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Biotech Insects to be Released Into the Wild
willmc writes "I just caught an article on CNN.com talking about a genetically revised moth that will be tested in a controlled outdoor environment this summer, and is expected to be released into the wild in the not-too-distant future. The insect is a pink bollworm moth that is a pest to cotton fields. The change that they're testing first is the addition of a luminosity gene from a jellyfish, and later an alteration that will make them sterile so they can mate with non-altered moths and create sterile offspring, thus reducing or eliminating the moths' population. This sort of thing tends to make me very nervous..." Don't worry. We can always release killer bats to get the moths, and giant carnivorous hedgehogs to kill the bats.
Let's think about this for one second here... Everyone is bitchin' about "Man" dinking with nature, blah blah blah, "Leave it to mother nature and natural selection yadda yadda..." Maybe, (just maybe) man dinking with nature and it blowing up in his face and wiping out the human population is just the end that natural selection is trying to obtain. When it comes down to it... isn't homo sapiens being a *pest* to all the other species we're trying to eradicate? As was said earlier, life on this little blue ball has survived much worse than us, and, while we may not be a major player here forever, life in some form or another will carry on. Amen.
Why bother with Nature? Nature doesn't need us to make her a favor. If this moth exists, it's probably for a good reason. After all, Earth did fine during billions of years without us, and probably started having problems when we came along. Maybe those kind of things should just be left as is.
"The answer to the Question of Life, the Universe and Everything is... 42"
--
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Don't worry. We can always release killer bats to get the moths, and giant carnivorous hedgehogs to kill the bats.
This reminds me of that Simpsons episode where Bart saves those Brazilian Iguana looking things (which were supposed to be killed). It turns out that they were eating the pigeons and everyone liked that, but there population was too large, so they planned on bringing in snakes to kill them, and then to bring in gorillas to kill the snakes. The Gorillas would all freeze to death in the Winter.
...maybe I just watch too much tv?
Doh!
What else could be unnatural? Alien artifacts? Gnome-made objects?
The classical seperation is between that which has been formed by the influence of an intelligent mind (artificial and unnatural) and that which has not (natural). If you just decide that because man arose from nature, all the works of man are natural, then you'd just have to throw out the words "natural" and "artificial". It's pointless destructiveness due to bad semantics.
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I believe that the glow effect is only for the original test. This will make it really easy to differentiate the moths that they placed into the field from the natural ones. Later, the modification done on the released moths will be switched from glowing to "sterility." This is just the test phase.
Agreed, especially about the natrual, "unnatural" thing. I think in this case though, we don't know enough about the way that nature works as a whole to be able to decide properly wether or not the help overrules the hurt. Granted, one species of moth dissapearing probably doesn't matter, and that looks like the only danger here, but we really can't be sure, maybe they will react with so and so chemical in so and so bird's gizzard and cause problems.
So I agree, it doesn't really matter what happens, but as a part of nature ourselves, we have a survival instinct, we know our world works now, and most people don't want to mess with something that works, if they don't know what's going to happen. It might hurt us in the long run, that would mean that as a species we commited suicide, that doesn't really fit, in the Darwinian sense, species try to survive, environmentalism is one manifestation of this, and a valid one.
I hope that was coherent.
It's common practice to release sterile insects in order to control the population. For example, the Mediterranean Fruit Fly that plagues California from time to time. I can't recall the other cases I've heard, but there are more.
However, this new case is a bit different. They're talking about modifying the bug's genes to make them sterile, rather than the usual post-birth modifications. That's a little creepy, yes, but I feel it should be a benign change in this case. When you modify an organism, either through selective breeding, cross-breeding or through gene modification, you take the extreme risk of upsetting that creature/plant's place in the environment.
This can yield, and often has yielded catastrophic results. It's nearly impossible for us to predict the outcome when a modified or "foreign" (i.e. not native to the area) creature is released into the wild. There are actually only a few cases to my knowledge where this was done on purpose and had no unexpected consequences. Those cases were largely chance as far as I'm concerned.
This case is a bit different than most, though. The usual genetic mods we hear about are meant to "improve" an organism in some way, like the corn that kills predators (and every other bug in sight, unfortunately). The changes being considered here are intended not to improve the bug, but to kill it off.
Above all, this is very unlikely to cause a problem because the modified bug will be changed in such a way as to not be able to reproduce and pass on the genetic changes designed to make it sterile in the first place.
Aren't they making a HUGE assumption here, that all the moths already in the wild are going to want to do it with a bunch of freaky glow-in-the-dark moths??
/.ers would do it with freaky glow-in-the-dark chicks? Ever been to a rave? Mmmmm.... freaky.
Ah, to be a moth...
Show of hands... How many male
I live in Minnesota now. We just don't have 'em like they did out East...
I registered my hate for Jon Katz
This is nothing new . . . the "eradication through release of great numbers of sterile insects" method has worked before on fruit flies, both in Florida, South America and Africa, and Australia. They weren't developed through direct genetic alteration, but the theory is the same.
Let me see... buy loads of sterile moths. The fertile + sterile moths fill their little mothy bellies and make a little mothy luuurve.
Next season, you have a drop in the mothy population proportionate to the number of sterile moths you bought (assuming you didn't make them super attractive with the mothy equivelant of a Natalie Portman gene). Hurrah! You have 10% fewer moths eating your cash crop this year, and all you had to do was to pay for the privilege of having 10% more moths eating it last year! And of course you now have to keep buying new moths every year, what with sterility not being hereditary.
Still... I'll the first batch is free. Sound familiar? ;)
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The change that they're testing first is the addition of a luminosity gene from a jellyfish, and later an alteration that will make them sterile so they can mate with non-altered moths and create sterile offspring
Hmm... that sounds like some supicious pyramid schemes I've heard in the past.
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
Are you thinking of Borneo? Try looking at Day They Parachuted Cats on Borneo, a book from a while ago (and is currently out of print).
Apparently, of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.
Although I am with you on the fear of modifying creatures...you are completely wrong on the delicate balance theory... In fact, the earth is a huge filter/engine that humans could never dream of modifying permanently...although I do believe gene splicing could have more lasting effects than global thermonuclear war...
--- Every day I am forced to add another to the list of people who can kiss my ass...
I'm in favor of anything where it is the best thing to do. Not exactly a radical position, I know. And oh yeah, it's "hear hear."
Thank you for the first sane viewpoint I've read in this thread.
The sheer hypocritcal arrogance of people who cry "We are part of nature and must respect her", and then turn around and use phrases like "unnatural" is amazing. If we are part of nature, then how can anything we do be unnatural. Beyond the childish anthomorphication of an abstract idea, the very phrase "unnatural" is an impossibility. (Unless you say we *aren't* part of nature, at which point you forfit the arguement that we can't shape the world as we desire).
Just like all actions, it will hurt and help depending on what viewpoint you are taking at the moment (and if you can only take one viewpoint, your mind is very small indeed). The key is - is the help worth the hurt... from the temporal vantage point we have (look into the past, compare notes, and make a decision. It's easy to say "that was a bad decision" *after* the fact).
For decades people died of cancer from X-Ray research. But when my SO broke both legs, and they were able to set them so recovery would be total, rather than be crippled for the latter part of life, that was on the graves of those who have gone before. And I respect that. Technology *will* kill. Science *will* create horrible situations. It will also feed and heal the human race in prosperity never before seen.
