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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?"
Of course these arent /mutant/ flys. theve just been sterilised. No more radioactive than usual, and cetainly not going to pass in theyre sterility to the next generation :).
I for one do NOT A think pumping large numbers of mutant insects into the environment might be a bad idea.
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"Almost isn't good enough - but it's almost good enough."
-Me
Anyone else out there think pumping large numbers of mutant insects into the environment might be a bad idea?
Comic books and technophobic hysteria notwithstanding, exposing something to radiation doesn't make it a mutant. If it reproduces and produces weird offspring, that's mutation. If the radiation sterilizes the flies, there's not much to worry about.
-- Sigs are for losers
The original poster does not understand the issue.
These are flys that have been sterilized by radiation. They are not genetic mutants. If they will live their little lifetime, and then die. Their genes will not be passed on to another generation.
"Mutants" are offspring which have different characteristics to their parents because genetic mutation has occurred.
I am against releasing genetically modified organisms into the environment. But this is not what they are talking about. These are sterilized files. Not mutants. There is no danger here.
If it reduces the number of disease carrying files, then this is a very good thing.
The article referenced does NOT say "The impact ON the fly is difficult to exaggerate." it actually says, ""The impact OF the fly is difficult to exaggerate." Not a quick commentary on how bad the radiation is for the fly, but on how bad the fly is for Africa.
:)
...just saying.
The tsetse fly is a very important element in the preservation of wildlife in Africa - wherever there are large concentrations of the tsetse, farmers will not bring in their herds of cattle. If the tsetse was eliminated a major impediment to African farmers overrunning the natural habitat of indigenous African wildlife would be removed, and biodiversity of the region put at further risk. Anyone willing to accept for five seconds that the environment is not a simple system???
Here's another paper in PDF format.
Here's a very interesting excerpt, for all those who can't figure out why this might actually work:
Tsetse life-cycle. The tsetse is a unique insect. It gives birth every 9-10 days to a full-grown larva, which immediately burrows into the soil andforms a pupa. Thus the egg and larval stages of tsetse are notsubject to the usual hazards and losses experienced by otherinsects.Female tsetse produce at most nine larvae. Tsetse fliesunquestionably have the lowest reproduction potential of anyinsect, and this fact makes them a good target for SIT. A single mating provides sufficient sperm for fertilizationthrough the female's 90-100-day lifespan. Since females usuallymate only once, if they are mated by a sterile male they will notproduce any offspring.
When i lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba (somewhere in Canada, for all you Americans) they did the same thing to mosquitoes. Sterilize millions (males, mostly), send 'em out to mate (they mate only once) and then watch the population plummet. It's a trillion times safer than DDT and the other killer poisons they like to fill the air with during skeeter season.
The non-sterilized (genetically engineered is something entirely different) flies chance to find each other to mate amongst massive number of sterilized flies is drastically reduced. Thus also the amount of offspring.
Moreover, if only 2 flies were left on, say, 100 square kilometer, what do you think the chance is that they meet?
Those opposed might do the same, before their ill founded fears keep the world from using a 40 year old, tested and verified idea to spare some 400,000 lives and untold livestock a year. Yes, ludites piss me off.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Using precisely this method. See
This U.S. Department of Agriculture web page
"The sterile flies with compete with the non-sterile flies for resources. So some sterile flies will die. This will leave a lot more than 2 sterile flies left."
That's not how it works. It works like this: The sterile flies compete for MATES, not resources. These boys are sterile, but still have all their natural instincts. Lots of mating takes place, but no fertilization. Satisfied but deceived she-flies lay eggs that will never hatch.
And, the way to tell if it'll never work, is to look at where it's been tried. This technique has worked very well over the last 40 or 50 years in screwworm eradication.
I know this post is going to be buried but I'll say it anyway:
/. FUD on this one. These flies aren't 'nuclear' or 'radioactive'. They've been steralized (by radiation) the idea being that there will be so many sterile flies that populations of flies will decrease as ones 'in the wild' mate with the sterile ones and don't produce offspring.
As someone who lived in Africa I can tell you first hand how nasty those flies are. Their huge and they hurt when they bite you. Fortunatly I was vaccinated against some of the nasty diseases they carry such as Yellow Fever and African Sleeping Sickness. Unfortunatly most of the population of Africa is too poor to even know what a vaccine is much less afford one. So any idea to get rid of the flies is a good one.
I'm ashamed by the
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