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Scientists Use Sex-Crazed Bugs As Pesticide

Posted by samzenpus on from the doin'-it-hopper-style dept.

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."

15 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. Cool ! by gr8_phk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wait 'til somehow one slips in with the super-sexed modification but not the sterilization.

    1. Re:Cool ! by vxice · · Score: 4, Informative

      from tfa "uval and his team are using a high-protein, bacteria enhanced “stud” breakfast to feed to the males before they’re released." The bugs aren't genetically super sexed but due to eating habits are more attractive.

      --
      every anarchist is a baffled dictator. Benito_Mussolini
    2. Re:Cool ! by santax · · Score: 4, Funny

      So... and where can I get such a breakfast?

    3. Re:Cool ! by Foobar+of+Borg · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nature... finds a way.

      No, a lot of times it really doesn't.

      --
      Similar to the upcoming US election results
  2. Nothing New Here. by lobiusmoop · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sterile insect technique. Developed in the 1950's.

    --
    "I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
  3. A very green solution, except... by sirrunsalot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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...

    1. Re:A very green solution, except... by pclminion · · Score: 3, Informative

      Fascinating, but I can only imagine this is a very expensive solution to implement since the sterilized males must be specially bred

      The technique has been used worldwide with other insects for decades. You may not even know it ever existed, but there used to be flies which laid larvae in your flesh, where they would gestate and then eat their way out of your body. Yeah. Not nice. We got rid of that this way. (Not globally -- the species remains in a few other places)

  4. Death by Snoo-Snoo by bsDaemon · · Score: 5, Funny

    nuff said.

    1. Re:Death by Snoo-Snoo by madsenj37 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Fry: Goodbye, friends. I never thought I'd die like this. But I always really hoped.

      Zapp Brannigan: We need rest. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised.

      --
      Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
  5. insect sex is not fun by Gearoid_Murphy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:insect sex is not fun by antifoidulus · · Score: 3, Informative

      Supposedly the human male's penis is also designed to remove other male's sperm from the vaginal tract.

      --
      Monstar L
  6. Old technique, but it works by Captain+Nitpick · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.
  7. Imagine this with humans by voss · · Score: 5, Funny

    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?"

  8. Re:FAIL by Cryacin · · Score: 4, Funny

    Actually, usually for database designers it's a one to zero relationship.

    --
    Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
  9. What scienists say by istartedi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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"?