Do people not realize that insects are the main food of thousands of different species. If they implement this anywhere, the resulting ecological damage could be catastrophic. We need to stop being so utterly narrow minded. Nature has progressed as it has for a reason. Also, this whole idea of it "never affecting humans or other animals" is funny. All I think of when I read this story is the film Children of Men
Stop Insect Sex
- Thread starter Lauren Admire
- Start date
Mass Effect 2 spoilers
Does this mean that in 10-20 years time I'm going to have to do some escort mission to an insect reservation when a scientist starts worrying that s/he has done a terrible thing?
Still bonus loyalty and a thankful insect army joining me so I guess it will work out....
Still bonus loyalty and a thankful insect army joining me so I guess it will work out....
When I say "Killer Bees" I refer to the Africanized Honey Bees that are killing off all the native bees and have dangerous, aggressive behaviors that regular Honey Bees here do not have. As the grandson of a harvester, I know the importance of bees.Tanakh said:
I'm not saying spread this process to every hive of every bee. Just use it to contain the ones that are eliminating native honey bees.
If this process can be used in such a way safely. Which I'm not sure of.
I read the guy's more as getting rid of an insect that was introduced into an ecosystem that it's not supposed to be in. That seems to be the only positive use for this spray.Deathfish15 said: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:
a
t
u
r
a
l
S
e
l
e
c
t
i
o
n
!
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.
Ahh... as an actual beekeeper and someone that also knows it's biology I am telling you you are VERY wrong...Redlin5 said:
Once again, in case I wasn't clear:
- "Killer Bees" and "Honey Bees" are the same fucking species (Apis Mellifera), it's like latinos, blacks and whites (Homo Sapiens), if we get super technical africanized bees and european bees (what you call honey bees) are different subspecies, no biggie at any rate. The differences between them are MINIMAL and you can't fuck one without doing the other.
- Africanized Bees aren't "killing off" the European Bees, they are fucking with. It is exceedingly rare for africanized bees to kill a regular bee hive (unless it is very weak), their males however do fuck with european queens to create hybrids.
- LoL native bees?!?!? You r funny brah, native bees of this continent are the Melipona, and we (humans) have been driving them off their territories each year. Why? They produce less, and IMO of less quality, there are still some here and there tough.
- Africanized Bees dangerous and aggressive? Have you worked with them? You can be at 10m. or so of their hive in non work hours (non-hot time of the day) or 25m. at any hour and they won't give a crap about you. They are certainly more annoying that european bees to work with in the sense that you need proper equipment, some european cattle is so docile you can go butt naked and work with them.
Not necessarily. Using D. melanogaster's genome as a reference, some degenerate primers, and a bit of sequencing are enough to figure out how a single gene looks in different organisms. No intimate knowledge of their genome required. At least if you're working with insects. Also if you design an RNAi construct you'd go for a conserved region of the gene (or rather its mature mRNA) you intend to knockdown (considering this is RNAi we're speaking of). I'd wager that there are quite a few conserved region in natalisin seeing how they identified and functionally characterised it in diptera, lepidoptera, and coleoptera. So any given pesticide that results from this is likely to affect hymenoptera (and therefore bumblebees), too.EnigmaticSevens said:
Either way, I agree with you. There's little chance that they'll turn this into any kind of pesticide soon.
Oh get a grip. This gets blown way out of proportion. It's RNAi. The normal operational procedure for artificially induced RNAi in D. melanogaster cannot be replicated in the wild. You'd need two transgenic fly stocks: one appropriate Gal4 driver line and of course the corresponding UAS-nastalinRNAi line. Their offspring won't breed (provided both parental lines are homozygous/they have the right balancer chromosomes), so they'll go extinct after a single generation. And there will be no effect if either parental line mates with wildtype flies.Gearhead mk2 said:
Using a virus as a vector is also not all that realistic, either.
All in all this revelation is by no means earth-shattering.
EDIT: Changed 'domain' to 'region'. It doesn't have to be a domain in the biochemical sense. Taking it too far may also cause problems - there's quite a few domains that serve more than one purpose and may be highly conserved in lots of genes, after all.
Want to know what's a better idea? You, and everyone who thinks like you goes to sterilize themselves in the most permanent manner possible. Preferably silencing yourself in the process. Preferably by catching and dying of malaria. The world doesn't need people eager to condemn others to death while they continue to live in luxury.Deathfish15 said: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:
a
t
u
r
a
l
S
e
l
e
c
t
i
o
n
!
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.
The reason these people are dying to disease and famine is because counterintellectual fuckwits like you gleefully advocate against anything that could improve the lives of those who live outside your own community, while fully benefitting from advances in science like this that protect us from the ravages of "nature." The only reason Malaria isn't a problem in North America is because we used pesticides liberally, then banned them from global use after we had eradicated Malaria from our own land, leaving the rest of the world to suffer while we enjoyed the privilege of protection.
And to those saying "Don't fuck with nature" - Why the hell not? Unlike us, it's not sapiant, so it won't give a damn and stop fucking with us just because we decide to stop fucking with it. Proceeding with a circumspect view to minimize damage to ourselves and that which we want to protect while removing that which is detrimental to us and our interests is a much better and more circumspect approach.
