Nuclear Mutant Flies Are Good For Africa? 679
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?"
Spiderman (Score:4, Funny)
Just wanted to correct something... (Score:3, Informative)
...just saying.
Re:Just wanted to correct something... (Score:5, Informative)
[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
Re:Just wanted to correct something... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Life will find a way"? Christ, that's barely sufferable pablum in a crappy book/movie series, let's not try to act like it's an axiom of truth.
If life has such a hard-on for "finding a way", then why have millions of species gone extinct over the years? Why didn't that life "find a way"?
Jurassic Park is a story. Here's the tricky part: it never actually happened. Let's not quote it like it's an article from a scientific journal.
The odds that one of the irradiated flies will develop a useful adaptation that is dangerous to humans and doesn't reduce the fly's ability to survive AND slip through the cracks while still fertile AND mate with another fly AND produce viable offspring that aren't in turn eaten by predators is so vanishingly small as to be laughable. Please.
Re:Just wanted to correct something... (Score:4, Funny)
Clearly it was a huge coverup, but Goldblum cracked under pressure and the truth is out.
Dinosaurs are real.
You bet! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You bet! (Score:3, Funny)
The principle concept eludes me (Score:2)
This kills the paracite in the flies how? (Score:2)
Re:The principle concept eludes me (Score:5, Informative)
Moreover, if only 2 flies were left on, say, 100 square kilometer, what do you think the chance is that they meet?
Re:The principle concept eludes me (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:The principle concept eludes me (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The principle concept eludes me (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
No, they compete for FEMALES (Score:3, Informative)
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].
Larvae, trypanosomes, "demographic transition" (Score:3, Insightful)
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].
Re:The principle concept eludes me (Score:2)
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.
Re:The principle concept eludes me (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder if you could apply the concept to dilute undesireable traits in vermin populations. You could breed generation after generation of animal with the most annoying traits, sterilize them, and release them into the wild. After a while the species would tend to select against these attributes. Could this work? I'm not a biologist/ecologist.
Re:Been done already for many years... (Score:4, Interesting)
Dont get your ilinformed knickers in a knot. (Score:5, Informative)
I for one do NOT A think pumping large numbers of mutant insects into the environment might be a bad idea.
Re:Dont get your ilinformed knickers in a knot. (Score:2)
Re:Dont get your ilinformed knickers in a knot. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Dont get your ilinformed knickers in a knot. (Score:5, Informative)
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
Re:Dont get your ilinformed knickers in a knot. (Score:2, Funny)
oh wait, that's _spiders_
my bad.
do get angry (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Dont get your ilinformed knickers in a knot. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, the profound guilt and self-loathing of the "ecological activist" rears its ugly head again. Either you're a pitiable victim of propoganda, or you're grossly underestimating both the astounding power and majesty of Mother Nature and the remarkable resilliency of her creations, specifically us. As you may have noticed, a significant vocal population has always spouted forth the "precarious balance on a fragile pinnacle of equillibrium over the roaring seas of doom and destruction" world-view. I personally think that's a symptom of The Human Condition, perhaps a vestigal natural instinct of tension to keep us on our toes, alert for other predators and/or prey. Of course, it also gives those who believe it a purpose, a reason to live (something for which just about everyone looks, although they may find it in different places). At any rate, while in past centuries (as well as this one, to a lesser extent), Western culture's condition of "doom and destruction" has been in the religious and moral arena, with the consequences being hellfire and damnation (as an American, I'm not in any position to speculate on the expression of the "doom and destruction" prophecies of Eastern culture). Since we've more or less given that up in the wake of our "scientific enlightenment," it's only natural that the need for a dire position would manifest in the scientific genre.
Humanity is but a speck in the natural order here on earth. She has proven herself the opposite of your precarious balance image time and again over the millennia -- instead of a delicate equillibrium balanced on a needle of chance, where the tiniest nudge will send us tumbling into an abyss of chaos and damnation, a more appropriate image would be that of a large rock at the base of a lush valley. Sure, with a strong enough nudge, that rock can be swung away from center and rolled up the hill, but it will roll back to the center again.
Egomaniacal self-loathing... what an unfortunate and pitiable combination of mental disorders to suffer, and so astoundingly common among the so-called nature-lovers. Interesting, that they profess such respect for Mother Nature, yet have so little respoct for her power that they consider themselves her keeper rather than the other way around!
