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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?"
These flies are a threat to human life. You'd probably want to preserve rats in northwest Europe during the plague.
Until the population reaches 0...
So basically they've decided to erradicate an entire species because they 'got in our way'. Noone else have a problem with this? I just hope we don't meet any aliens who decide that we are getting in the way of their population of earth and steralize my ass.
Let's start taking some god damn responsibility and stop fucking with nature like this. There must be some natural predators for these flys that will also be dying down, at least until their population can survive on other prey. Those other prey will in turn increase because of the decrease in predators....
This is what we call a good idea gone bad. Fine, trim down their populations, but don't god damn kill off the entire race. It will likely have consequences that we haven' thought of.
Oh, and these aren't mutants. The DNA probably isn't being modified at all. If it were, they would be mutants, kinda. Chances are that not all of their DNA would be mutated, like not in every cell and definately not mutated the same in every cell. If they could reproduce and pass on sperm with mutated DNA then yes, you would have mutant offspring. But they're infertile so that isn't going to be happening either.
We've been over this before, with cotton moths. It's a very cynical perpertual income scam, and the farcical nature of it can be summed up as: "Breed them into extinction".
To have an appreciable effect on fly numbers in the next generation, you have to pretty much double the number of flies in this generation, ensuring that half of them are sterile.
So first you've got to breed up your lab flies from fertile flies. Then you've got to keep back a proportion of them to use to breed up more lab flies. Then you nuke your flies to sterilise them, hopefully successfully, and hopefully without creating too many SuperFlies.
You release them into the wild, blithely ignoring the impossiblity of achieving a uniform distribution. Congratulations, you've just doubled the number of flies in the wild!
But it's all worth it, because in the next generation you only get 50% as many flies, right?
Wrong. Flies breed like, well, flies. The check on their numbers isn't the number of fertile breeding pairs, but the number of predators and (mostly) the available resources for them to feed on.
So while you perhaps see a small drop, you still have an assload of flies out there, and you've got one generation to address it. No problem, you just need to breed up even more flies in the lab, and do it again. And again. And again. And each time, you charge a fat fee for doing it. And you'll never wipe them out, or even have an appreciable effect on their numbers, because you'll always have fertile flies out there, breeding like crazy and spreading back into any local pockets that you've actually managed to have an impact on. And you always have to keep breeding your own flies in the lab (all this is just great for the overall fly population, you might notice) and then releasing them into the wild, where they're just as big a problem during their lifetime as wild flies. Even assuming that you could wipe out the wild flies, if you then released another million nuked flies "just to be sure", it's odds on that a fertile pair would slip through and start the whole problem all over again. Pop quiz: would this be a bad thing or a good thing for the fly sellers?
I'm not suggesting that this method is worse than using pesticides, just that it's equally as token and futile. The intentions are noble: these little bastards are a disease vector, and can literally eat cattle alive. But this "solution" is really just another way for high tech companies to obtain a perpetual revenue stream from the third world by offering a magic wand to deal with a very real, but very endemic problem. The real problem is that the flies will expand to match the available resources, and we just keep giving them more resources to nibble on.
It'll probably be a real cheap solution at first though. Remember, the first one is always free.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Agreed. Also, although I have absolutely no idea where the tsetse fly fits into its native ecosystem it is almost bound to be the prey/foodsource of some other animal.
The worse part of this is that 95% of the eradication process involves the use of pesticides...polluting the food chain and further endangering what is already a very fragile eco system.
I would MUCH rather see a species controlled by a long term sterilisation/population reduction process ( 10-20 years to impliment effectively, and long term maintainance ) than this cheap, dangerous and ultimately short-term solution.
The Black Death was spread by rats, but the rats were just a symptom - the real problem was overpopulation. The huge concentration of people, (many of whom had a weakened immune system due to famine) was the reason the disease could spread so quickly. After the plague however, with some countries having just two thirds of their population left, living standards all over Europe skyrocketed. The previos food shortage had turned into a huge food surplus.
My point is this: Sometimes nature does things we humans are reluctant to do - such as decreasing our huge overpopulation. For many countries, the plague turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to them...
You do know what radiation does, don't you? It's not a magical shiny blue ray that makes flies sterile. It's energy that rips though shit and damages it. In this case, USUALLY rendering the fly sterile - ie too much damage to it's DNA. However not all of the flies will be sterile. You remember the Simpsons cartoon with a 3-eyed fish near the nuclear power plant? Well that's no joke. That's what radiation does.
We just can't afford to screw our environment this way. Once we destabalise it, there may never be a vaild path back to stability which doesn't involve the eradication of the main problem: US.
Amazing, I thought whales had the longest gestation period. 910 days, thats nearly 3 years.
