are not genetic mutants. If they will live their little lifetime, and then die. Their genes will not be passed on to another generation.

    "Mutants" are offspring which have different characteristics to their parents because genetic mutation has occurred.

    I am against releasing genetically modified organisms into the environment. But this is not what they are talking about. These are sterilized files. Not mutants. There is no danger here.
    If it reduces the number of disease carrying files, then this is a very good thing.
    • "Mutants" are offspring which have different characteristics to their parents because genetic mutation has occurred.

      And what does radiation do again? NOT mutate things?
      • And what does radiation do again? NOT mutate things?

        If you want an extra head, ( ;-) for instance), then all the mutation has to occur in the original sex cell before cell division occurs. Mutation in adult cells either doesn't do anything, kills the cell, or on rare occasions causes it to multiply in an abnormal manner i.e. cancer.

        You would not get

        a) an extra head or
        b) the mutation passed on to offspring.

        • You would not get

          a) an extra head or
          b) the mutation passed on to offspring.

          Actually this is exactly what has happened, is happening, and will continue to happen around 3 mile island - fish are being discovered with very strange mutations such as 2 heads.

          I am not claiming that damage to a parent's body will be passed onto its offspring, but damage to a parent's DNA which is donated at conception will CERTAINLY lead to mutation. And yes, I realise that the article says that radiation causes sterilisation. What it doesn't mention is that radiation doesn't ALWAYS cause sterilisation - just usually. Sometimes it causes cancer. Sometimes it alters strands of DNA in eggs / sperm. And sometimes fish are born with 2 heads...
    • I hate to relate to a story which has made manifest in popular culture, but, isn't this exactly what happened in Jurasic Park? "Yeah, don't worry, they are sterile! They can't reproduce!"

      It seems like this could be openening itself up for a great big disaster.
      • I hate to relate to a story which has made manifest in popular culture, but, isn't this exactly what happened in Jurasic Park? "Yeah, don't worry, they are sterile! They can't reproduce!"

        Jurassic Park is a Hollywood movie guys.

        Funny, I was just thinking how Hollywood is to blame for people's misunderstanding about genetics, but I didn't realise people took movies quite this literally!

        Next you'll be telling me that irradiating flies might make Superflies which can only be killed with Kryptonite.
    • Thats what they thought in Jurrasic Park!
      Then what happenned? Running and chasing and screaming! Thats what happened!

  • More resources.. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Andorion ( 526481 )
    Here's another paper [iaea.or.at] in PDF format (or you can use Google to view as html [google.com]).

    Here's a very interesting excerpt, for all those who can't figure out why this might actually work:

    Tsetse life-cycle.

    The tsetse is a unique insect. It gives birth every 910 days to a full-grown larva, which immediately burrows into the soil andforms a pupa. Thus the egg and larval stages of tsetse are notsubject to the usual hazards and losses experienced by otherinsects.Female tsetse produce at most nine larvae. Tsetse fliesunquestionably have the lowest reproduction potential of anyinsect, and this fact makes them a good target for SIT. A single mating provides sufficient sperm for fertilizationthrough the female's 90100-day lifespan. Since females usuallymate only once, if they are mated by a sterile male they will notproduce any offspring.

    • More resources.. - TAKE TWO (Score:5, Informative)

      by Andorion ( 526481 ) on Thursday February 21, 2002 @06:55AM (#3043557)
      Here's another paper [iaea.or.at] in PDF format.

      Here's a very interesting excerpt, for all those who can't figure out why this might actually work:

      Tsetse life-cycle. The tsetse is a unique insect. It gives birth every 9-10 days to a full-grown larva, which immediately burrows into the soil andforms a pupa. Thus the egg and larval stages of tsetse are notsubject to the usual hazards and losses experienced by otherinsects.Female tsetse produce at most nine larvae. Tsetse fliesunquestionably have the lowest reproduction potential of anyinsect, and this fact makes them a good target for SIT. A single mating provides sufficient sperm for fertilizationthrough the female's 90-100-day lifespan. Since females usuallymate only once, if they are mated by a sterile male they will notproduce any offspring.

