Stop Insect Sex
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Don't get me wrong, I hate fruit flies. One little bugger in particular has been doing laps around my apartment livingroom for three days now and I can't get the little bastard. But as with most of the other responses in this topic, I find it hard to ignore the obvious problems that this will bring up.
NOTHING good has come from messing with nature in this way, in particular fucking with the insects (no pun intended). Yeah they're pests in every definition of the word, but most of them have a thousand different crucial duties to perform in the ecosystem...trying to come up with new ways to get rid of them NEVER works out in the long run, as "unforeseen consequences" always end up coming to light a few years down the road.
NOTHING good has come from messing with nature in this way, in particular fucking with the insects (no pun intended). Yeah they're pests in every definition of the word, but most of them have a thousand different crucial duties to perform in the ecosystem...trying to come up with new ways to get rid of them NEVER works out in the long run, as "unforeseen consequences" always end up coming to light a few years down the road.
If they make something that prevents mosquitos to mate then I think they will be able to eradicate the species. They tried before by making a poison that kills them but they 'evolved' or developed a tolerance through breeding that rendered the poison ineffective and they came back. If any insect is to be made extinct it should be mosquitos.
Anybody who says spiders should be reduced need to read about what benefits spiders bring.
Anybody who says spiders should be reduced need to read about what benefits spiders bring.
There seems to be a lot of people here who think the people who work on this aren't aware of the possible dangers. Folks, real research institutions are not run like Aperture Science. Can we please drop this idea that there's no oversight in research? Here's a fun fact about the sort of thing you deal with as a researcher when it comes to ethics: if your research project involves human subjects AT ALL, even if it's just asking them questions about a diagram or map, you have to read up on the history of ethics for human research subjects, read the laws on them, be tested on these laws, submit your proposal to a review board before you do anything, and in cases where you're doing more than simply collecting anonymous demographic information, continue to be reviewed by the board as you carry out your study. It's not like the movies. Science isn't about why not, you don't get to do whatever strikes your fancy, you won't make any progress at all if you're just guessing, and making stuff up will not only get you kicked out of your institution but will likely keep you out of all others as well. Please stop assuming we don't work for a living.
Let's consider that the same people who develop these things also make it their business to be familiar with how ecosystems react to different events, and will be even more aware of the pitfalls than everyone here claims to be. Biologists are not as careless with this stuff as you think. Invasive species have been an item bandied about here, but most invasive species are not introduced by biologists, they're introduced by farmers, colonists, sailors, and so forth. Biologists understand the potential ramifications of tampering with nature very well, and as a result tend to be rather cautious about it. Hell, I'm not even in the same building as the biologists at my university and I still get to hear all about it.
Yes, applied indiscriminately this could be very bad. But let's not start dismissing it just because it's tampering with nature. Tampering with nature is part of what defines our species. Sometimes it works astonishingly well, sometimes it backfires. The key to limiting the backfires is to understand what the tamper is, how it works, and how it will interact with complex systems. You can do none of that if you reject it out of hand without looking further into it.
Let's consider that the same people who develop these things also make it their business to be familiar with how ecosystems react to different events, and will be even more aware of the pitfalls than everyone here claims to be. Biologists are not as careless with this stuff as you think. Invasive species have been an item bandied about here, but most invasive species are not introduced by biologists, they're introduced by farmers, colonists, sailors, and so forth. Biologists understand the potential ramifications of tampering with nature very well, and as a result tend to be rather cautious about it. Hell, I'm not even in the same building as the biologists at my university and I still get to hear all about it.
Yes, applied indiscriminately this could be very bad. But let's not start dismissing it just because it's tampering with nature. Tampering with nature is part of what defines our species. Sometimes it works astonishingly well, sometimes it backfires. The key to limiting the backfires is to understand what the tamper is, how it works, and how it will interact with complex systems. You can do none of that if you reject it out of hand without looking further into it.
Now, can we figure out a way to have that effect on humans and weaponize it? I know some guys who would love to get their hands on that...
*Evil laugh*
*Evil laugh*
Dear god, they say we live in such illuminated times and yet the fear of science contained in this tread alone is just a little bit depressing. First off, cool your collective asses, this finding isn't becoming some monstrous new age Agent Orange any time soon. Hell, the suggestion that this might be used one day as a form of pest control is the sort of absurdly hopeful statement any good lab churns out on a regular basis in an effort to keep the funding coming in.
