Cockroaches May Soon Be Unstoppable -- Thanks To Fast-Evolving Insecticide Resistance (sciencemag.org) 157
sciencehabit shares a report: The day that squeamish humans -- and exterminators -- have long feared may have come at last: Cockroaches are becoming invincible. Or at least German cockroaches (Blattella germanica) are, according to a new study. Researchers have found that these creatures, which have long been a prevalent urban pest, are becoming increasingly resistant to almost every kind of chemical insecticide. Not all insecticides are created equal. Some degrade the nervous system, whereas others attack the exoskeleton; they also have to be left out for varying amounts of time. But many insects, including cockroaches, have evolved resistance to at least one of the most commonly-used insecticides. And because cockroaches live only for about 100 days, that resistance can evolve quickly, with genes from the most resistant cockroaches being passed to the next generation.
To test resistance in German cockroaches, researchers treated three different colonies in multiple apartment buildings in Indiana and Illinois over the course of 6 months. The populations were tested for their level of resistance to three different insecticides: abamectin, boric acid, and thiamethoxam. One treatment used all three pesticides, one after another, for 3 months before repeating the cycle. In another treatment, researchers used a mixture of insecticides over the full 6 months. A final treatment scenario used just one chemical that the selected roach population had a low resistance to for the entire time. Regardless of the different treatments, the size of most of the cockroach populations didn't drop over time, the researchers wrote last month in Scientific Reports.
To test resistance in German cockroaches, researchers treated three different colonies in multiple apartment buildings in Indiana and Illinois over the course of 6 months. The populations were tested for their level of resistance to three different insecticides: abamectin, boric acid, and thiamethoxam. One treatment used all three pesticides, one after another, for 3 months before repeating the cycle. In another treatment, researchers used a mixture of insecticides over the full 6 months. A final treatment scenario used just one chemical that the selected roach population had a low resistance to for the entire time. Regardless of the different treatments, the size of most of the cockroach populations didn't drop over time, the researchers wrote last month in Scientific Reports.
Two phase approach to deal ignore with roaches (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Roach traps work, use them.
2) Don't leave food out, clean up areas where food is pretty frequently.
I used to live in Houston, which has quite a lot of insects of all kinds. You will never be entire rid of roaches but you can at least keep the levels very minimal without leaving poison laying about, which as the article says does not work - but also from experience smells terrible and probably makes you a little bit sicker as well.
Re:Two phase approach to deal ignore with roaches (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a very simple solution (pun intended) to roaches that I use. Take some water, add dish washing soap meant for the sink like for example Dawn brand. All insects die to this solution because normally, plain water just bounces off them or they walk on top of it. The dish soap breaks surface tension, and now they drown or suffocate in that water instead. I don't think there can be any evolution that won't work against that, because they have to somehow be immune to both water and dishwater now and that's a huge leap.
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Lizards eat roaches, scorpions, and other insects. (Score:5, Interesting)
You can spray all you want, but there will always be some nook or cranny that you miss which allows the roaches to take refuge and proliferate.
Lizards however, are like self powered active attack robots that constantly run around to seek out bugs and gobble them right up.
Lizards are cold blooded and benefit from having thermal storage to regulate body temperature, such as 8x8x16 concrete blocks. You can build a short wall or bench. Stack the blocks two or three layers high and leave 1/4" gaps between blocks for the lizards to crawl in and out of. Birds and cats like to eat lizards, but birds and cats can't get inside that 1/4" gap. Build it and lizards will come to you for free. They will stick around for generation after generation as long as those blocks are there for protection/thermal storage.
I've done this in Arizona and Oregon -- works every time!
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Lizards however, are like self powered active attack robots that constantly run around to seek out bugs and gobble them right up.
I do this to, catch lizzards an release them under my house. They are fantastic cockroach eaters.
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Lizards are cold blooded and benefit from having thermal storage to regulate body temperature, such as 8x8x16 concrete blocks. You can build a short wall or bench. Stack the blocks two or three layers high and leave 1/4" gaps between blocks for the lizards to crawl in and out of. Birds and cats like to eat lizards, but birds and cats can't get inside that 1/4" gap. Build it and lizards will come to you for free. They will stick around for generation after generation as long as those blocks are there for protection/thermal storage.