    • Re:More resources.. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tubs ( 143128 )
      Amazing, I thought whales had the longest gestation period. 910 days, thats nearly 3 years.

      Wow, they live for 246 years too, imagine sperm that will live that long - girls wouldn't even be able to lie on your bed without getting pregnant, makes the giant condoms out of Naked Gun 2.5 seem sensible precautions :-)

  • The flies are not "mutated" but sterilized.
    If you don't know the difference, then don't post articles about such topics.
    A burst of radiation might cause genetic abberation but a) these flies are sterilized therefore cannot breed and b) the genetic changes are either minor or kill the individuals.
    And you can construct strang chains of events that the mutation causes a gene which provides immunity to antibiotica which is transfered to bacteria by viruses but such events are so unlikely that the propability of bacteria developing such immunities on their own is much higher.

    This article is the perfect example of these ecoheads who babble about "protecting the nature" and argue by vague ideas and wrong data.

    Personally I doubt that the sterilized flies will eradicate the natural population - the lifespan of y fly is rather short and theses individual cannot breed. This seems to be a crackhead idea from the atomic energy agency.

  • Bad for wildlife (Score:3, Informative)

    by TDoris ( 97746 ) on Thursday February 21, 2002 @06:55AM (#3043556)
    The tsetse fly is a very important element in the preservation of wildlife in Africa - wherever there are large concentrations of the tsetse, farmers will not bring in their herds of cattle. If the tsetse was eliminated a major impediment to African farmers overrunning the natural habitat of indigenous African wildlife would be removed, and biodiversity of the region put at further risk. Anyone willing to accept for five seconds that the environment is not a simple system???

    • Re:Bad for wildlife (Score:2, Insightful)

      by wdnspoon ( 560602 )
      These flies are a threat to human life. You'd probably want to preserve rats in northwest Europe during the plague.
    • Agreed. Also, although I have absolutely no idea where the tsetse fly fits into its native ecosystem it is almost bound to be the prey/foodsource of some other animal.

      The worse part of this is that 95% of the eradication process involves the use of pesticides...polluting the food chain and further endangering what is already a very fragile eco system.

      I would MUCH rather see a species controlled by a long term sterilisation/population reduction process ( 10-20 years to impliment effectively, and long term maintainance ) than this cheap, dangerous and ultimately short-term solution.

    • Re:Bad for wildlife (Score:2, Informative)

      by andyr ( 78903 )
      The tsetse fly is a very important element in the preservation of wildlife in Africa

      Two cases stand out :-

      • Kruger National Park only retained its biodiversity for as long as it did because of the Tsetse fly.
      • Hluhluwe-Umfolozi park in Zululand is all that is left after a widlife killing spree at the turn of the century in a failed attempt to eradicate the fly.
      Cheers, Andy!

    • Re:Bad for wildlife (Score:5, Insightful)

      by duffbeer703 ( 177751 ) on Thursday February 21, 2002 @10:15AM (#3044252)
      Nice attitude...

      Africa is not some park, it is a continent where thousands, perhaps millions of people are malnourished or suffering from disease. The fact that the people are blacks living in third-world nations does not make them lower than wild animals.

      If killing some insects allows more cattle to be raised and gives people access to safe water supplies, I'm all for it.

      Yes it will kill wildlife -- but I could give a damn about wildlife when human beings are at stake.

  • Sterilized is does not make it a "Mutant" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Shivetya ( 243324 ) on Thursday February 21, 2002 @07:00AM (#3043571) Homepage Journal
    Sorry, but the over the top claim that these are mutant flies begs a response.

    The idea is that after the attempt to eradicate with pesticide is used these sterile flies are released to compete with non-sterile flies for mating privledges. Since the mating window is short the time occupied by these sterile flies should help reduce the reproductive capability of the swarms.

    Too many people die from the disease they carry, and ignorant ranting about it does these people a big disservice.

    Unfortunately it is a very common tactic of the eco-terrorist groups to portray something in the harhest possible light even when they know they are lieing. Seems that sometimes they think their view is more important than the lives of the people who could be saved.