But let's say they do find a way to monetize this and make a successful, commercial grade pesticide. This would be infinitely better than the current regimen of blanket pesticides on the market that we all blithely consume. RNA interference refers to a process a great many eukaryotic organisms use to post transcriptionally regulate their own genomes (in woefully simple terms, chopping up the message before it can be successfully translated into a protein). The genius of RNAi (and the bit that makes it an utter ***** to manipulate) is that it involves a high degree of specificity. Depending on what literature you happen to stumble across, RNAi has a complex targeting system (guided by either short interfering or micro RNAs or both, nothing's concrete at the moment) that allows it to focus on specific genes at specific times (it's the cells way of changing focus on which proteins need producing and which don't). IF this lab has successfully knocked out the gene responsible for the translation of natalisin, they have an intimate understanding of their organisms genome. Even if natalisin is present in a great many insect species, it's highly unlikely that it appears within the same region of each organism's genome and even more likely that it shares an area of high complementation at the sites bordering that natalisin gene. A pesticide developed with this sort of specificity in mind is far less likely to damage your beloved bumblebee than the scorched earth tactics we all currently condone (unless you decide to starve yourself at the moral outrage of it all.)
But all of this is moot, the future lies in aquaponic vertical farms, enclose them and bugs wont be a factor. The sooner we all realize this, the sooner we end world hunger.
If you managed to read all of that, bravo! You may elevate yourself from the 99 percent of the population that finds science excruciatingly boring when it's not being a moustache twirling villain. I suggest reading the wikipedia articles on RNAi and microRNA, they're surprisingly well maintained (though be warned, some of those sources are out of date and at other times, contradictory).
Ha, find me a viral vector that's reliably effective across a multitude of insect species and the goddamn bees and glowing kittens will be the least of your worries (as I'll be holding Nicaragua hostage with a swarm of hyper wasps brimming with Black Mamba venom).
Science is not the enemy, ignorance is the enemy. Scientific ignorance either dampens genius or breeds atrocity, sociopolitical ignorance gave birth to Herrenvolk slavery, religious ignorance gave birth to holy wars beyond counting. Science is just another human construct, capable of no more villainy than politics, religion, or entertainment.
But let's say they do find a way to monetize this and make a successful, commercial grade pesticide. This would be infinitely better than the current regimen of blanket pesticides on the market that we all blithely consume. RNA interference refers to a process a great many eukaryotic organisms use to post transcriptionally regulate their own genomes (in woefully simple terms, chopping up the message before it can be successfully translated into a protein). The genius of RNAi (and the bit that makes it an utter ***** to manipulate) is that it involves a high degree of specificity. Depending on what literature you happen to stumble across, RNAi has a complex targeting system (guided by either short interfering or micro RNAs or both, nothing's concrete at the moment) that allows it to focus on specific genes at specific times (it's the cells way of changing focus on which proteins need producing and which don't). IF this lab has successfully knocked out the gene responsible for the translation of natalisin, they have an intimate understanding of their organisms genome. Even if natalisin is present in a great many insect species, it's highly unlikely that it appears within the same region of each organism's genome and even more likely that it shares an area of high complementation at the sites bordering that natalisin gene. A pesticide developed with this sort of specificity in mind is far less likely to damage your beloved bumblebee than the scorched earth tactics we all currently condone (unless you decide to starve yourself at the moral outrage of it all.)
But all of this is moot, the future lies in aquaponic vertical farms, enclose them and bugs wont be a factor. The sooner we all realize this, the sooner we end world hunger.
If you managed to read all of that, bravo! You may elevate yourself from the 99 percent of the population that finds science excruciatingly boring when it's not being a moustache twirling villain. I suggest reading the wikipedia articles on RNAi and microRNA, they're surprisingly well maintained (though be warned, some of those sources are out of date and at other times, contradictory).
Ha, find me a viral vector that's reliably effective across a multitude of insect species and the goddamn bees and glowing kittens will be the least of your worries (as I'll be holding Nicaragua hostage with a swarm of hyper wasps brimming with Black Mamba venom).
Science is not the enemy, ignorance is the enemy. Scientific ignorance either dampens genius or breeds atrocity, sociopolitical ignorance gave birth to Herrenvolk slavery, religious ignorance gave birth to holy wars beyond counting. Science is just another human construct, capable of no more villainy than politics, religion, or entertainment.