:-)
Wow, they live for 246 years too, imagine sperm that will live that long - girls wouldn't even be able to lie on your bed without getting pregnant, makes the giant condoms out of Naked Gun 2.5 seem sensible precautions
try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die
As said in the article, the first step is to reduce the number of flies drastically by using pesticides. Depending on the sort of pesticide (resistance) and the geographical situation (exchange of flies between different populations), a fraction of the flies might survive and keep the fly-population from being exterminated. Theoretically, subsequent release of sterile flies will eventually do the job right permanently. A bigger concern however is the use of the pesticide: in order to let this strategy succeed, they will have to use a very big amount of hardcore pesticide. The release of vast amounts of a very toxic compound will not only affect insects, but also plants and even mammals. Ecological impact of the disabled flies won't be that big, unless the flies have a grudge for mankind because of their impotency..
You do not exist. Go away.
In fact, a similar approach was used to erradicate screwflies in Lybia (the maggots of which infest wounds and feed on the living flesh, not dead tissue as is the case with many other species of flies). I only vaguely remember this from an old TV documentary but apparently that approach was a great success. Now remember, these flies do not actually glow with radiation! Be a bit more open-minded, this may actually not be a bad idea. The impact on the ecology may be another matter.
Basically.
The sterile flies with compete with the non-sterile flies for resources. So some sterile flies will die. This will leave a lot more than 2 sterile flies left.
It won't screw up natural selection one bit. The most fit will still pass on their genes. It might actually improve it. Remember, natural selection isn't the survival of the strongest, but of the fittest. So the flies most fit for thier environment will reproduce. Yeah, there will be some blanks in there when the fit but sterile flies try to mate. But fit non-sterile flies will still reproduce, breeding a larger percentage of 'more fit' flies for the next generation.
That's bad.
This is what happens with antibacterial stuff. So the weak bacteria get killed, but the fit reproduce, and the fit are the ones that resisted the antibiotics in the first place. And now antibacterials don't work as well. Go figure.
The thing that concerns me is what will take the place of these fiels when their population decreases. Nature usually doesn't permit a kind of vacuum, and it might well be that there are unforseen side-effects to this kind of action.
I couldn't agree less with your claim that preservation of wildlife is more important than human lives. One of the main reasons sub-Saharan Africa is so poor is because of problems like the tsetse fly. The article points out that they cost the region about $4.5 billion a year and these are people who can't afford that kind of loss.
If science and technology can succeed in hauling these countries into the 21st century you will see the same kinds of voluntary population control that you see in Europe, for example. Many wealthy European countries have a declining native population and it is directly related to economic wellbeing.
The suggestion that the tsetse fly, HIV, etc are helping to deal with population problems in Africa is abhorrent. We need to help solve these problems and make Africa wealthy - then the population problem will solve itself and there will be room for wildlife as well.
Karma police, I've given all I can, it's not enough, I've given all I can, but we're still on the payroll.
The flies have taken off due to the excessive use of pesticides aimed at curbing the fly problem ending up killing the birds that keep the flies in check!!!
This is a classic unintended consequence issue. I can't think of any unintended consequences of the release of sterile flies but I'll bet there will be some!
90% of the wealth is in 2% of the pockets. Bummer to be in the majority.
What do you mean by "constructive"? Does this mean doing something "good" for the planet?
If this is your definition, then I submit that no organism on the planet has ever done anything constructive, with the exception of humans.
Organisms are inherently selfish. Why is it such a surprise that humans are to? Do you think that the "goal" of an antelope is to feed the lion so that beautiful species can live on? Do you think that the lion, given the chance, wouldn't kill every antelope in Africa? If you do then you are quite simply wrong. The antelope wants to eat, sleep, not die; the lion wants the same things.
Only humans have the capacity to self sacrifice. It is this ability, over any other that should define what it means to be a "human". No, not every human would sacrifice him(her)self, but for most there is a reason. (morals, offspring, mate, country, god)
What you must realize is humans are part of the ecosystem. Therefore our actions are as much the actions of the ecosystem as are the antelope and lion. Species Die Period. Climates Change Period. What humanity will (and should) do is attempt to control these vast systems for our benefit. If that happens to assist the fly, then so be it.
That is absolute bullshit. Mutation by radiation is literally hit and miss. Sometimes a mutation doesn't have much effect on the overall form of the organism's offspring. Sometimes it has a HUGE effect. DNA's effect on an organism is not simple linear cause and effect. It is wildly nonlinear and unpredictable, and your telling the public that this is 'safe' is quite irresponsible - especially when you also claim to be a Reactor Physics Engineer.
Natural selection will breed out HARMFUL mutations in the population, but what about POSITIVE mutations. There is such a thing. Rare, yes. But they do exist. How do you think we evolved out of the nothing?
When you look at the context (you *did* read the article, right), they are talking about the current effects of the tsetse fly in general, not the potential effects of the mutated one.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Nice attitude...
Africa is not some park, it is a continent where thousands, perhaps millions of people are malnourished or suffering from disease. The fact that the people are blacks living in third-world nations does not make them lower than wild animals.
If killing some insects allows more cattle to be raised and gives people access to safe water supplies, I'm all for it.