--
Evan (who is sick, and is just hitting submit. Deal.)
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
I think they meant that the offspring will be sterile. Kind of the way a mule cannot reproduce because its a combination of horse and donkey. The next generation of moths will not be able to reproduce, thuse eliminating an enormous amount of insects. The upside to the way this works is that they can very easily control the amount of insects they kill off, since the sterile insects will die off.
Have you actually taken any biology? Ye gods, man, it's like the experiment the monk did with the peas. He found something called recessive and active genes. After one year, about half of the offspring population will have the recessive gene. The next year, when those moths have hatched, and cacooned, and all adults, approximately (statistically that is) one fourth will not prodece any offspring, and one fourth will spread the gene to the non-mutated group. Contunue this trend untill infinity, and you have the limit of the population of moths due to our messing around. Do yourself a favor, study bilogy, and infinite series.
hrm.
methinks someone forgot to take their prozac today? Running late for biology class?
I'd like to remind you of the parable of the horse and donkey. In the field there were several mares and stallions. They were eating all the cotton (erm, well, some poetic licence to clarify for the prozac addled among us). The farmer was a wise genetic engineer, and introduced glow-in-the-dark male donkeys into the field. Now the donkeys temporarily increased the cotton consumption, but by breeding with the mares, they reduced the size of the herd the following year.
Of course, the resulting mules were sterile. Any amount of medelian (I believe that is the monk you refer to) combination isn't going to get their genes into the next generation, 'cause their tubes have been snipped at birth. Thus, the farmer was able to control the horse population by selecively introducing male donkeys.
Also check out this article (albeit from January) about the flourescent monkey.
1. Many
2. Yes they will.
3. Bats' vision is just fine.
But better yet...won't glowing moths attract OTHER glowing moths? (Or just other moths in general?) If you see a bright glowing UFO flying through the night sky...you never know. It could be a mutant moth mob!
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
:_)
hawk
tetrad
Sorry, not correct. These scientists are intentionally modifying a known set of genes, which is highly controlled relative to classical breeding (or the natural world). They make no claims of an exact outcome. They wish to test whether these organisms will depress a pest population. Loss of the engineered gene set at the population level is highly likely, since the genes will have either neutral or negative selective value. So you have a highly selective tool to reduce a pest population, which arguably has far less impact on the environment (and even population genetics) than broad spectrum pesticides.
(Down shifting)
Let me put it another way. Your own genome is full of genetic baggage from eons of evolution. Some are lemur- and monkey-like bits sure, much is more distant animal bits, but much is also viral and bacterial bits. Eukaryotic cells (all cells with a nucleus) have mitochondria, which are thought to be the remnants of symbiotic bacteria. Every cell of your body! The fact is, you body is an ephemeral snapshot of a very, very complicated story and it is just one line in the biosphere. I really believe that if everyone truly understood the whole picture, then few would care about the occasional "gene tweak".
First entomology, then virology, and finally bioinformatics systems. Bugs follow me wherever I go.
Now we're talking about tampering with creatures for whom we have no idea of their capabilities nor their strengths or weaknesses in what will eventually be an uncontrolled environment. We have no idea if the mutations will take hold, if they will simply get breeded out of the gene pool, or if something else might occur to the modified moths that we can't forsee. Nature has a way of doing crazy things like that.
Usually, I don't fear the unknown too much, but something about doing this just frightens the heebie jeebies out of me.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
See the thing about nature is that it's always in balance. We are part of nature and anything we do affects the future of "natural" development.
Populations reach equilibrium with their environments no matter how they develop (are developed).
The question is, do we want to preserve the natural status quo? In which case we are unnaturally deciding that there is a "natural" state of nature that WE need to preserve. And why? To save our conscience from the idea that we may have had an unnatural affect on the world around us? People, take a look around, the jury's not exactly still out on that one.
Instead, we can decide what we want nature to be, how it is best for us. Does that mean protecting the environment? Yes! After all, your mom always told you to pick up after yourselves. Does that mean preserving the variety of species? Yes! Does that mean eliminating species that cause us some form of harm? Maybe. After all, if we're going to alter nature, might as well be to our benifit.
We're not scaremongering... This is really happening, happening
Actually, they don't glow in the dark, they're fluorescent. They look pretty much normal except under ultraviolet light...sort of like flowers (which often have features that show up in the ultraviolet).
Though maybe the moths will have to worry about harassment from bees trying to pollinate them...
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"They have strategic air commands, nuclear submarines, and John Wayne. We have this"
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Pay close attention to the name of the site: Junk science. Here's a hint: it's not what their exposing, it's what their promoting.
Also, you are forgetting that the moth's will apparantly completely destroy the corps in the wild. In the lab, they can be fed controlably.
Everything on this planet is in a balance.
Um, right.. that's why all animal populations on the planet stay the same year after year, becuase we've reached equilibrium, right?
And that's why the weather is so predictable, becuase there is no inbalance in the planet's atmosphere...
Please, statements like this are just stupid environmental claptrap.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
<Obnitpick>Horse + donkey = mule. Mules are (mostly) sterile.</Obnitpick>
"'Tis great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults, greater to tell him his." --Poor Richard's Almanac
2. Hungry bats eat glowing moths for dinner.
3. Bats start glowing. (Or some other abberation occurs.)
4. Glowing bats can't fly "invisibly" anymore and can't hunt other insects.
5. Bats go hungry and die.
6. Other insect populations are underhunted and grow exponentially, damaging farmers' crops.
7. Scientists design glowing sterile version of insect [insert species here] and release it into the wild in hopes of saving farmers' crops.
You get the idea...
The conceit parodied here is that the scientists think they are modifying a variable, and they know what the output is. They look at it like it's an equation, y=f(x). Reality is, they don't have much knowledge, and will press on as if they do, and we'll get the above scenario, or worse. Maybe not with these moths, but with something. But I've gone into fear-mongering: "something terrible will happen, a Frankenstein at the least!"... I guess I'm a little tired of scientific hubris.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Moron.
Why eliminate moths? They eat suits, which is truly progress.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
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/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
Yes, it's a temporary solution. Eventually, the bollworms will come back to the area.
What makes it a good strategy is that it's very organic. It's not intrusive, it's not damaging to the bollworms (would you rather them be irradiated?) or the crops in the region, and it is temporary - which means that, if at a later time people decide the bollworms really weren't all that bad, they just have to wait until all of the sterile bollworms die and then population can begin to grow again.
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What, me worry?
Great, so will we now be setting up little counciling centers for impotency in moths?
Next we'll see a study on the success of viagra on mutant moths.
You say you want a revolution?
Release genetically modified, sterile Natalie Pr0tman's into the wild...
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Wait, but if we're just introducing more moths to the population, won't it just balance out in the long run? And it's not like we're adding a gene for Anorexia to these moths; they're going to want to eat, too. ..
Probably, the sterile moths will settle down with a fertile mate, and then we'll have many instances of moth infidelity, 'cause you know that moths that are sterile can't please their mate, wherein the child moths will have the characteristics of the milkman-moth, and then there will be moth domestic violence and what is this world coming to. And that's when it all hits the fan!?!
First winter rain-
even the monkey
seems to want a raincoat.
-Basho
But I suppose you could detect one of the modified humans by the luminosity gene... simply if she glowed in the dark when you take her to bed... get out of there!
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I guess it's back to the GM paranoia drawing board for you.