After several articles and comments read this morning, this is the first comment that was truly useful.
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That doesn't work in places that lizards can't live. Like the upper 1/3 of the US.
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You can also mix sugar with diatomaceous earth. Perfectly harmless to anything without an exoskeleton.
First, all diatomaceous earth is an inhalation hazard (silicosis). Second, there are two kinds of diatomaceous earth. Filter grade and food grade. Filter grade is toxic. That said, I'm a big fan of it. I used it to keep ants from climbing the pole to my hummingbird feeders.
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For sufficiently small values of "perfectly".
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DE needs to be dry to work. If it clumps up due to moisture the tiny sharp pieces are not free to go between the exoskeleton plates where they are needed in order to work.
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Unless they evolve into Jesus Roaches.
Re:Two phase approach to deal ignore with roaches (Score:5, Interesting)
poisons work well, article is about testing some things that are inferior to good roach killing poisons you can get over the counter. In fact, I'd even say the researchers proved exactly nothing with those wimpy roach non-killers.
For example, Black Flag spray (or anything with same ingredients) will kill german roaches for months after application
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Ok, that is true, those sprays do work - but they smell really bad (as I mentioned) plus then you have the problem of finding dead roaches which is just slightly more annoying than finding live ones... I'm also not sure they are good materials for humans to live around long term.
I still prefer a preventive approach but I can see in some cases if you are desperate and/or have a really bad problem, a strong poison may be your only option.
The problem is clean up when renters (Score:3)
Re:Two phase approach to deal ignore with roaches (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in Houston also.
My roach problem is the one that comes up from the drains and doesn't care how clean you are.
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I've had really good results with boric acid in the cases of "It's the fault of another apartment" and "they were here when I moved in". As for the drain bastards - I've closed and covered drains to great effect - when I was single. I'm married to a wife who can't do anything systematically so I'm not even going to try to get here to based on other battles, and I have a four year old and a teenager. Yeah, systematically covering drains isn't going to work.
I like to use the powdered drain cleaner, the cry
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Well at that point you can only blame your bo/little other, you know where they are getting in. What worked for me was she woke up one morning and 2 of the bastards where in her hair....now she closes the sink drain, no problems anymore.
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Yeah, the ole 'putting roaches in their hair' trick gets their compliance every time.
That's what you're saying, right?
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I hadn't seen those, but yeah, it should work, eat right through the carapace.
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3) Fry them with AI-controlled lasers!
Although come to think of it, in coastal regions, you might be able to use shark-controlled lasers.
Predator? (Score:1)
You are talking to typical geeks, who are not known for cleanliness. My proud neckbeard can feed a family of roaches alone.
What human-friendly predator could we keep around to naturally keep them in check? Maybe breed a smaller cat? A flat cat? [shopify.com]
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A pest constroller once told me that german cockaroaches are the bug that give the Cockaroach a bad name. These things are straight up nasty. They'll thrive where theres no obvious food source, because they'll find those crumbs that get kicked under the refrigerator. They'll eat the grease in the ventilator behind the oven. They'll eat mould off the carpet.
Then they'll get inside your electronics and gum up your ports with roach shit.
Heres whats worked for me:
1) Bayers maxforce pastes. Its brutal stuff. but
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Two phase approach:
1). Sugar and Uranium Oxide.
2). Steal the evolved genes for human deep space travel.
looked at common insecticides here (Score:2)
Imiprothrin and gamma-cyhalothrin.... also label even says great for use against german cockroaches.
guess we don't have a problem then
pretty sure a solid object still works (Score:1)
yet to meet a roach that survived a mallet
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Cockroaches don't have hemoglobin. There're insects.
That being said, carbon monoxide will still kill them.
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Ah yes, the primeval nature worship. The premier cult among the green cultists.
In reality, we have in fact been "inputting enough to make our "false" concept correct", or as non-cultish people would say it, "managed the forests and the fields" for at least hundred thousand years, probably more. Basically ever since we developed sufficient abstract thinking capability to realise that we could trade sacrifice in the moment for gains in the future. Forest management was an early precursor to modern agriculture
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Hey, at least you figured out how to turn off caps lock.