  • it worked in Winnipeg (Score:5, Informative)

    by Herr_Nightingale ( 556106 ) on Thursday February 21, 2002 @07:02AM (#3043576) Homepage
    When i lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba (somewhere in Canada, for all you Americans) they did the same thing to mosquitoes. Sterilize millions (males, mostly), send 'em out to mate (they mate only once) and then watch the population plummet. It's a trillion times safer than DDT and the other killer poisons they like to fill the air with during skeeter season.
    • It's a trillion times safer than DDT and the other killer poisons they like to fill the air with during skeeter season.
      Er, I don't think you read the entire article. They are planning to use pesticides to eradicate 90-95 percent of the population, then release the sterilized males to finish the job.
      On the other hand, I'm glad it worked in .ca without pesticides.
    • AFAIK, there hasn't been any evidence that DDT is harmful to humans, or most animals, except in concentration (as happens in the food chain).

      The problem was with farmers who used lots of DDT over a long period. Targeted use of DDT isn't necessarily harmful -- though it is currently banned. I think I heard that the amount of DDT used in New Guinea to try to eliminate malaria (I think it was successful there) was about the same as the amount of DDT used on a single farm at the time. The people trying to eliminate malaria had a lot better reason than the farmers, and were acting much more responsibly.

      Of course, for malaria they were only trying to eliminate a certain vector -- a mosquito biting one person who had malaria, and then biting a second person. They weren't trying to eliminate an entire species. After a few years of treatment, there weren't people with malaria and there wasn't a risk from mosquito bites.Before DDT, efforts to control malaria did involve eliminating entire species of mosquito.

  • Wow. (Score:2)

    by legoboy ( 39651 )

    This reminds me of people screaming about Monsanto's terminator gene. These flies don't reproduce, and even if they do, they're no different than any other flies. At least Monsanto's strains of grains are modified in several other ways (helpful things such as disease-resistance).

    For what it's worth, a similar sterile insect release program [oksir.org] has been operating in my area for nearly a decade, the targetted species being the codling moth.

    This isn't exactly a new and unknown initiative.

    • The issue with the Monsanto grains is very different. Notice that in the Tse-Tse fly case it is not a genetically modified / mutant fly, but a sterilized fly. In the Monsanto case, the problems many people have with it are 1) that people will be forced to buy seeds from Monsanto for each generation if they use it once, and 2) a fear that the terminator gene will spread in its original or a mutated form.

  • Types of Mutations (Score:5, Funny)

    by phil_atk ( 545228 ) on Thursday February 21, 2002 @07:13AM (#3043602)
    The effect the mutated flies will have on the natural population will in part depend upon what form the mutation takes. Obviously the initial effect will be sterilisation, but what about the secondary effects -

    1) Hulk Flies - any fly mutated with a large dose of gamma radiation will, on attempt by human to either swat or electrocute said fly, turn green and grow huge muscles, giving it the ability to lift up a pencil (for example) which it can then use as a weapon.

    2) X-Flies - flies of this type could adopt a number of attributes, including shapeshifting (into a pretty ladybird for example), ability to control the elements (wind is useful for flying speed) and mind control ('human - give me sugar!').

    3) Swamp Thing Flies - these flies will just go and live in the swamp (no change there) but will bear a grudge against the source of the nuclear mutation.

    4) Cowboy Neal Flies - mutation may cause certain flies to become super intelligent, all powerful beings. With all this power they will then move indoor and spend all day in front of a computer screen. This is the most dangerous form of mutation!

  • Imagine if people like the submitter of the story actually manage to stop the project. Then American comic book science will be the indirect cause of thousands of deaths in Africa.

