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

... which proves the WHO should be disbanded

[vandan]

WTF is up with people these days? Am I the only one left with any foresight? The article claims the fly is costing 4.5 billion a year. So is that what the future of the world is worth - 4.5 billion a year? What happens when we get weird-ass mutant flies take over? Bring out the weird-ass mutant spiders?
Idiots to the left of me, idiots to the right of me, I'm fucking ... stuck in the middle with the WHO!

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

[vandan]

They aren't mutants! It's been said about 5 million times already (did you read any of the other comments?) that they are merely sterilised, not mutant.

The fact that it has been said a million times doesn't make it true. They are NOT 'merely sterilised'. They are 'MOSTLY sterilised'. Some will produce mutant offspring. Search on google for DNA+mutation+radiation.

And for God's sake, people, THINK. This place used to be full of intelligent people...

Re:Bad for wildlife

[Anonymous Coward]

*sigh* I know - this is a _really_ crappy idea. Totally screwing up the ecosystem by trying to eradicate an important species and at the same time removing the only defence against habitat destruction (the Number One eco-threat today) in this area... instead of simply trying to decrease _our_ population.

But we humans never learn from our mistakes, do we?

Re:Extinction

[motherhead]

I love the idea of eradicating entire species of human-hostile insects.

If an alien species were to stumble upon our rock and declare that we were a virulent race of parasites, well then 'bring it on'. We can launch huge swarms of horrificly sterile tse tse flys at them.

Sorry but your enviro-sensitvity is making me sick. This kind of jack ass, kneejerk stupid asshole remark is the result of too many hippies not realizing they were exploited in the 60's and 70's and seizing control of publc education to render a generation of children docile and useless.

whoops, time for bed.

Killer Bees

[SealBeater]

I am pretty sure the scientists who thought it would be a good idea to inter-breed the American honey bee with the African bees viewed the experiment with the same amount of confidence that these scientists are displaying regarding the notion of irradiating the tsete fly with radiation. How do we know this will sterilize the flies?

SealBeater

Re:Bad for wildlife

[SealBeater]

Is the preservation of wildlife even more important than the preservation of human lives?

I'll take this question. Yes, the preservation of wildlife is more important than the preservation of human lives. Esp, considering how we are entirely dependant on this planet, one would think we would at least exercise a little more caution. What exactly is so special about human lives?
We destroy everything we come across, 98% of us don't do a single thing that is constructive, other than eating, sleeping and dying. Also, I hold myself to this same standard, when I am in Africa (which I have been and I am sure 90% of the /. community hasn't), I would rather take the chance of getting bit and dying, than introduce a potentially disasterous new element into as fragile and infinately complex an equation as an ecosystem.

SealBeater

Re:Dont get your ilinformed knickers in a knot.

[Surak]

Of course these arent /mutant/ flys. theve just been sterilised.

Sure they are. The sterilization is a mutation caused by radiation. Cells are constantly being replaced in any complex organism, such as a fly. The radiation causes the reproductive cells to replaced with mutated versions of those cells that aren't functional, hence sterile. Hence, these flies are mutants, since they have mutated cells.

The bad thing is that you are killing off the fly population, yes? Think food chain. What do the flies eat? What eats the flies? Messing with the food chain has proved to be horribly wrong in the past. Think about the eagles and hawks that were killed off by DDT. Hawks eat pigeons, with no hawks, there were too many pigeons, hence pigeon turds everywhere, spreading all sorts of diseases...