Actually, you're giving them far too little credit. And a big reason they have so many babies per family is out of hope that at least some of them won't die of Malaria. They have such shitty lives because any time something starts looking up for them, disease strikes and bankrupts or kills their community and economy. Better health leads to better education, lower death rates, and reduced population growth because families can invest more effort into raising kids they can trust to be healthy than trying to pop out enough to not lose everything to disease, malnutrition, and warfare - and high death rates and crippled populations from diseases like Malarian lead to the too-exploitable political and economic instability that plagues the "3rd world", leading to the poor education, food supply, and warlord issues.rhizhim said:
10-25 m?! That's 10x further you have to stay away from than the traditional bees I've worked with - I can get within 3-5m of any of my hives at any time without fear of being attacked. You kinda shot your own argument in the foot here.Tanakh said:
The environment is a secondary concern - it's resilient and adaptable. And, actually, it's been doing VERY well. It's biggest threats come from itself. The question is how it benefits humans - and if it weren't for "tampering with nature", we'd not be able to live or eat in the comfort we do now.s0p0g said:
Right now, there's a bug that REALLY needs to die in my part of the country - the Emerald Ash Borer. They are currently so bad that the only way to "save" the current Ash Tree populations is starting to look like "Save the seeds, let them all die, hope the borers don't adapt to a different type of tree, wait for the Emerald Ash Borers to die out, then replant new Ash Trees from seeds - Saplings would be destroyed by the bugs." We are the stewards of this world. Right now, we NEED to take a much more active role in regulating insect and plant populations because our lifestyle overwhelmingly benefits bugs and the wrong types of plants when we're not actively opposing them - a big part of the bug population is our mess to clean up.
Two words are screaming in my head, ecological disaster.
We have no idea of the knock on effects.... this is an incredibly bad idea.
We have no idea of the knock on effects.... this is an incredibly bad idea.
You seemed to argue that "Killer Bees" aren't unworkable or exceptionally aggressive, yet stated that you can't even come within two dozen meters of a hive without risking an aggressive retaliation (I can't remember if non-working hours are when they're most or least aggressive), and it requires special protection to get close - while normal bees don't require protection to approach unless you're actively ripping the lid off of the hive.Tanakh said:
A 50 m radius is quite a lot of space, especially given all the crazy places bees can make hives in - my dad collects normal honeybee hives that pop up in the suburbs and cities during Swarm Season.
The argument that we can't do anything against the Africanized Bees without equally effecting 'normal' bees is probably true, though.
Well, they certainly aren't unworkable, I have worked with them but you do need to use full equipment and don it before you go there and never to remove it before 50m if you open the lids (proper manuals also say to always go in pairs, but I YOLO it); they do have advantages depending on the climate/ecosystem, not worth the hassle for me but not the end of the world.Scow2 said:
Exceptionally aggressive? Humm... it's a matter of perspective, if you have the giant japanese wasp as a 10 and the tamest italian bee as a 0, I would say it's around a 4 for Africanized Bees in the wild, it is inoffensive unless you walk to their hive (willingly or not). On the plus side, they DO manage to live in the wild, European Bees almost never succeed in this, and having wild bees is great for most ecosystems.
And yeah, my argument was about rewriting their DNA being a terribad idea mainly because Africanized Bees aren't killing European Bees and you can't release a DNA writing virus without fucking both. Also I am not quite sure it even kills people, and if they do I AM quite sure the numbers are way low.
I understand the worry in this thread. The story makes it sound like "We have found this common factor in insects called Natalisin. Thus, we will indiscriminately release a Natalisin counter and nothing bad will come of it.". Ignoring that the Escapist has a long history of jumping straight to extremism in their articles, it is highly unlikely that the scientists involved in this study have never heard of things like Colony Collapse Disorder
Further Sterile Insect Technique has been used before and has knocked various pests out of their place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_insect_technique
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screwfly
I can see being a little more cautious about this because it is talking about using a genetically common vector rather than the uncommon use of radiation to sterilize the insect population. However, that is only reason for caution rather than paranoia.
Further Sterile Insect Technique has been used before and has knocked various pests out of their place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_insect_technique
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screwfly
I can see being a little more cautious about this because it is talking about using a genetically common vector rather than the uncommon use of radiation to sterilize the insect population. However, that is only reason for caution rather than paranoia.
Agreed. Every time they fuck with nature, they end up doing more damage that they can't predict or control.s_h_a_d_o said:
Virgin queens go out on mating flights. It's actually one thing you gotta look out for as a beekeeper. That the newly mated queen returns to the hive to start laying eggs. Hives can also swarm, which means the queen takes off with nurse bees and leaves. The remaining workers then raise a new queen to take it's place. I'm not sure how it would affect bees, but I can't say I approve of this kind of scientific tinkering as such.lacktheknack said:
fuck yeah.Voulan said:
but really, flies are annoying little fucks that divebomb my house anytime the window/door is remotely open, fuckers are so annoying.
idk about that...it's anecdotal and all, but fuckin christ I've seen a couple bee's that would put some people's dicks to shame, I ran right the fuck back inside this one time, fucker looked like this:lacktheknack said:
