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?"

Comments

Re:The principle concept eludes me

[Seska]

The bit your're not getting is that the benefit is obtained when the fittest flies of this egenration mate with the sterile flies, not when they compete with them.
Mating with a sterile fly produces no offspring. No children, and the population falls. The only way this could screw up natural selection is if the fertile flies could somehow figure out which other flies were sterile and avoid them. So no, it's not like "antibacterial stuff."

Re:... which proves the WHO should be disbanded

[vandan]

if you actually read any more than the headline you'd see that they're sterilized by radiation

If you actually gave the article some thought you would realise that radiation doesn't have some magical property that makes flies sterile. It just happens that if you expose flies to radiation in this way they USUALLY become sterile. The reason this happens is because the genes in their sperm / egg are damaged to the point of being not functional. But not all of the sperm / eggs will be damaged to this extent. Some will just be mutated and will still be capable of producing offspring. And those offspring will be mutated.

Man I am getting sick of reading every idiot and his dog pulling the "it's not as if they'll reproduce" line. Half-aresd humour does not cover up the scientific fact that mutants WILL be born. Of course there won't be many, but it only takes one to get the ball rolling.

THINK PEOPLE!

So what?

[Amazing Quantum Man]

They've been doing this for years in CA. Whenever they find a medfly infestation, they release a ton of sterile medflies, made sterile by radiation.