    I have always considered those people who insist on complaining about the bad science in sci-fimovies, comic books and tv shows for boring pedants, but maybe they really do have a point.
  • The flies have had millions of years of spontaneous mutation in the environment; if a few of the "sterile" flies manage to reproduce and produce mutant progeny, they are extremely unlikely to be significantly different from anything that has existed before. Further, the radiation levels are chosen to be high enough such that it is very unlikely that any offspring could survive--they would have too many defects. If we were to repeatedly mutagenize and select for some dangerous characteristic, then there might be cause for concern; here the main concern is just that the technique may be ineffective but expensive.

    If you read the article, you'll note that they are not only introducing mutant flies to a region. The goal is to use insecticides to kill as many tsetse flies as they possibly can. Unfortunately, it is difficult to use insecticides to kill every single tsetse fly since some of those flies are likely to be (naturally generated) insecticide-resistant mutants, and doses high enough to kill all the flies will kill pretty much everything else too. So the plan is to kill most of the flies with insecticide and then follow up by flooding the area with sterile males (hopefully for a number of generations!). The remaining fertile flies will be unlikely to find each other among the crowds of sterile males, and thus the number of progeny should be small (eventually zero). You can do this without lowering the fly population with insecticides first, but it will take longer.

    Will it work? That's difficult to tell. Release of sterile insects has been effective in the past (e.g. with the screwworm fly). But the tsetse fly has a broad range, including some rather inaccessible areas. They have apparently
    already been successful [fao.org] on the island of Zanzibar, which, conveniently, is and island and less subject to reintroduction from neighboring areas.

    For (a little) more information on the technique, check the UN's site here [fao.org].

    Anyway, to summarize: not dangerous, good idea, let's hope it works! Sleeping sickness (infection by trypanosomes) is really nasty.

  • Extinction (Score:3, Insightful)

    by meggito ( 516763 ) <npt23@drexel.edu> on Thursday February 21, 2002 @07:21AM (#3043622) Homepage
    Until the population reaches 0...
    So basically they've decided to erradicate an entire species because they 'got in our way'. Noone else have a problem with this? I just hope we don't meet any aliens who decide that we are getting in the way of their population of earth and steralize my ass.
    Let's start taking some god damn responsibility and stop fucking with nature like this. There must be some natural predators for these flys that will also be dying down, at least until their population can survive on other prey. Those other prey will in turn increase because of the decrease in predators....
    This is what we call a good idea gone bad. Fine, trim down their populations, but don't god damn kill off the entire race. It will likely have consequences that we haven' thought of.

    Oh, and these aren't mutants. The DNA probably isn't being modified at all. If it were, they would be mutants, kinda. Chances are that not all of their DNA would be mutated, like not in every cell and definately not mutated the same in every cell. If they could reproduce and pass on sperm with mutated DNA then yes, you would have mutant offspring. But they're infertile so that isn't going to be happening either.

    • Re:Extinction (Score:3, Insightful)

      by crawling_chaos ( 23007 )
      Like we eradicated smallpox and are working on polio? No, I have no problem with the eradication of the TseTse since it has become feasible before eradication of the trypanosome (sp?). Hopefully that will be extinct shortly after its main vector passes away.

      In a plague epidemic you kill the rats, to kill the fleas, which means that good old Yersina Pestis ends up dying too.

  • Oh, buzz off. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 )

    We've been over this before, with cotton moths. It's a very cynical perpertual income scam, and the farcical nature of it can be summed up as: "Breed them into extinction".

    To have an appreciable effect on fly numbers in the next generation, you have to pretty much double the number of flies in this generation, ensuring that half of them are sterile.

    So first you've got to breed up your lab flies from fertile flies. Then you've got to keep back a proportion of them to use to breed up more lab flies. Then you nuke your flies to sterilise them, hopefully successfully, and hopefully without creating too many SuperFlies.

    You release them into the wild, blithely ignoring the impossiblity of achieving a uniform distribution. Congratulations, you've just doubled the number of flies in the wild!

    But it's all worth it, because in the next generation you only get 50% as many flies, right?

    Wrong. Flies breed like, well, flies. The check on their numbers isn't the number of fertile breeding pairs, but the number of predators and (mostly) the available resources for them to feed on.