Re:Dont get your ilinformed knickers in a knot. (Score:2)
Re:Dont get your ilinformed knickers in a knot. (Score:3, Insightful)
That is absolute bullshit. Mutation by radiation is literally hit and miss. Sometimes a mutation doesn't have much effect on the overall form of the organism's offspring. Sometimes it has a HUGE effect. DNA's effect on an organism is not simple linear cause and effect. It is wildly nonlinear and unpredictable, and your telling the public that this is 'safe' is quite irresponsible - especially when you also claim to be a Reactor Physics Engineer.
Natural selection will breed out HARMFUL mutations in the population, but what about POSITIVE mutations. There is such a thing. Rare, yes. But they do exist. How do you think we evolved out of the nothing?
Mutant flies, oh no! (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Mutant flies, oh no! (Score:2, Flamebait)
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
In Other News (Score:2, Funny)
"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?
Ack! Gross! (Score:2)
(Huh? [imdb.com])
Not genetic variants (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Not genetic variants (Score:2)
And what does radiation do again? NOT mutate things?
Re:Not genetic variants (Score:3, Informative)
If you want an extra head, (
You would not get
a) an extra head or
b) the mutation passed on to offspring.
Re:Not genetic variants (Score:2)
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...
Re:Not genetic variants (Score:5, Funny)
I believe I can say without fear of contradiction that irradiating these flies will not cause them to give birth to 2-headed fish.
Re:Not genetic variants (Score:3, Informative)
Since these flies are sterile, they wont have kids that can have second heads. Therefore any mutations which the radiation caused in the fly will die out with that fly.
If there is too much DNA damage on a given fly, it will just die, and they will make some more.
Re:Not genetic variants (Score:2)
People here have to understand the distinction between radiation-induced mutation on a cellular basis and a VERY different kind of mutation based on mutated genes (via sperm / egg) being passed on to offspring. THINK PEOPLE!
Re:Not genetic variants (Score:2)
It seems like this could be openening itself up for a great big disaster.
Re:Not genetic variants (Score:2)
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.
Re:Not genetic variants (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the reason movies like that are made is to separate people from their cash.
If promoting bad science and pandering to the fears of the ignorant will help in that endeavor, Hollywood is happy to rise to the occasion.
Re:Not genetic variants (Score:2, Funny)
Then what happenned? Running and chasing and screaming! Thats what happened!
Re:Not genetic variants (Score:2)
Sterilization with radiation is extremely effective. Besides which, the type of genetic mutations you are talking about are almost always useless - imagine taking a book and changing a few letters randomly. The result would just be a book with typos in it. If you are really lucky, you might get one word change to another and the word still makes sense. But the genome as a whole would, as you point out, be f*cked up.
It is a completely different situation when genes from, say, a jellyfish, which have evolved over millions of years, are extracted and put into a plants' genomes. This is more like taking book and extracting a sentence that you already know makes sense, and carefully inserting it into another book at a location where you know it will make a difference to the meaning of the book. The resultant change could have side effects you haven't considered.
More resources.. (Score:2, Informative)
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)
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)
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
A crappy article for a crappy idea. (Score:2, Flamebait)
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)
Re:Bad for wildlife (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bad for wildlife (Score:2, Insightful)
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)
Two cases stand out :-
Re:Bad for wildlife (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Bad for wildlife (Score:5, Insightful)
If science and technology can succeed in hauling these countries into the 21st century you will see the same kinds of voluntary population control that you see in Europe, for example. Many wealthy European countries have a declining native population and it is directly related to economic wellbeing.
The suggestion that the tsetse fly, HIV, etc are helping to deal with population problems in Africa is abhorrent. We need to help solve these problems and make Africa wealthy - then the population problem will solve itself and there will be room for wildlife as well.
Re:Bad for wildlife (Score:4, Insightful)
What do you mean by "constructive"? Does this mean doing something "good" for the planet?
If this is your definition, then I submit that no organism on the planet has ever done anything constructive, with the exception of humans.
Organisms are inherently selfish. Why is it such a surprise that humans are to? Do you think that the "goal" of an antelope is to feed the lion so that beautiful species can live on? Do you think that the lion, given the chance, wouldn't kill every antelope in Africa? If you do then you are quite simply wrong. The antelope wants to eat, sleep, not die; the lion wants the same things.
Only humans have the capacity to self sacrifice. It is this ability, over any other that should define what it means to be a "human". No, not every human would sacrifice him(her)self, but for most there is a reason. (morals, offspring, mate, country, god)
What you must realize is humans are part of the ecosystem. Therefore our actions are as much the actions of the ecosystem as are the antelope and lion. Species Die Period. Climates Change Period. What humanity will (and should) do is attempt to control these vast systems for our benefit. If that happens to assist the fly, then so be it.