If god had intended you to be naked, you would have been born that way.
how could it be an african hedgehog? African hedgehogs are non-migratory!
Give me artificial techniques, genetic engineering and chemicals every time.
Good argument. However who is deciding if the help is worth the hurt? It sure ain't me or probably anyone else around here. Ecosystems are very delicate and we are all effected by living in them. I think that it is only right that we citizens have a democratic say in what is done to our surroundings. Personally I don't want to wake up and find my yard covered in Monsanto Super Dandelions(TM). moo.
$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=142;
And because all the moths released cannot reproduce, then this controls the spread of the modified genes in the population, and means that these "modified" creatures will not spread beyond the control of the people breeding them.
So we're not really in any danger of altering the bollworm species and endangering the ecosystem.
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
"As a molecular biologist . . . . Sure, you let out your engineered moths, they have sterile offspring, . . ."
I am surprised a molecular biologist misunderstood this aspect of the project. Quoting from the article:
That is, the moths to be released do not have offspring. They are sterile, at least by design. Nor does anything in the article suggest the entire population of moths will be eliminated, so what makes you think this would be anything more than local control, just as pesticide is? Maybe this approach is even more controlled. Some pesticides leave resides around for a long time. These moths will die out in one moth lifetime.
You're right, willmc got that part wrong. According to TFA, the moth "is sterile, but sexually active; it is designed to mate with wild relatives and eliminate their offspring."
Personally, I've been eagerly awaiting:
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"They have strategic air commands, nuclear submarines, and John Wayne. We have this"
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Wow...certainly alot of comments in my thread.
To those that say nothing is in balance right now; sure it is, just look around. I very much doubt that higher life on this planet would continue if there was no balance. I don't mean things are not changing at all. But there are patterns all around us, even if we have not yet determined what they are. Storm systems in the US typically move west to east, there is a certain time of year when tornados are most common, some say the earth goes through periods of heating (ala global warming) and cooling (ice ages), and even the magnetic polls, some would say, switch every now and then (and those some say we are also overdue for such a switch). The sun has its polls reversed i think every 22 years. Even the electron shells of atoms are filled in a predicable, known way. The universe is a highly ordered thing, and to keep it going, there has to be some kind of pattern and balance.
As somone else pointed out, there are many variables that could effect the new moths, and who knows what might come with this.
Anyway all i was trying to say (and still am) is that we never know what nature might do when we mess with it. Take antibiotics, for example, they may soon become worthless, just as most posions are useless against cockroaches. I'm also not saying we shouldn't try these kind of things, just that we need to proceed very carefully, lest they blow up in our faces.
It reminded me of that song too -- so much that I hunted down a rendition of it on the net (geocities site).
--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
That should put in each moth an electric pacemaker which can be controlled remotelly. This way, when we will see that this new breed is taking over the world and we can't stop 'em, just push a button, and hey, their tiny pacemakers will stop working.. or start pumping blood in the opposite direction, which would make them move back in time.. which will.. oh well, you get my drift.. :)
http://dtum.livejournal.com
to control pest populations. Basically the idea is that you release a lot of sterile individuals into nature, who compete sexual with the wild-type (normal) individuals. This decreases population growth rates.
The problem with irradiation is that it is rather hit-or-miss. Genetic engineering is much more likely to creat sterile individuals.
Couple of other things... many posters seem to think that these moths will be simulatneously glow-in-the-dark and sterile. No, these are different modifications.
ANnd yes, these moths can't propagate in the wild because they're sterile. They would have to be artificially bred and re-released.
My other sig is also a
Unless they glow yellow; i believe most bugs don't 'see' yellow light (at least, we don't have any on our porch anymore since we installed the yellow light bulbs).
Care to put to some sources that say non-equilibrium is the rule?
True, this would definatly be better then pesticides, but i'm sure we're not at the point yet where we can predict the effect of such changes. Perhaps a glowing moth has a new chemical in its body that alot of pepole are allergic to. Or maybe the offspring will. Or maybe nothing will happen as a result.
What i was most concerned about was the moth population significantly lessing, thus lessing the food supply for other animals, thus lowering other animals food supplies, etc etc.
He said "in balance," not "stays the same all the time." There's a huge difference between the balancing of nature (birth, death and extinction in all its rich variety) and human equilibrium (everything the same all the time - preferably paved with concrete).
C'mon - think about it (no, really - try). You're talking about year-to-year changes which are completely unimportant for the overall ecosystem. Exceptions to this are quick, catastrophic events like huge volcanos. Get a sense of scale, damnit: looking at Earth's ecosystems from a long-term perspective, the rise of homo sapiens is exactly that: a quick, catastrophic event. We're a blip in the history of this planet, but we've made more changes in less time than any other force, with the exception of a couple huge meteors.
This is a cognitive problem common to both "sides" of the environmtal vs. corporate movements: what's at stake. The health and future of Earth's ecosystem is not the issue here. Barring a complete saturation-bombing of the planet with nukes, we're not going to make significant long-term changes to the planet. We are, however, perfectly capable of FUBARing the system so badly that we can't survive.
Humans are pretty fragile, really. All we have going for us is our technology - tool-making. And that's dependent upon natural resources, which are dependent upon environment and climate. How long could we as a species live without sunlight - I mean none at all. A few years, tops? But 1,000 years with no light would be a brief catnap to the planet.
question: is control controlled by its need to control?
answer: yes
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
The jellyfish gene only effects moth larvae which, AFAIK, are usually not out in the open and visible. Granted the larvae can be "uncovered" by birds but I would think they had an equal probability of being found as any other larvae.
"So the effect on the moth population will likely be negligible."
The moths will have to be continually re-introduced into the wild for there to be a long term reduction in population. But, I'd rather have farmers release sterile moths each year to fight pests than to use chemical pesticides. Even if the chemicals can be removed before the cotton is processed, some of it probably still makes its way into the ground water.
Sterile insect release programs have been around for decades. It's used extensively through the fruit-producing Okanagan valley, as protection against codling moth worm, which has the potential to devastate apple crops.
Here, take a gander at [The Sterile Insect Release Program]. More information there than you can shake a stick at (except, naturally, the criticisms that are routinely made about its expense and poor results...?)
Now, what I wanna know is... who the heck is performing all those itty-bitty vasectomies?!
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I wish there was a Moderation option of STUPID (attempt at humor). or MORONIC IDEA. or even just CLUELESS. This would give moderators many more options when dealing with posts like this, not funny or interesting, just kind of embarassing.
Warning: this post is flamebait, but for a good cause.
ps: another great moderator option would be WRONG: GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT BEFORE POSTING. but thats not related to this particular reply.
----- 70% of all statistics are completely made up.
Why would they need to? It's not like he's in any danger of being a breeder.
[drum sting, please]
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Take all of the money that they've spent on this research and use it to buy thousands of flyswatters, so the scientists can run around the fields and kill the moths. They'll never be able to completely eliminate the moths, so we're not wiping out the entire population. Even better, the muscles the scientists get from running around killing moths will allow them to attract females and mate, thus producing more scientists. The circle of symbiosis has to start somewhere.
Why not? :)
Seriously, I think the "glowing" is the first stage, so they can track the popluation distribution of the modified bugs much easier. It also makes them readily apparent as gene-spliced organisms, so they are easy to separate from regular bollworms.
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So why make them glow then?