    So while you perhaps see a small drop, you still have an assload of flies out there, and you've got one generation to address it. No problem, you just need to breed up even more flies in the lab, and do it again. And again. And again. And each time, you charge a fat fee for doing it. And you'll never wipe them out, or even have an appreciable effect on their numbers, because you'll always have fertile flies out there, breeding like crazy and spreading back into any local pockets that you've actually managed to have an impact on. And you always have to keep breeding your own flies in the lab (all this is just great for the overall fly population, you might notice) and then releasing them into the wild, where they're just as big a problem during their lifetime as wild flies. Even assuming that you could wipe out the wild flies, if you then released another million nuked flies "just to be sure", it's odds on that a fertile pair would slip through and start the whole problem all over again. Pop quiz: would this be a bad thing or a good thing for the fly sellers?

    I'm not suggesting that this method is worse than using pesticides, just that it's equally as token and futile. The intentions are noble: these little bastards are a disease vector, and can literally eat cattle alive. But this "solution" is really just another way for high tech companies to obtain a perpetual revenue stream from the third world by offering a magic wand to deal with a very real, but very endemic problem. The real problem is that the flies will expand to match the available resources, and we just keep giving them more resources to nibble on.

    It'll probably be a real cheap solution at first though. Remember, the first one is always free.

    • ... they can and do keep many pests down to manageable levels, saving many lives from diseases and many more from starvation.

      For both the current proposal and pesticides, the purpose is not extinction of a species. It is to improve the living conditions of people in the area, not by a "once and for all" operation, but by continuesly working to keep the pest population down.

      If there is anything naive it is the search for "permanent" solutions. Little in life is permanent, life itself is not permanent. Most of what we do offer only temporary improvements in our living conditions. In the long run, there is only entropy.

      Do you stop eating, because it only offers a temporary relief from hunger?

      A project is wortwhile if the benefits outweight the costs.
    • Have a search.

      They tend to have few offspring. Therefore the technique may well work. However, I've always liked the concept of using a species natural predators to do the dirty work for us.

      Create an environment where the predators can flourish.
    • .. but the consequenses could be severe. As someone else stated, the tsetse are very important for preserving wild life in Africa. Why? Because wild life is more resistant to the tsetse than a horde of genetically very uniform cattle.
      This makes sure that wild life get some breathing space in areas of africa, where farmers just have to give up.
  • Man and ant, two distant relatives travelling in the stream of time. Together living in the peaceful harmony of nature.

    BUT!!! When combined with ATOMIC RADIATION

    Man and ant become....

    .

    MANT!!!!

    (loud horns play disonate chord!)

  • Eradicating tsetse from the Southern Rift Valley of Ethiopia [iaea.org] from the International Atomic Energy Agency is more informative than the stories links. It also gives you a few photos of the areas they will be released in.

  • Drawbacks to eradicating the tsetse? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by codeButcher ( 223668 ) on Thursday February 21, 2002 @07:34AM (#3043652)
    Shamelessly copied from: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/earth/stories/s11 64.htm :
    1000 years ago Tsetse halted muslim migration south. Last century it plagued European colonial governments and today it impedes development of large areas . Some species affect humans, but many other species affect cattle and in a bad year can kill 100% of a herd. With Africa's spiralling population African govts, eg Kenya and Zimbabwe, are keen to control the fly so that land tsetse previously rendered unable to be cultivated can be developed. Scientists how sucessfully developed very environmentally benign ways of controlling the fly and have started projects with groups such as the Masai. Conservationists warn this ironically may harm the environment, by reducing the percentage of land set aside to preserve bio-diversity.
    Seems to me that completely eradicating these species would be a bad thing for Africa's ecology and bio-diversity.

  • nuclear flies (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Denni ( 560610 )
    In fact, a similar approach was used to erradicate screwflies in Lybia (the maggots of which infest wounds and feed on the living flesh, not dead tissue as is the case with many other species of flies). I only vaguely remember this from an old TV documentary but apparently that approach was a great success. Now remember, these flies do not actually glow with radiation! Be a bit more open-minded, this may actually not be a bad idea. The impact on the ecology may be another matter.
  • A mutant fly would be a fly that has inherited changed DNA from it's parent. The parent is perhaps best refered to as a "fly with radiation sickness".