Still not fucking you after that brutal assfucking I gave you in original thread over your science denial. No matter how passive-aggressive you are about it.
Overthinking the problem? (Score:5, Interesting)
Cockroaches May Soon Be Unstoppable -- Thanks To Fast-Evolving Insecticide Resistance
I stayed at a hotel in SE-Asia once, it was a bit of a dump but I didn't see a roach the whole time I was there. They had solved the insect problem by putting a couple of lizards in each room. That's why I never kill spiders in or around my house, they do good work.
Re:Overthinking the problem? (Score:4, Informative)
Spiders are great housemates. Distribute a bunch of garter snakes around the house and the roach levels should decrease also.
Re:Overthinking the problem? (Score:5, Funny)
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And then we send in snake eating gorillas, and when winter comes the gorillas simply freeze to death!
Why import gorillas all the way from Africa when we can source 3rd rate internet trolls like you locally?
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Spiders are great housemates. Distribute a bunch of garter snakes around the house and the roach levels should decrease also.
Spiders will repel women too, if that's your problem.
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My wife is into spiders. Before I married her, she had some tarantulas as pets.
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Even if they don't decrease roach population, their visibility may still help decrease in-law visits.
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My cat might be entertained by the snakes as long as they didn't bite too hard. I think garter snakes aren't poisonous, but they still have teeth, right?
I like spiders though - as long as I'm pretty sure they're not black widows or brown recluses and most of them aren't. Spiders killed a fly problem in an apartment I used to live in. Not house-flys, but those little annoying ones that hang around houseplants. The spiders ate all the little tiny flies and then they disappeared leaving behind only their web
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My cat might be entertained by the snakes as long as they didn't bite too hard. I think garter snakes aren't poisonous, but they still have teeth, right?
I like spiders though - as long as I'm pretty sure they're not black widows or brown recluses and most of them aren't. Spiders killed a fly problem in an apartment I used to live in. Not house-flys, but those little annoying ones that hang around houseplants. The spiders ate all the little tiny flies and then they disappeared leaving behind only their webs.
Cleaning up their webs was a small price to pay because those flies were annoying.
Since then I've learned that putting a little soapy water near your plants works pretty well for that too. The flies get stuck and drown.
Speaking of insects drowning, I read an article in the NYT [nytimes.com] that said roaches love beer and if you pour some in a bowl they will drink it until they pass out and drown. I never tried that though.
Surprisingly, some garter snakes produce a mild neurotoxin, but it is probably insufficient to to harm your cat. Their teeth are also very short. I have been bitten by a garter snake. All it did was cause a pair of mild scratches when I pulled it off my thumb.
https://www.livescience.com/44... [livescience.com]
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PRAISE SOTEK!
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The spiders that set up shop right above my desk or my bed get killed, the rest can live in peace.
One day they'll evolve spiders that stay away from desks and beds.
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I stayed in a hotel in Michigan that had a ladybug infestation.
To quote Mitch Hedberg, "It's the cutest infestation ever" (only he was talking about how he had a koala bear infestation in his apartment).
They were attracted to the TV screen so the picture quality wasn't that great , but they don't bite and it really wasn't the worst thing about having to be in Michigan. I'm kind of curious why they would be there. If they were from a previous guest, who travels with ladybugs?
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But they leave messes around like poops, webs, etc.
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We had a chance (Score:3)
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I'm confident roaches and humans can coexist peacefully. [youtube.com]
(I can't believe the new one actually makes me miss that one.)
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Let 'em have the planet. We had a chance but fucked it up.
The fat lady hasn't sung yet. This show ain't over. Why are you willing to give up so easily when the outlook is extremely poor? Are you only a fair weather fighter? Darwin has an award for you.
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We'd like a demonstration to make sure we do it right. Please show us.
All hail (Score:2)
our cockroach overlords!
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They were only off a little bit about Germany being the progenitor of the master race. Witness the beginning of the third roach.
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our cockroach overlords!
I think you’ll find we already have cockroach overlords, we elect them into office at regular intervals.
45 ACP (Score:2)
If they become resistant to my insecticide of choice, we're done for.