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~matt~
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o
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"So there he is, risen from the dead. Like that fella, E. T." - Father Ted Crilly
Heh. "If God hadn't meant for us to fly, he wouldn't have given us hands to build airplanes with!"
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"They have strategic air commands, nuclear submarines, and John Wayne. We have this"
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
it depends. do people in nebraska purchase things in texas? what if they move out of nebraska and take the condoms with them? not a very good analogy
who sez death can't be funny....www.endlesssorrow.com
Here, here. I'm all in favour of limited use of DDT where it is the best thing to do.
What I'm not in favour of is a situation where most of the research into the safety of DDT (and other stuff) is conducted by people who have a vested interest in sales of pesticides. The level of objective fact available about chemical industry products is far too low - and that's one reason why a fair few consumers are going for a "mistrust everybody and my body is an organic temple" approach.
Bit more truly independent research would go a long way.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
1) Let's say there are 100 regular moths, 50 male and 50 female. Each pair produces two offspring every year (and they have a 1 year lifespan). So the population is stable at 100. Now introduce 20 "sterile" males. Some of those males will mate with the females. Those female produce their expected two offspring so the next year's crop is still 100--but some of those 100 are sterile, so the year after there are less than 100. Assuming the stability is in the mating system and not in the actual number of moths (for instance, what if only the boys turn out sterile--will the other boys pick up the slack?) it WILL have a long term affect. Of course, I have no idea how moths populations really behave, but you get the idea.
2) Of COURSE they only last for a little while--safety is of paramount importance.
3) Of COURSE they only last for a little while--profits (from selling more moths every year) is of paramount importance.
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Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
Ah, NOW we're getting somewhere. A fairly rational alternative. I think the only problem with it is economic - I think it's probably a lot cheaper for a farmer to invest in, say, equipment and materials geared towards corn farming, than trying to support many crops at once (or even one different crop every year).
the first step would be to mimic him [The Diety®] in his ways.Oh, very well...
Ahem... I HEREBY COMMAND YOU ALL TO CUT OFF YOUR... ...oh, never mind... :-)
Or did you mean things like creating new organisms? Or even whole new worlds? But then, isn't that what the opposition to this experiment is objecting to?
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"They have strategic air commands, nuclear submarines, and John Wayne. We have this"
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
. Glowing bats can't fly "invisibly" anymore and can't hunt other insects
i would think that the glowing would attract insects. dont you have a porch light?
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
Until we reach a new maintainable balance where human production doesnt introduce serious issues in the environment balance.
Isn't tech what put us there in teh first place though? Not that i dont like tech, mind you.
There is no going back, there is only going forward until we reach a point where we have technology enough to both support humans and keep a balance.
Hmm...kinda like Star Trek you mean?
Well, i never said it was delicate :) But there are alot of cases of times that we messed with nature, and lost.
The earth is a system right; but just like any engine, mistreat it enough, and it will break.
All i really meant to get at was that we might be changing more then we bargined for.
THE PEOPLE ARE SCRATCHING
(1963. words Ernie Marrs and Harold Martin, Music by Pete Seeger)
Come fill up your glasses and set yourself down,
I'll tell you a story of somebody's town.
It isn't too near and it's not far away.
It's not a place where I'd want to stay.
CH
The people are scratching all over the street,
Because the rabbits had nothing to eat.
Winter came in with a cold icy blast;
It killed off the flowers and killed off the grass.
Rabbits were starving because of the freeze;
They started to eat the bark on the trees.
CH
The farmers said, "This sort of thing won't do.
Our trees will be dead before the rabbits get through.
We'll have to poison those rabbits it's clear,
Or we'll have no crops to harvest next year.
CH
So they brought in the poison and they spread it around;
Soon dead rabbits began to be found.
Dogs ate the rabbits but the farmers just said,
"We'll poison those rabbits till the last dog is dead."
CH
Up in the sky there were meat-eating fowls;
The dead rabbits poisoned the hawks and the owls.
All the field mice the hawks used to chase
Started multiplying all over the place.
CH
The fields and the meadows were barren and brown;
The mice got hungry and moved into town.
City folks took the farmers' advice
And all of them started to poison the mice.
CH
There were dead mice in all the apartments and flats;
Cats ate the mice and the mice killed the cats.
The smell was awful and I'm sure glad to say
I wasn't the man hired to haul them away.
CH
All through the country and all through the town
There wasn't a dog or a cat to be found.
The fleas asked each other, "Now where can we stay?"
They've been on the people from then till this day.
CH
All you small creatures who live in this land
Stay clear of the man with the poisonous hand.
A few bales of hay might keep you alive,
But he'll pay more to kill you than to let you survive.
CH ^^
Haven't heard about those guys in a while. Haven't they started entering texas already?
Most likely the cause of the infestation is monoculture farming. Diverify the crops, like Nature has, and your problem is solved -- safely.
And for those that say "don't mess with Nature", God gave us a brain for a reason; let's use it.
Did you want to pretend that you could wrap your little mind around all the variables presented by your wondrous diety's complex creation? If so, the first step would be to mimic him in his ways.
Theoretically, a few years down the road, this could wipe out the entire pink bollworm moth population.
Doubtful.
Look at it this way. I close down all the places in New York where you can get Toyotas repaired. Nobody can get a Toyota fixed, so nobody in New York buys Toyotas. Is that going to impact people buying Toyotas in California? Doubtful.
This modified bollworm can't reproduce. Thus, they can't wipe out the entire bollworm species - at most, all they can do is prevent other bollworms in the same general region from reproducing. Given that there are more "normal" bollworms than modified ones, the bollworm species will continue happily in places where they aren't considered as much of a nuisance.
If you want a more appropriate example, think of it like mandatory, 100% effective condoms for, say, the population of Nebraska. People in Nebraska won't be able to conceive, and eventually the population of Nebraska dwindles and dies off. You think people in Texas are going to be affected, or that this is going to seriously impact the rest of the human race?
--
Yeah, they are. Brazillian scientists were trying to make better honey-producing bees and used an African bee (which is very tempermental) as hybrid material. For information regarding killer bees check out www.insecta-inspecta.com/bees/killer/.
The point is that the non-sterile male moths can't mate because there's too much comptetition from the sterile ones. If enough sterile moths are put into the population at the right time, it will essentially vanish within a generation.
See you, space cowboy...
The change that they're testing first is the addition of a luminosity gene from a jellyfish, and later an alteration that will make them sterile so they can mate with non-altered moths and create sterile offspring, thus reducing or eliminating the moths' population
Uhh... They're sterile, so they can mate and produce more sterile offspring?
I'm not sure what you guys are taking, but that's not the definition of 'sterile' in my dictionary.
Perhaps this is a new kind of 'sterile' where the sterile offspring can breed and produce even more sterile moths.
Seriously, sterility is something that should be included into *all* in-the-wild genomorphs. As has been suggested by the HGP's findings, the complexity of a form of life isn't created by the genes themselves, but by the way those genes interact. Just because it has extra genes that make is bio-luminescent doesn't mean that inclusion of those genes doesn't suddenly make it vulnerable to a killer virus or something.
Be smart. Don't release genomorphs into the wild without extensive, exhaustive testing.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Forget blaming modern gene-splicing over this, remember the old-skool hybridisation when some imported african killer bees mated with the local american bee population? And that was an unintended accident.
It's the deliberate meddling by humanity that's the problem, the way they do it continually changes. That's why I'm against calls for blanket GM bans, and I think every GM test should be viewed on its merits.