    Seeing as these parent flies are dosed high enough to render them STERILE, there won't be any mutant offspring. Duh.

    And considering that most all mutations caused by radiation are mistakes like cancer and deformity not frickin silly x-fly superpowers, is the African environment at risk from sick and crippled tsetse flies?
    • Seeing as these parent flies are dosed high enough to render them STERILE, there won't be any mutant offspring. Duh.

      Sure.... except for the new radiation tolerant superflies that emerge from the few that ARE able to breed... MUHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

  • I am pretty sure the scientists who thought it would be a good idea to inter-breed the American honey bee with the African bees viewed the experiment with the same amount of confidence that these scientists are displaying regarding the notion of irradiating the tsete fly with radiation. How do we know this will sterilize the flies?

    SealBeater
  • Picture if you will: You are peacefully trekking through Africa with your tour group of twentysomething Eurotrash and middle-aged Americans (and their porters!) when somehow you are seperated from the group. You walk hither: green swale and trees which you swore you'd be able to identify before you went on the goddamned trip. But no trekkers. You walk fro: More of the same, and still no trekkers. By this point, you are pretty worried - the guides issued stern warnings about not getting lost. So you walk yon. As you round a corner, you find youself in a small clearing in a grove of those trees. You hear a strange buzzing sound, and then you are startled to see...

    a fly. Not any fly, mind you, but a tsetse fly. And this isn't just any tsetse fly - this one is at least fifteen feet tall. His probiscus is the size of your leg! (there does seem to be something missing, but you never quite figure out what) The fly is wearing a thrashed denim jacket with Greenpeace and anarchy patches dotted among black marker pen with various incomprehensible rants.

    "You have no chance to survive make your time!"

    Oh.... my...... god!!!!!

    You are ready to scream, run away, anything but deal with this deranged mutant eunich tsetse fly. But you can't run. Your legs are like jello. You can't stop staring at that probiscus that's the size of your leg...

    "All your bug are belong to us!!!"

    Oh, god, you think - he's definately one of those. You finally remember how to use your legs and turn to run away, but a beclawed leg bats you to the ground. You scream in irony as the probiscus gets closer. You should never have worked for that WTO organization. Not to mention that consulting work...

    The probiscus drills slowly into your belly as you squirm like a cricket on a fish hook. There is nothing to do....

    Suddenly, you find yourself getting sleepy, sleepy... You never imagined it would end like this... so peaceful... so calm, relaxed.... the beauty of the trees as the tsetse fly pumps its saliva into your bowel, predigesting it before, as you sanquinely observe, he sips up your small and large intestines, your kidneys, liver, pancreas... things are getting dark now. Just before everything is quiet...

    "For great justice"
  • The article says:

    "The impact of the fly is difficult to exaggerate,"

    of, not on, as it was in the /. article.

    Do you people ever read the articles? (Like I haven't heard this before on /.)

    The "nuclear mutant flies" may sound dangerous, but are really not in any way, as the "mutat" in this case basicly just means that they are so radically mutant that they are sterile. In real world, radical mutants don't get superpowers or anything.

    All natural individuals of any species (including humans) are more or less mutant anyhow, so there's nothing inherently dangerous about that (unless you consinder life as dangerous).

    'Life, I mean, will find a way. Oooh and aah, that's how it starts, and then comes the running and the screaming.'

  • Scary (Score:2, Funny)

    by benh57 ( 525452 )
    The scariest issue here is that someone is getting their news from *AOL*.
  • The thing that concerns me is what will take the place of these fiels when their population decreases. Nature usually doesn't permit a kind of vacuum, and it might well be that there are unforseen side-effects to this kind of action.

  • Yeesh.

    OK, to start with the radiation is used to sterilize the flys as others have pointed out. The flys are NOT genetically-engineered! The whole plan works on releasing massive numbers of sterilized flys into the environment such that they out-compete the non-sterile flys for mates and thus reduce the number of offspring which reduces the fly population, etc. etc.

