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Scientists Use Sex-Crazed Bugs As Pesticide
ByronScott writes "In today's 'gross news' category, some female insects just might be getting lucky. As an alternative to toxic pesticides, scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have created 'super-sexed' sterilized male leafhoppers to knock bug boots with females in the wild, resulting in decreased populations. Yes, that means that the female bugs will miss out on the joys of motherhood, but the idea that the insects will be having some fun instead of being gassed to death by poisons is pretty cool."
Wait 'til somehow one slips in with the super-sexed modification but not the sterilization.
Sterile insect technique. Developed in the 1950's.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Fascinating, but I can only imagine this is a very expensive solution to implement since the sterilized males must be specially bred, and, well, it's not exactly a self-propagating solution. Of course, that's also a benefit since as far as solutions that tamper with biology go, self-limiting processes can't very well get out of control. The article doesn't discuss what effect one male has or any practical implications of the solution.
Although the technology certainly doesn't exist to implement it, I wonder what would happen if some sort of genetic time-bomb—something like the mechanism for the Hayflick Limit—were used to create a bug that reproduces for a while, then it's descendants become sterile. It would still be self-limiting, more potent than one bug, and still pesticide-free! Well the hard part of scientific discovery is done, now it'll only take fifty years of toil in the lab to achieve it...
nuff said.
In some cases, probably a lot worse than the first time you did it. horrific beetle sex
insect sex is notoriously violent, insects do not use sex as a bonding mechanism so there's no pleasure, in the sense we know, associated with it. Many different species have developed various strategies to work around this, such as scrapers on the end of the males penis to remove rivals sperm. I kid you not, god help me, I'm after a bottle of wine and can't be bothered finding the link.
prepare the survey weasels.
Assuming you're married or have a girlfriend, you would know that you pay. Maybe not in dollars in cents, but you pay...
The sterile insect technique dates to the 1950s, and has been used with great success in suppressing the screw-worm (eradicated in the US in 1982). An animal infested with screw worm maggots can die simply from the tissue damage as the maggots "screw" into their flesh. It's one of the few species against which there is an intentional attempt at extermination, and I can't disagree with it.
The technique inspired the Nebula Award-winning science fiction story The Screwfly Solution. In the story, the technique does not so much go wrong as horribly right.
But then again, I could be wrong.
The bug will not only have sex with one, but many male bugs. And one of them will have working sperm. Done.
Maybe making the females sterile would make a bit more sense. ^^
For database designers: It’s a one-to-many relationship.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
A sterilised insect is actually a foreign entity. I do recognise that feeding the population involves killing insects but a surplus of these insects might be good for the environment when it occurs. It seems that we are trying to micro manage an environment that we really do not understand. My area is loaded with pythons, monitor lizards, iguanas, a three foot long exotic rat, many species of parrots and more plants than I can name all of which are foreign to Florida. The funny thing is I enjoy most of the invaders that our government makes war upon. I particularly like fishing for huge talapia as well as rainbow and peacock bass. All three of those fish are foreign species.
doc: "Good news Is youre gonna get laid all the time, but you wont be able to have kids"
Guy:"Doc dont hold back, whats the bad news?"
What scientists say: (insert abstract followed by lengthy, scholarly work which includes some mention of sex).
What journalists hear: SEX, SEX,SEX,SEX,SEX,SEX,SEX,SEX... Oh, BTW SEX!
The preceding was an homage to Gary Larson author of The Far Side.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
You'll be irresistible to bugs.
Insects hate anthropomorphization.
How many unwanted pregnancies could be prevented if Ecstasy tablets included a dose of birth control hormones? Club kids would make wonderful lab rats.
The scraping is true and happens in all species where the female has no concept of fidelity. You can also judge the fidelity of the female by the relative size of the male balls. The bigger, the more sperm he produces. NOT to fertilize the egg, but to flood out his rivals sperm and create a protective covering against further attempts.
Biology, messing with your preconceptions.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.