Does my bum look big in this?
I politely disagree. What they are doing is called "sterile-male technique." It takes advantage of the fact that many pests reproduce only once in a lifetime, so after female mated with sterile male, it will mate no more and hence produce no offspring. This technique was used in 1958 to effectively eradicate screwworm population in Southeast. The only thing different in this case is that instead of using radioactivity to sterilize large amounts of male insects, they are using genetic engineering. So if the technique is administered correctly, it may have a very strong effect on moth population.
Welcome to a little process we call evolution, people. Ooh, but it's at such an accelerated scale! Ooh, but everything is in a delicate balance! Get over it. Human beings are screwing with the genome. We're not going back. This is not a "good" or a "bad" thing. It may be incredibly dangerous to us as individuals and a species, and to civilization in general, but once out there in the wild, these genetic modifications are subject to the same processes as to those resulting from "natural" processes, whatever that means. Relax. Life has survived everything that's been thrown at it (and believe me, catastrophic comet impacts had about ten thousand times the impact on the oh-so-delicate "web of life" as any number of sterile moths) and it will survive genetic engineering. And as to the effects on the human species and human civilization? Hell, those'll take hundreds and thousands of years to show up -we'll all be dead by then. Unless of course we manage to turn off the death genes...
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Genetically engineered organisms are generally less able to survive in the wild then their non-genetically engineered cousins. Luminescent moths may be more susceptible to predation then dully colored moths, and sterile moths will certainly have difficulty in passing down their genes to the next generation. Genetically engineered traits are the result of arbitrary human choice, whereas natural traits are chosen by natural selection, and so are much more likely to be beneficial.
I believe good science should be the ultimate goal of all societies. But ...
This isn't good science, this is pandering to the cotton growers. We're not talking about clothing people, or feeding people, we're talking about putting extra money in the pockets of huge corporations. Forgive me if I don't see the "help" part of this one.
Releasing genetically engineered species into the environment at large is fundamentally different than the X-Ray research you point to. But that brings up another point - you're willing the trade the lives of many to make yourself (or your SO) more comfortable. That's not the attitude I want making these kind of decisions when their ramifications are global, rather than just effecting the small groups of people.
The problem is that no one can know what will happen when these species (plants especially) are released into the great wide world. Find someone who's allergic to StarLink Corn and ask them how they feel about help vs. hurt now that it's made it's way into much of our corn. Clearly, the major agribusiness companies could care less about letting you know what your eating or what they've done to it before it got to you. They lobbied hard to prevent the FDA from requiring labling on genetically modified foods because they "didn't want to confuse the consumers."
There are very few places in the world where lack of adequate food is due to lack of food production technology. The problems are more likely poltical and social instability. Don't make the mistake of thinking that any of this is to feed people who are going hungry or clothe people who are naked.
It's easy to say "that was a bad decision" *after* the fact
Know why? Because people are great at doing things before they adequately examine the possible outcomes. That's precisely what's going on here and the laboratory in which they're preforming the experiments is global, belongs to all of us, and is the only one we'll ever have.
Nuff Said!
Will the last company to abandon Linux please turn off the lights??!
Sounds like a great way to encourage the evolution of birds that don't put as much energy into growing good eyes. After a bunch of generations of birds and glowing moths, then you discontinue the glowing moths and the birds won't be able to see 'em anymore. Moth plague.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I know bioengineering holds great promise...but releasing genertically engineered insects into the wild (I'm assuming they will do that after this test...) is a crapshoot. There are an infinite number of variables in the ecosystem, there is just no way to account for them all.
Wasn't it just last summer that the we had a problem with some type of genetically enhanced corn that was being tested but decided to spread itself via the wind all across the midwestern US? I think hundreds of farmers were financially ruined because their "infected" corn was not FDA approved for human consumption...
Sorry, but I think that even if you do give them parachutes (and a plane to jump out of), the hedgehogs still have a very slim chance of actually catching a bat...
Coward, Just because someone hasn't bought into the delicate balance BS doesn't mean they are republican. This would similar to someone to claim that liberals prefer to be Anonymous Cowards.
--- Every day I am forced to add another to the list of people who can kiss my ass...
The "glowing" jellyfish protein they are introducing into these insects is probably Green (or Red, or Yellow) Fluorescent Protein. It is NOT a "glow-in-the-dark" gene! In fact, this would only allow analysis of a captured sample of the insects to determine easily which ones were the released ones. You illuminate them with one wavelength of light, and the protein flouresces back with another wavelength. This kind of technology also allows avoidance of things like antibiotic-resistance markers to determine which cells have been transformed in the original cloning experiment. That's a good thing. I don't think there's any way for this protein to harm anybody or anything.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Exactly so these moths can breed but their offspring can't, oh except for that .00001% that mutate and can and turn out to be a bunch of horny hungry little suckers and are an even worst pest that the originals :)
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
see "mules" in your local dictionary.
-Chris
...More Powerful than Otto Preminger...
And don't forget Homer's toaster time machine. One sneeze from Homer in the past ended the dinosaurs and make it rain donuts in the alternative present. This points out that the (evolutionary) actions we take in the present can prevent certain possibilities from ever happening (like we haven't already been doing that?) while making others possible.
/dev/null
echo 'time travel personal world line arguments' >
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
They've got a couple-hundred year history of trying wacky things like this, and it's always worked out beautifully.
Cats, foxes, bugs of varying types (even moths! go figure), cane toads to eat the bugs...
And, to the genetic glowing business I say: glowing, schmowing... even if you put the whole field under a black light, how psychedelic could it possibly be? But lick a cane toad on the other hand...
The point is that man can make nature things. When matter synthesis matures, humans will be able to make objects identical to those found in nature.
There is no real balance anymore. The cotton farming in itself is a huge imbalance that probably causes the moth population explode in itself.
The choice isnt really to 'live with the balance', because to do that we'd have to pretty much go back to caveman state again, and just accept humankind getting wiped out by the billions in disease and starvation. Until we reach a new maintainable balance where human production doesnt introduce serious issues in the environment balance.
Sooner or later we have to engineer the eco system to support humankind. There is no going back, there is only going forward until we reach a point where we have technology enough to both support humans and keep a balance.
"should the government be permitted to throw modified animal species into the wild? If so, then why can't Monsanto?"
The government is backed up by NUCLEAR WEAPONS!!! so they can more or less do whatever the fuck they want. If this was set in motion to make things easier for farmers, then hey, ask the farmers if they don't want it. Montsanto's business is wiping out the economies of 3rd world countries, I believe these moths are going to be unleashed on American farmlands, so no, Monsanto has no business here.
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
the universe is balanced. i doubt MY environment will stay this way. with the advent of these new insects i am sure there will be even more eccentricities that'll be both fun to laugh at and sorrowful to see.
Isn't it handy how humans apparently have no qualms sterilizing a whole species of "pest" insects, presumably leading to their extinctions, but when the cute Pandas that are so doped up on Bamboo can't gather enough sex drive to propogate the species we get all preachy about how we're destroying the environment.
The point is that how can we know what will happen? Some of us may be a little paranoid, but it's better than being ignorant.
Will the glow-in-the-dark mothes flitter around each other instead of the porchlight?
- - - If the sun is a star, why can't I see it at night?
When winter comes the gorillas will freeze to death.
Unless polar bear genes are spliced in.