    This is not the first time that this has been done. The first such project I remember was the screwworm in the Southern US about 40 or so years ago where the exact same plan was used (release hordes of radiation-sterilized screwworms) with
    great success.

  • Many times in fact. One of the standard techniques for controling invasive pests in agriculture is to release sterile bugs into the population because most of the bugs mate once and begin to die afterwards. I'm not an entomologist, but my understanding is that most bugs hang around for only a season, lay eggs and die, their job done. So if you short circuit the whole thing by releasing an overwhelming number of sterile insects the population will breed itself to death. The only reason that I know about this is that I grew up in CA during the whole Mediterrean fruit fly thing. If I had choice between aerial malathion spraying and swatting the occasional sterile fruit fly, I'd go with the fly each time.

  • This has been done before with fruit flies and it works well, with no ill effects, they arent MUTANTS, theyre STERILE, big difference you alarmist yahoo

    First of all its not even like they are themselves radioactive, they have been exposed to radiation, no different than you getting an X-Ray

    Are you of japaneese upbringing from the 60's ?
    Sounds like you watched too many godzilla movies.
  • 1) release sterile males
    2) lots of females get fooled
    3) population drops
    4) females who mated with sterile males can't reproduce, and are selected against (duh)
    5) females who mated with NON-sterile males are selected FOR
    6) NON-sterile male population therefore rises
    7) in absence of steady stream of sterile males, population skyrockets again

    Do I have this wrong? This just seems like a very temporary solution. The only hope is to perhaps reduce the population so drastically that it is logistically impossible for the remaining non-sterile males to increase the population much. It seems the only way to really "solve" the problem, would be to somehow introduce a defect which has a high probability of killing flies before reproductive age (and that's disregarding the whole issue of whether we should be selectively extincting "pesky" species).

  • Screwworms were wiped out in the USA in 1966 (Score:3, Informative)

    by alanw ( 1822 ) <alan@wylie.me.uk> on Thursday February 21, 2002 @10:30AM (#3044344) Homepage
    Using precisely this method. See
    This U.S. Department of Agriculture [usda.gov] web page

  • As someone who once lived there ... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Christianfreak ( 100697 ) on Thursday February 21, 2002 @11:20AM (#3044615) Homepage Journal
    I know this post is going to be buried but I'll say it anyway:

    As someone who lived in Africa I can tell you first hand how nasty those flies are. Their huge and they hurt when they bite you. Fortunatly I was vaccinated against some of the nasty diseases they carry such as Yellow Fever and African Sleeping Sickness. Unfortunatly most of the population of Africa is too poor to even know what a vaccine is much less afford one. So any idea to get rid of the flies is a good one.

    I'm ashamed by the /. FUD on this one. These flies aren't 'nuclear' or 'radioactive'. They've been steralized (by radiation) the idea being that there will be so many sterile flies that populations of flies will decrease as ones 'in the wild' mate with the sterile ones and don't produce offspring.

  • African/Western hyposcrisy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gdyas ( 240438 ) on Thursday February 21, 2002 @12:57PM (#3045277) Homepage

    Hell, I love the environment, but I realize the need to save human life & livelihood when I see it. Too many of you seem too comfortable with sitting in front of your computers in your cubicle this morning with a coffee & bagel, deciding that Africans should continue to get sick & lose livestock because you don't want them to "harm the ecosystem".

    For all of the environmentalists lamenting the horrible, cataclysmic attack upon the Tstetse fly, consider for a second if it were YOU and YOUR family's health & livelihood that took a constant beating because of these little boogers, if it was your kid almost dead with sleeping sickness, or your cattle you've spent the last 2 years raising that're fast becoming worthless. If there was an infestation by an insect that made people sick and destroyed fiber-optic cable in the SF bay area or New York City you would all shut the fsck up so fast it'd make John Muir's corpse spin.

    For fsck's sake, if you want to preserve the environment deal with the planks in your own eyes before pointing out the motes in the African's.

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