Sterilized is does not make it a "Mutant" (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
Re:it worked in Winnipeg (Score:2)
On the other hand, I'm glad it worked in
Re:it worked in Winnipeg (Score:3, Informative)
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)
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.
Re:Wow. (Score:2)
Types of Mutations (Score:5, Funny)
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!
A sad thought (Score:2)
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.
Sterilized flies are not dangerous (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Re:Sterilized flies are not dangerous (Score:2)
If you read the article, you'll note that they are not only introducing mutant flies to a region.
If you actually read the article, you'll notice that they are not introducing mutant flies into the region at all.
Extinction (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
In a plague epidemic you kill the rats, to kill the fleas, which means that good old Yersina Pestis ends up dying too.
Re:killing rats is not always good (Score:3, Insightful)
If someone wanted to really make a difference in world healthcare, they'd refocus half of the current HIV money on prevention and throw the rest into malaria research. If I recall correctly, more people die of malaria every month than die of AIDS every year. But malaria doesn't really affect rich people in the West and is therefore ignored.
On second thought, scratch that. Take the money and devote it to getting potable water to 100% of the population. Goodbye cholera, typhus, tapeworms, and river blindness, not too mention childhood diarhea. It boggles the mind that we can't accomplish this seemingly simple task. Then I realize that it ain't all that simple.
Oh, buzz off. (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Pesticides are not token or futile... (Score:2)
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.
Actually, Tsetse flies *don't* breed like flies. (Score:2)
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.
The intentions may be noble (Score:2)
This makes sure that wild life get some breathing space in areas of africa, where farmers just have to give up.
Oh my Lord! (Score:2)
BUT!!! When combined with ATOMIC RADIATION
Man and ant become....
.
MANT!!!!
(loud horns play disonate chord!)
Eradicating tsetse from the Southern Rift Valley (Score:2, Informative)
Drawbacks to eradicating the tsetse? (Score:3, Interesting)
nuclear flies (Score:2, Insightful)
Dumb alarmist article (Score:2)
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?
Re:Dumb alarmist article (Score:2)
Sure.... except for the new radiation tolerant superflies that emerge from the few that ARE able to breed... MUHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA
Killer Bees (Score:2, Troll)
SealBeater
It's only a matter of time... (Score:2)
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"
Impact OF! (Score:2)
"The impact of the fly is difficult to exaggerate,"
of, not on, as it was in the
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)
What will replace these flies? (Score:2, Insightful)
What a cesspool of FUD and irrationality we have (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Been Done Before (Score:2)
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 it works well (Score:2)
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.
How will this possibly work?? (Score:2)
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)
This U.S. Department of Agriculture [usda.gov] web page
As someone who once lived there ... (Score:5, Informative)
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
African/Western hyposcrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Not so bad. (Score:2)
I'm much rather drink irradiated milk (which just sterilizes it) that eat GM foodstuffs, which are genetically modified organisms. Those poor Americans aren't even told which of your food products are GM! So in America I can put fly genes into a cow and sell it as burgers, and I don't even have to say so on the packaging! Now that's scary.
Re:Not so bad. (Score:2)
Re:Not so bad. (Score:3, Funny)
So can I, and I live in the US.
Of course, after 2 or 3 days the smell might start getting to me...
Re:Not so bad. (Score:2)
Re:They aren't talking about any side-effect... (Score:2)
But I can't imagine that you know what you are talking about either. And the word is 'irradiated'.
Re:This has been done! (Score:2)
Introducing sterilized Tse-Tse flies isn't introducing an animal in a place it doesn't belong, it is introducing "handicapped" insects of a type that already exists and cause signficant problems.
Re:This has been done! (Score:2)
I'll bet that the scientists planning this have rather less than a clue about what the side effects are going to be...
Re:Haha... (Score:2)
Re:ok - NO! This is sidestepping the real problem! (Score:2, Insightful)
This is a classic unintended consequence issue. I can't think of any unintended consequences of the release of sterile flies but I'll bet there will be some!
MOD GRNDPARENT UP! (Score:2)
Congratulations - you are also a fool! (Score:3, Insightful)
When you look at the context (you *did* read the article, right), they are talking about the current effects of the tsetse fly in general, not the potential effects of the mutated one.