This moth thing really upsets and disturbs me. In fact, I'm sure that a lot of my other posts will prove that I am the anti-environmentalist. No, I don't dump old tires into streams. But I *do* think that sooner or later the world's petroleum was gonna be combined with oxygen somehow, and nature probably wouldn't be as stoichiometrically correct as a modern car engine.
Further, I'm very much in favor of genetic manipulation. I think it's great. It really is harnessing life. But, like electricity which we harnessed, and then the power of the atom, there are risks that must be carefully controlled, though they shouldn't dissuade us from using the tools we discover/invent. After all, you can cut yourself, but does that dissuade you from using a pair of scissors?
Having said that, releasing the moth - or any other genetically engineered plant/creature - is as cavalier, fundamentally unsound, and will look like as bad an idea in retrospect, as building an object out of ferrous metals and other things that are denser than water, deciding that it is impossible to sink said object made of materials which are denser than water, and then steaming at high speed through the North Atlantic in an early April night almost thirty years prior to the invention of radar.
No moths.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
What if the modified body chemistry of the moths is toxic to the bats, or does bad things to their ears so they can't perceive their sonar pulses properly? The scientists won't think of everything in their testing.
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
But how will a sterile anything ever produce sterile offspring?
That's the point. A sterile male can never impregnate a female, and a sterile female can never be impregnated by a male. Hence, the time that an unmodified bollworm has for breeding is wasted, which means that particular bollworm, over the course of its lifetime, produces less children. Then, multiply that by thousands or millions of bollworms, and you have a serious drop in the local bollworm population.
It's not about passing sterile genes on. It's about preventing conception in the first place by tying up all of the breedable bollworms with sterile mates.
--
Jerry Brown tried this with the Med fly. Look where that got us.
Sprayed with pesticide from helicopters in the dead of night.
At least, they that is what they CLAIMED to spray us with...
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
God gave us a brain for a reason
Nature gave us a brain - and were doing our best to use it to destroy Nature.
Rembember the cute little rhesus monkey inserted with jellyfish genes? He was the first primate to receive inserted DNA. Eventually they can use this to insert human diseases into a monkey to create a better study of diseases like Alzheimers.
All of these gene studies are baby steps towards genetically engineered humans.
after they mate, Mrs. Moth leaves smiling, only to find out later that Mr. Moth was firing blanks . . .
I hope the releasing of genetically engineered "beings", whether they are plants or animals, doesn't become a habit. I can just see some disease of epidemic proportions growing out of this. "Genetically engineered monkey accidently injected with mega-virus and released into the wild."
--
--
silence is poetry.
Was there not a study on the moths in LONDON when everyone was told not to burn wood ( or coal I don't recall ). The moths had two color types, light and dark. Light ones were rare and darks were common. After the ban, Lights were common and darks were rare. Sorry I don't recal exactly but I do remmember that the study was done in england and the time was somewhere in the 1960 to the 1970
ONEPOINT
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please help me make it better
if you see me, smile and say hello.
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Unscrample my email, win a prize.
For some reason this reminds me of the song, "I know an old lady who swallowed a fly." Just replace fly with moth, change spider to killer bat, and build from there. Needless to say, releasing genetically engineered insects into the wild makes me more than a little nervous.
Aren't they making a HUGE assumption here, that all the moths already in the wild are going to want to do it with a bunch of freaky glow-in-the-dark moths??
Or `outside` for short!
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Oh man, I wish I had points to throw yer way ;)
"I've seen plays that were more exciting than this.
Honest to god... Plays!" Homer Simpson
ok. moderators. no more crack. this post was not off-topic. the previous poster said that the movie "Mimic" was a good thing for scientists to watch. by describing the plot of mimic i was hoping to point out that it really didn't have too much relevance to releasing glow-in-the-dark moths and that in fact the movie was incredibly unbelievable.
Be ot or bot ne ot, taht is the nestquoi.
At last someone in the field that says something insightful!!!
Which are then found to spread computer viruses!!! Yaaaaggghhh!!!
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"Making moths that glow is going to be a field day for birds..."
Anyone else been wondering whether its safe for birds to be eating glowing moths?
.sig this!
I'm not so sure we should be modifying the creatures on earth like that. Its sure to backfire on us. I agree. This is how killer bees got started.
Or how many insectivorous birds are also nocturnal? And bats won't be helped. After all, they're blind as... Um... Bats.
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
Nope, no progress. They just eat the suits not the guys that wear them... so imagine your nearest manager dressed in Hawaiian shirts and shorts...
The horror... the horror...
I hate to agree with davecrazy but...
Yes there was. I remember talking about it in undergrad about it. All the details escape me, BUT I do remember that the data did not strongly support the conclusions that were made. In addition, even if you assume the guy had solid methods and had truely random samples, the results were statistically insignificant. I found that rather amusing considering I was taught about that in my science classes since like 1st grade.
puck
I thought the whole point of producing these moths are to have an drastic effect on the moth popluation. And they even mention in the article that there is no guarentee that the moths will be sterile.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
All genetic engineering is, in the final analysis, is a more precise method of breeding things for desired characteristics. So, the barn door HAS been open for longer than any of us have been around. The point is, NOTHING is static, not breeds of a particular critter, not global temperature, not the average IQ of politicians (ok, maybe THAT is stable, but awfully low. . .)
To apply a patch put the mosquito on the moth for 2 minutes. Then reboot the moth.
---
Compared to the damage that has been wrought by countless accidental and deliberate alien species introductions, this has a minute potential for problems. They are not introducing a new species, but a mutation.
Now, mutations are introduced every second. However, because this is on such a large scale, this mutation probably has a much, much higher chance of success (but not guaranteed). Regardless, the moth is still a moth; by altering a gene you could possible cause some horrible mishap of nature. Still, the chance of this is quite low. Compare this to, say, the introduction of the mongoose to Hawaii. There are no natural predators of mongoose in hawaii, and birds were not adapted to avoid these animals. As a result, literally 100s of species of birds have gone extinct!
Your example with the foxes is one of an ecological niche being filled by a different animal. A great recent example is the north atlantic cod stocks off of the grand banks. A few years ago, the cod were fished to the brink of extinction. Now, it appears that, with fishing pressure much reduced, instead of the cod population rebounding (as one would expect), another species (artic cod--much less tasty) is beginning to take over the atlantic cod's habitat.
In sum: don't confuse mutation vs exotic invaders vs habitat distruction and subsequent niche invasion.
"Chill, Orrin!"---Trent Lott
This kind of crap reminds me of a nursery rhyme from when I was little...it goes something like this:
There was an old lady who swallowed a fly.
She swallowed a fly?! Oh My, perhaps she'll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a spider.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly - She swallowed a fly? Oh My, perhaps she'll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a bird.
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider, she swallowed the spider to catch the fly....
I'm sure some of you remember the rest, and those who don't should still get the idea...
We (humans) are NOT gods, we cannot keep messing with the environment like this and expect to not have some serious consequenses. Maybe this moth does something for cotton (or something else) that we don't have a clue about. Maybe w/o it all the elephants in africa will die -- doubtful, but we don't know, and if we don't know, we need to stay the hell out of the way.
terradot, growing awareness
They are not just "careful."
In fact, they are not merely "very careful."
These entomologists are being "very, very careful."
ok, if you're THAT careful, then I'm sure there's no risk these insects will get out of the cages. They'll never breed (we irradiated them!). And we won't find weird glowing things in our daily life... like this.