Yes it will kill wildlife -- but I could give a damn about wildlife when human beings are at stake.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Ah, the profound guilt and self-loathing of the "ecological activist" rears its ugly head again. Either you're a pitiable victim of propoganda, or you're grossly underestimating both the astounding power and majesty of Mother Nature and the remarkable resilliency of her creations, specifically us. As you may have noticed, a significant vocal population has always spouted forth the "precarious balance on a fragile pinnacle of equillibrium over the roaring seas of doom and destruction" world-view. I personally think that's a symptom of The Human Condition, perhaps a vestigal natural instinct of tension to keep us on our toes, alert for other predators and/or prey. Of course, it also gives those who believe it a purpose, a reason to live (something for which just about everyone looks, although they may find it in different places). At any rate, while in past centuries (as well as this one, to a lesser extent), Western culture's condition of "doom and destruction" has been in the religious and moral arena, with the consequences being hellfire and damnation (as an American, I'm not in any position to speculate on the expression of the "doom and destruction" prophecies of Eastern culture). Since we've more or less given that up in the wake of our "scientific enlightenment," it's only natural that the need for a dire position would manifest in the scientific genre.
Humanity is but a speck in the natural order here on earth. She has proven herself the opposite of your precarious balance image time and again over the millennia -- instead of a delicate equillibrium balanced on a needle of chance, where the tiniest nudge will send us tumbling into an abyss of chaos and damnation, a more appropriate image would be that of a large rock at the base of a lush valley. Sure, with a strong enough nudge, that rock can be swung away from center and rolled up the hill, but it will roll back to the center again.
Egomaniacal self-loathing... what an unfortunate and pitiable combination of mental disorders to suffer, and so astoundingly common among the so-called nature-lovers. Interesting, that they profess such respect for Mother Nature, yet have so little respoct for her power that they consider themselves her keeper rather than the other way around!
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." --Voltaire
The reason why movies like that are made in the first place is to alert people of potential dangers.
No, the reason movies like that are made is to separate people from their cash.
If promoting bad science and pandering to the fears of the ignorant will help in that endeavor, Hollywood is happy to rise to the occasion.
I believe you think erradicating the smallpox and polio viri is bad as well. After all, they do feed and live and reproduce...
Hugo
OK, they give birth to larvae, not lay eggs like ordinary respectable arthropods. Principle is the same, anyway. Here is all you probably want to know about sleeping sickness with large drawings of the brain-eating microbes, from a professor at Tulane.
The World Health Organization's page on trypanosomiasis.
For population control, predators (including parasites) don't work nearly as well as the demographic transition. Learn about this concept, because it controls your future. Definition with nice graph.
Hell, I love the environment, but I realize the need to save human life & livelihood when I see it. Too many of you seem too comfortable with sitting in front of your computers in your cubicle this morning with a coffee & bagel, deciding that Africans should continue to get sick & lose livestock because you don't want them to "harm the ecosystem".
For all of the environmentalists lamenting the horrible, cataclysmic attack upon the Tstetse fly, consider for a second if it were YOU and YOUR family's health & livelihood that took a constant beating because of these little boogers, if it was your kid almost dead with sleeping sickness, or your cattle you've spent the last 2 years raising that're fast becoming worthless. If there was an infestation by an insect that made people sick and destroyed fiber-optic cable in the SF bay area or New York City you would all shut the fsck up so fast it'd make John Muir's corpse spin.
For fsck's sake, if you want to preserve the environment deal with the planks in your own eyes before pointing out the motes in the African's.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
If someone wanted to really make a difference in world healthcare, they'd refocus half of the current HIV money on prevention and throw the rest into malaria research. If I recall correctly, more people die of malaria every month than die of AIDS every year. But malaria doesn't really affect rich people in the West and is therefore ignored.
On second thought, scratch that. Take the money and devote it to getting potable water to 100% of the population. Goodbye cholera, typhus, tapeworms, and river blindness, not too mention childhood diarhea. It boggles the mind that we can't accomplish this seemingly simple task. Then I realize that it ain't all that simple.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
"Life will find a way"? Christ, that's barely sufferable pablum in a crappy book/movie series, let's not try to act like it's an axiom of truth.
If life has such a hard-on for "finding a way", then why have millions of species gone extinct over the years? Why didn't that life "find a way"?
Jurassic Park is a story. Here's the tricky part: it never actually happened. Let's not quote it like it's an article from a scientific journal.
The odds that one of the irradiated flies will develop a useful adaptation that is dangerous to humans and doesn't reduce the fly's ability to survive AND slip through the cracks while still fertile AND mate with another fly AND produce viable offspring that aren't in turn eaten by predators is so vanishingly small as to be laughable. Please.
Mutant Flies, Please... Do a bit of research before posting topics like this. Even though these flies are Not genetically modified, I never expected Slashdot to feed the anti-GM luddite crowd.
Gregor Mendel started the GM game hundreds of years ago, but it's just recently that GM is scary?
Hey, how about posting a topic showing the all the good genetically modified items have done?