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Surely a shotgun works better? Or at least .45 shotshells.
Boric acid (Score:3)
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Read the charts in the study itself. Boric Acid was the most effective of the pesticides tested, and had good effect even on resistant populations. They developed some resistance, but not a lot. Even in the worst case scenario, the boric acid still killed over 80 percent of the roaches.
BTW, this paper is a good example of scientists using dense jargon in their studies that consequently make the results very difficult to parse. While it is often necessary to flex your vocabulary for the sake of accuracy, I d
Re: Boric acid (Score:1)
Soon there won't be any humans in New York City! (Score:1)
Oh noes!
Roaches (Score:2)
Keep spiders, snakes, lizards, frogs, toads handy (Score:2)
They eat these guys up. If you can find a way to keep any of these critters in numbers near your place of residence, I'd recommend it.
Okay, so they’re insecticide resistant (Score:2)
Are they also becoming shoe resistant?
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I remember kicking a roach at the base of a tree in the backyard growing up. They're fast and I didn't have the opportunity to just stomp it into the ground, but I got it just right that its exoskeleton split and its insides came out a bit.
Dead roach. Went back inside satisfied.
I also liked the way my high school biology teacher explained exoskeletons vs. endoskeletons to us. This is probably not verbatim, but close enough:
'With an exoskeleton, if you get crushed you go 'pop-squish'; with an an endoskeleton
Fight dirty. (Score:5, Interesting)
Pesticides for roaches is derp. I had the misfortune of renting a place, once, that was a bit of a roach motel, in MS. Pesticides just kill, they don't do anything beyond that.
Baits are a bit better, especially good bait, not what you get at walmart or home depot.
The solution is IGR. Insect Growth Regulators. I had to research and come up with this on my own, my "pest" guy was a loss. "It's mississippi, you got roaches." I had lived in the same town in a different property before and never had this issue.
IGRs won't kill off the old, but it'll prevent the new from molting. It's that simple. Prevents the eggs from working right, too.
You'll see deformed little ones with misshapen limbs and antennae. Sometimes it'll be tough to ID it as a roach. Quasimodo-roach or something.
It's not poison, but it's worse than the atom bomb, apparently. After 3 or so months the place was roach-free and remained so for the one more year I spent there.
If they can't reproduce... they can't thrive, so when the old go.. there's no replacements. This stuff works. I don't think it works on anything but roaches tho.
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Or dusting corners and hiding places with food grade Diatomaceous Earth.
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Interesting (out of mod points and already commented anyway).
If I had roaches or it wasn't so late, I'd read up on the idea.
I grew up on the Gulf coast (not MS) and I pretty much accepted that roaches would always find their way inside one way or another. I mean the American cockroach. sometimes called a Palmetto Bug. We didn't have a problem with ze Germans, but our backyard was kind of welcoming to them as were the woods behind it not to mention my parents loved to feed the birds...which they eventually s
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As the "normal" roach isn't repulsive enough
Seriously... I don't mind most insects, bugs, etc. and I even leave spiders in my house since they catch flies and stuff.... but Roaches
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After 3 or so months the place was roach-free and remained so for the one more year I spent there.
That's a very long time to have to live with roaches. I use Indoxacarb 0.6% paste bait (Advion brand). It takes care of the problem pretty much overnight, and doesn't stink up the place like a spray.
If I had a persistent roach problem I would use multiple methods, but when I remember to put the advion down once every couple months, we never see a roach.
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Hunter killer robots (Score:2)
Tiny autonomous robots that seek out and kill roaches using mechanical means (stabbing, crushing, lasers, etc). would be a nice approach.
That is, until the roaches evolved harder, tougher shells with a mirror finish.
Nope, we can stop them (Score:2)
This man gives the perfect solution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Go mechanical then! (Score:2)
Unless they can be proved to be able to become resistant also to mechanical insecticides.
What about diatomaceous earth? (Score:2)
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Animals develop resistance to sharp objects all the time. Mollusks get shells. Insects get exoskeletons. I'm sure many dinosaurs had armor that would effectively thwart knives.
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Moxidectin still works. One of the active ingredients in Advocate (by Bayer). Ignore adverts for Frontline.