When Monsanto genetically modified their corn (the Bt strain) in the midwest, the same assurances were given, but there have been issues with Monarch butterflies unable to eat the milkweed in the corn fields containing the specialized corn.
I'm not opposed to genetic research, but I think there needs to be more lab time to ensure that the sterility gene works and that the (mate the females to death with horny males) approach is viable...
Theres a pretty good consensus these days that the earth is anything but in balance; in fact non-equilibrium is the rule, rather than the exception!
I think the uncertainty associated with releasing modestly-altered insects as a biocontrol agent is better than the morecertain damage that would be caused trying to do the job with pesticides.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
Once Man started migrating around the world and bringing the flora and fauna he domesticated with him; the balance was shot. The grains of the Fertile crescent are now grown on six continents and last I checked dogs and cats are on seven.
Yes Gene Engineering tinkers with Nature, but nature has been under Man's hand for a while now.
Bio-Engineering is seeking to ameliorate much of that rough handedness of the last 30K+ years.
The only other way Nature is going to get back into balance is with the mass extinction of Man.
Reality is just a clever Hack, and the Planck constant is the refresh rate.
Sounds like the time the British, concerned about the rising levels of malaria, used DDT to kill all the mosquitos in the Congo area. It worked, but it poisoned all the lizards, birds, and bats that fed upon the contaminated insects. Then the local cat population began to disappear, having been poisoned from eating the dead and dieing critters and birds. With the cats gone, the local rat population exploded and now the risk was not of malaria, but plague. In true English style, the Brits decided that the best way to eliminate the rats was to inroduce cats back into the area...via parachute. Yep, wooden crates containing cats were air-dropped into the region. Rather than the WKRP meets Monty Python ending one might suspect, it actually worked. So rather than worrying about the moral/biological implications of this tampering with our ecosystem, we should really be investigating the cost of parachutes for giant, carnivorous hedgehogs...
------------------------------
You mean there's actually people in Nebraska?
...and ozzie ozbourne to kill the giant hedgehogs? I wonder who toyed with his genes before he was released into the wild :)
Slashdot: rejecting tech news in favor of rubber band guns since 1997.
You're sort of half right, but you've got your facts pretty messed up. The real story is:
There are two varieties of peppered moths in England, one dark colored, one light colored. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the light-colored moths dominated. After the Industrial Revolution, the dark colored moths dominated. Tutt, an ecologist, proposed a theory to explain this in 1896: the trees in England had become covered in soot from all the coal burning. Therefore the light colored moths, which used to have good cameoflage, now stood out on the darker trees and were easily eaten by birds, while the dark moths, which in the past had been more easily seen and eaten, now blended in well and survived. It's a classic example of natural selection in action.
So... get your facts straight before posting.
Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized. -AC
I would just like to remind all of our Southern American and South and Central American readers of a little breeding experiment with insects that got out of control.
The Africanized bee (a.k.a. "Killer" bee).
Moving steadily Northward, as far North now in California as Santa Barbara.
The real threat from these bees is not necessarily their propensity for swarming and attacking humans and animals (more people die per year in car accidents - but man, what a way to go!) - but the damage they do to the agriculture industry by mating with other bees and contaminating the colonies with bees that don't produce as much honey, and are not as active in cold weather when farmers need them to get going and pollenate.
Can they bee stopped?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Dinsdale...Dinsdale! I'd call releasing genetically engineered life into the wild a hanging offense.
I agree. This is how killer bees got started.
Making moths that glow is going to be a field day for birds
I don't think it was intended for the glowing moths to be released. I understood it to be that the glowing moths were part of the experimental test group, presumably so that the researchers can locate 'em easily.
In the loosest sense, cross-breeding IS "genetic engineering" (as you say). Although most people don't think of it as such. I remember reading about when people first began hybridising plants to produce better crops - apparently even back then there was a lot of public protest from people afraid of what might be wrought. Not one person today though seems to think that the great crops we have now are a bad thing. Yet now there is much protest against "genetically modified foods", some countries even attempting to ban them. I suspect that in a couple hundred years, not one person will think its a bad thing.
The real, ugly truth about Jon Katz:
http://john.katz.isgay.com
jack's bicycle is music to my ears
Most species of moths mate once, then die. Hence, mating with a sterile moth produces *no* offspring. This is not intended as a permanent solution, but rather as an alternative to pesticides. The release of sterile insects as pest control is not really new, but sterilizing the bugs genetically *is*.
I'm not so sure we should be modifying the creatures on earth like that. Its sure to backfire on us. Everything on this planet is in a balance.
Besides, i'm sure the moths, though a pest to cotton farmers, do serve a useful purpose, even if its just as a meal for bats (which eat other insects as well).
Isn't there some animal running rampant in the Midwest b/c the farmers there killed all the foxes that kept them under control?
But perhaps the genetically-altered glowing moths will eat the lawyers wearing the suits!
as you think it might have. In order for a gene mutation to be successful, the organism must benefit in either reproductive ability or survival and longevity. Making moths that glow is going to be a field day for birds, and having them produce sterile offspring just means that there will be less glowing moths after a few years. So the effect on the moth population will likely be negligible.
--nick
Here at Caltech we have all kinds of wierd ass bugs no one has ever seen before, and the ponds have even wierder creatures in them. There have been reports of things that are half-frog, half crawdad. My theory is that either there has been a "biology lab mishap," or they needed to clear out the lab for inspectors to come. That or the same radioactivity that's making all us students sterile caused the campus bugs to mutate--either way.
Nature also created viruses and bacteria--so stop taking medicine when you are sick. And tear down those dams, the rivers must be there for a good reason. And take off your clothes--you were born naked, ya know.
Natural != Good. And, for that matter, Man-made != Unnatural.
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
2. Hungry bats eat glowing moths for dinner.
3. Bats start glowing. (Or some other abberation occurs.)
4. Glowing bats can't fly "invisibly" anymore and can't hunt other insects.
5. Bats go hungry and die.
6. Other insect populations are underhunted and grow exponentially, damaging farmers' crops.
7. Scientists design glowing sterile version of insect [insert species here] and release it into the wild in hopes of saving farmers' crops.
You get the idea...
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
Unless we're really, really hungry, that is, and there aren't any frat boys at hand.
I looked into the abyss, and the abyss looked into me--and we both winked.
As a molecular biologist this seems too rife with problems both ethical and biological.
Let's start with the moral: should the government be permitted to throw modified animal species into the wild? If so, then why can't Monsanto? Why not me on my own in a garage lab? Since it really is impossible to know what these moths will do in unexpected situations in the wild, should we even be doing this? Also, should we as a government, society, or profession take on the task of eliminating "annoying" species? Safe application of pesticides to bring down local populations is one thing, taking on species extermination is another. Hell, and they talk about the guy who wants to clone people as being unethical.
Scientifically, it would be statistically impossible to completely eliminate the offending moths. Sure, you let out your engineered moths, they have sterile offspring, but in no way could EVERY male moth females mate with be one of the sterile-offspring providing ones. Such selection would create only increased rates of survival for second-generation moths that CAN reproduce. The moth population may be affected, but trust that it'll only be temporary.
Further down the line, continuous injections of the sterile moths would theoretically cause natural selection amongst the species toward an aversion to the sterile moths, creating a sort of Dept of Agriculture/Cotton Moth arms race, where the government is forced to continually develop new sorts of sterile moths. All in all, waste of time.