Nsecretkeeper12 said:It's easy to see how this might harm ecosystems, but that's glossing over how this technology could, properly used, save people's lives. Mosquitos in particular are much more than a pest; they're responsible for malaria outbreaks in over 100 countries [http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/facts.html] which claimed a cumulative 660,000 lives in 2010 alone. If this research kicks off, this can be reduced to a much less severe number. True, we will be "messing with nature", but I think that kind of romantic thinking can go take a hike when it will literally cost lives to follow.So long as this is only used against harmful species (and no, being annoying doesn't count as "harmful") and only in the proper environments (meaning African mosquitos would be sterilized, but those in the U.S. would be mostly left alone), there really isn't much downside. Sure, we would be tampering with the ecosystem, but when mother nature's sanctity results in otherwise preventable deaths, I think we can make an exceptionemeraldrafael said:
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I'm sorry (I really am) that people are dying to disease and what not, but it's the natural order of things. What you're basically asking for is that we kill of millions..nay, probably billions of insects that are essential parts of the ecosystem.
The worse part is that you have no concept of what would happen of those 600,000 a year that normally die actually live and prosper. Here's an idea: 3 meals a day, procreation (sex), and extended population within already congested sections of the world. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to know that there's a reason these people are dying by disease and famine.
I'd completely be 100% with your mindset if there were two requirements fulfilled: 1) everyone who would have died from these diseases become sterile and 2) a 100% guarantee that nothing else in the ecosystem is effected (no frogs/fish go hungry, no effect on the animals killed by snakes that eat the lizards that eat these bugs, etc.) If, and ONLY if, those two things can be fulfilled will I agree to this lunatic way of thinking. But I don't see that happening, so no.
Oh man, I've been watching a lot of those 'science gone wrong' sci-fi movies from the 50s and 60s lately (The Wasp Woman etc) and when something like this is announced those movies are the only thing I can think about...
I thought natural selection only applied to species we like.Deathfish15 said:
Serious mode now. The problem with this line of thinking is that if we say we shouldn't use this as a pesticide we will still use other pesticides that do have direct harm on both the plants and animals in the area. This pesticide will have indirect harm because it disrupts the environment by reducing the number of insects, but so does every other pesticide. Ideally we shouldn't use them at all, but then we would be unable to supply enough food, seriously, the yield in ecological farming is terrible. We will hurt nature by agriculture regardless though. Using a field for potatoes will likely disrupt the life of hundreds of species. Simply growing crops might just be more harmful than pesticides.
The question here isn't if this will be ecologically harmful. That's an obvious yes, the question is if it's better or worse than what we are currently using.
OT: I guess the most useful and safe application for this would be to use it for fumigating houses. However I'd be careful about saying something isn't harmful. There's so many things that have been considered not harmful in the past for the reason that it has no known harmful effect.
ten years from now when this crap filters into the oceans and kills off all the seafood, you pricks are going to look very foolish.
you know what else stops insect pandemic and does nto destroy ecology? fish. stop fishing without a reason. the destruction of fish in water that has been happening lately is the cause for icnreased insect acitivity. fishes eat insect eggs. if there are no fishes, the "1 in a thousand lives" rule gets overwritten to 500 in a thousand lives, and you got 500 times more insects.
Guess I'll jump on the bandwagon. Can't help but think of this line:
"Sometimes science is ******* wrong and gives us **** we don't need...they might as well go, 'Hey, we made cancer airborne and contagious! You're welcome! We're science: we're all about the coulda, not the shoulda.'"
--Patton Oswalt
"Sometimes science is ******* wrong and gives us **** we don't need...they might as well go, 'Hey, we made cancer airborne and contagious! You're welcome! We're science: we're all about the coulda, not the shoulda.'"
--Patton Oswalt
Yeah, this isn't a good thing, especially if it can (and it would) affect bees, this'd screw the ecology of areas up really fast, yeah, house flies and fruit flies are a pain in the butt, it'd be easier to modify plants to repel insects that attack (like fruit flies), well, I think it might... but i'm not going to argue this again, I just spent 4 days arguing about GM, not going to start again.
Not to mention Children of Men.Daaaah Whoosh said:
This does not seem like a good idea unless they can come up with some kind of intrinsic limiter on it (like the dispersant degrades in a few days and loses effect, or something) so that it only affects specifically what's targeted.
Mind you, they've only done it via individual modification so far, so we don't need to start panicking yet!