Slashdot Mirror
Nuclear Mutant Flies Are Good For Africa?
D\monix writes "According to this article in Reuters, the International Atomic Energy Agency is going to start releasing massive numbers of tsetse flies "sterilized by a burst of radiation" into sub Saharan Africa in order to outnumber and thus eradicate the local fly population. My favorite quote? "The impact of the fly is difficult to exaggerate." You're damn right it is. Anyone else out there think pumping large numbers of mutant insects into the environment might be a bad idea?"
Now .... if one just bites a person....
Cruise TT
They might reproduce and produce more sterile insects!
New York - USA plans on releases mutant pigeons into the wild. These mutant pigeons are sterle but are equiped with lazer beams. The hope is they will eradicate the pigeon population.
"The hope is that after these birds elimate the other pigeons they will go after vigrant humans." - One offical said.
When asked what would be done if these mutant pigeons got out of hand - "We have a backup plan to release mutant wolverines that will go after the mutant pigeons"
Is anyone else reminded of that Simpson's episode with the lizards?
I can buy a carton of milk and keep it un-opened for 1.5 months
So can I, and I live in the US.
Of course, after 2 or 3 days the smell might start getting to me...
Thats what they thought in Jurrasic Park!
Then what happenned? Running and chasing and screaming! Thats what happened!
The scariest issue here is that someone is getting their news from *AOL*.
Cows, pigs, chickens, tuna, whatever tuna eat, dogs, cats, horses, mice, elephants, squid (I like calimari) and chimps (for entertainment). Everything else is expendable.
But it's so much more fun to imagine little glowing green radioactive flies hovering about and nipping innocent people, transforming them into kickass superheroes.
oh wait, that's _spiders_
my bad.
So, these flies were just modded down to
(-1: Extinct) ?
And sometimes fish are born with 2 heads...
I believe I can say without fear of contradiction that irradiating these flies will not cause them to give birth to 2-headed fish.
"The island's echo systems were not destroyed..."
So no place on the island had any echo? Whatsoever?
"HELLO! HELLO! Damn it, we destroyed the echo system. Dolby's gonna have my ass in a sling."
Yeah, and so long as they don't have the ability to fly.. no wait.. umm..
http://twitter.com/onion2k
You can say that again!
-- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994
Didn't you see the SNL with Jeff Goldblum that came on shortly after JP came out? After his monologue, he took questions from the audience. People kept asking, "What did they feed the dinosaurs," and he kept trying to tell them that the dinos weren't real. Laura Dern was in the audience too, and she asked, "Jeff, weren't you afraid in that scene where the T-rex chased the jeep?" And he had to give in and say, "Yes Laura, I sure was."
Clearly it was a huge coverup, but Goldblum cracked under pressure and the truth is out.
Dinosaurs are real.
If instead of sterilising by radiation exposure, they actually held each little fly down and operated or got incredibly accurate rifles and shot the flies equivalents to testes off then those would be mutations too right?
The radiation is destroying the reproductive cells not changing them. Other means could be used to destroy the cells but nuking is the cheapest. Here in Aus we regularly use these methods for eradicating introduced or invading pests.
As to the food chain argument the Tetse has competitor flies in the same niche but they breed differently and don't cause mass illness and death in other populations. Remove the Tetse and the others will expand their populations slightly. Of course I am fairly certain that there are 2-3 species of tetse specific gut bacteria that we are also killing out here but so what.
The only real concern is what do we do with the extra animals and people that now aren't suffering horrible deaths or being crippled. Of course the people get to eat the extra surviving animals but the animals will need to eat more grass etc.
Well, 5-10% of the people ever born are still alive today. In other words humans have only demonstrated about a 92% death rate, not the 100% you imply. That means I've got a 1 in 12 chance of being immortal.
There's no sense in arguing with me, I'm clearly a master of statistics!
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!