Granted, I'm not a moth/agricultural biologist, but this sounds like the mother of dumb ideas.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
There is a fine line between helping human interests and screwing over the environment. This type of thing has a very mixed track record; rabbits in austrilia, just about everything in Hawaii. On the other hands, lots of organic farmers and gardeners successfully release thouseands of ladybugs or preying mantis's to controll other bugs that would damage their crops. This case is a little different because they're releaseing a genetically altered orginism. What we need to consider is that the only commenly viable alternative is pesticides, wich tend to lack selectivity. Dump a bunch of pesticides on the crop and yeah you'll kill those damn catipillars, as well as those birds, and mice, and deer, and possibly humans. Release the catapillars and you run the risk of upsetting the balance of nature. You could make a pretty good case for genetically altered disease and pest resistant crops, but even then you run the risk of displaceing native flora. There's no easy answer.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
If they glow in the dark, does that mean they'll always fly towards eachother like they do w/ other light sources? that'd be kinda weird to see a big luminous ball of moths flying around...
terradot, growing awareness
Ha Ha Ha! That was funny!
Here's the background: Huntsville, AL- Redstone arsenal had a problem with beavers. So, the Army Corps of Engineers is tasked to solve it. Their solution: Predators! And make 'em cold blooded! That way, when the frost comes in, they'll all die off!
They forgot about little things, things like 'hibernation'. Things like, it doesn't get that cold in N. Alabama reliably. Things like "what do we do if the lakes flood, and the 'gators get out?"
So yes, Huntsville AL still has the occasional 'gator turn up. And no, it didn't kill all the beavers, either...
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
I think it goes without saying that they failed, and the new "mimic" cocroach took over and started to kill humans aswell.
The movie is called Mimic, and I think the engineers should watch it before they do it.
Here's another example of the sort of screwup that occurs when we mess with the ecosystem: Cane Toads where introduced into Australia to eliminate some sort of insect pest. They are now the pest. They breed like rabbits and are poisonous.
In other news, the bread industry is suing Jesus for copyright infringement.
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"Here to discuss how the AOL merger will affect consumers is the CEO of AOL."
grep -ri 'should work'
It's fine and well for you to stand there and say "hey lets just try it and if it turns out to be a big fuckup we'll fix the mess afterwards". As you say, mankind has been following this strategy for progress for thousands of years. And time after time after time, almost without exception, experiments of new things have resulted in harm to other people (very often harm that could have been averted with even rudimentary precautions, but then, what the hell, as you say, lets throw all caution to the wind.)
Except the only problem with this is quite simply that as technology progresses, the stakes get higher, and the damage wider. A few hundred years ago, no matter what new technology you tried, the best you could probably do if you messed up was a bit of localized damage and a few people dead. Nowadays if you mess up, you mess up big (e.g. chernobyl, or the accident at a pesticide plant in India in the 80's which killed something like 10000 civilians.) Mistakes now have much bigger implications than ever before - if there was ever a time to be cautious, it is now. You are seriously naive if you believe that what we do now will take hundreds and thousands of years to show up. After all, it only took a few decades to rip a huge fucking hole in the ozone layer, and only 150 years of industrialization to set global warming off (assuming that this is the cause of course.) The genetic manipulation techniques that will be developed in the next 50 years or so can most definitely result in catastrophic screw-ups with the potential to wipe out millions of people. Nobody is saying "stop progress". But we *can* be cautious about it. If we can prevent accidents that could very well directly affect our own children (you don't have any, do you?) or grandchildren, then why shouldn't we? It's a pretty selfish attitude to say "hell we'll all be dead, let our descendants suffer". I'm there are many people here who have children who feel differently about what sort of legacy they'd like to leave to their offspring.
Texas college football teams would do better without Nebraska kicking them around. I think Texans might go for this, since it's such a major impact in their lives.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
1) I'm not an ecologist, nor do I know anything about bugs (bat's on the otherhand I know some cool things about)
2) the post was made open and also designed to get someone that knows the exact answers to post along side and correct my bad data. Given some data was missing on my part, also I was recalling something I learned 20 odd years ago.
So when I don't have all my fact's straight I always leave it WAYYY open to have someone ( there is about 1.2 million hits on this board ) correct me.
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What do I do when they turn up in my genetically modified Taco Bell Taco Shells at the supermarket?
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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
We need to be careful though... suppose that a mutation of the modified genes leads to a moth who is recessive sterile... that is, it's offspring will be sterile if both the mother and father have the mutated gene. Now that gene will spread through the population, without impacting reproduction until it hits a certain percentage and then, quite suddenly, the odds of finding a mate that *doesn't* have the recessive gene will be miniscule and the following generation's population will head rapidly to the basement.
--Rob
I believe that killer bees were created or spread as the result of a genetic engineering experiment (through cross breeding) that escaped into the wild. The problem with these sorts of things is that it is really hard to close the barn door once it's open.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Theoretically, a few years down the road, this could wipe out the entire pink bollworm moth population. Or at least put it on the endangered species lists. What kind of balance are we really trying to achieve here?
But how will a sterile anything ever produce sterile offspring?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
The scientists are releasing a bunch of sterilized moths in cages outdoors. They are given Lumeniscent genes so that they are easy to track. After that, the moths will be engineered to be sterile. The idea being, if a sterile moth gets it on with a non-sterile moth, the fertile moth can't get pregnant.
If you guys had your way, we would never have developed smallpox and polio vaccines. And for those that say "don't mess with Nature", God gave us a brain for a reason; let's use it.
Just remember, the genetic engineering moths to be sterile is much better than the original plan: Force all the moths to wear condoms.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
I can't wait until they find out the moths actually cause sterility in humans...
I'm doing something like that too. My research subjects are pink geneticists. I've already had good luck adding a luminosity gene from a jellyfish...
Yes, it was a joke. joe the motheater was the only one who seemed to notice that . . .
hawk
They mention in the article that farmers have 3 solutions against this pest. The first two involve pesticides, sprayed on or produced by the cotton itself. The last option is to put out irridiated moths that are sterile. Unfortunately, these irradiated moths are damaged by the process and do not mate well. To be effective you have to release 60X the number of normal moths.
Instead, this is just a refinement of the "terminator seed" idea. Each year, you have to buy only 5X the number who wish to wipe out since the existing moths have absolutely no way of telling the difference. (In theory anyway, that's why they're testing it first.) The next year, you have far less moths to worry about. Farmers already do this with the irradiated moths. This is just a much more effective way of doing things.
Personally, I prefer this -- by far -- over Monsanto's Bt cotton. We still aren't sure whether prolonged exposure to Bt is harmful to people or not, and I don't have to wear the side effects of that little experiment. If this idea takes off, we may be able to reduce or nearly eliminate the need for pesticides. If we systematically eliminate/reduce the numbers of pests affecting crops in a biological fashion, we can reduce the need for chemical treatments.
I hope it goes well. In the same light, I also like the mosquito-vaccine idea. If we can release mosquitoes that block/treat malaria in regions infested with in, we might be able to do a lot of good for third-world nations.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
When are they going to release a modified luminescent sterilized JonKatz into the wild?
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And don't forget about a shipment to Guam that accidentally included some tree snakes. The snakes managed to eradicate Guam's entire bird population (they like to eat the eggs) in a matter of a few years. The place is lousy with tree snakes (from what I hear) because they have no natural enemies in that environment.
cat