The Fall and Rise of Screwworm(construction-physics.com) |
The Fall and Rise of Screwworm(construction-physics.com) |
For an article that is so detailed in other areas, this feels like a very short dismissal of a topic that--regardless of direction--deserves more focus.
Isn't there a risk that the artificially introduced reproductory pressures would select for screwworms that produce males that are resistant to radiation.
My chain of reasoning is that not all the of the irradiated males would be completely sterile. If so, then the next generation would be a mix of hatchlings of not radiated parents and those parents who have not been completely sterilized in spite of radiation -- thereby increasing the proportion of radiation resistant varieties, assuming resistance is an inheritable trait. These may then find themselves at the input side of sterile male generation factories.
The intervention obviously worked, but was that because steps were taken to counteract the possibility of raising radiation resistant varieties.
BTW the article was a great read.
The few males that might survive the gamma exposure with intact fertility are probably just ones that didn't get a full dose.
It is rather amazing to me in fact that it's possible to sterilize the males without killing them.
From what I have read, flora and fauna around Chernobyl seems to have acquired degrees of radiation tolerance.
BTW I am a complete ignoramus in these matters.
Okay, maybe you could release the flies in large enough numbers not to need monitoring but I guess it would also be prohibitively expensive.
Not that I believe it'll drive up the price that much but I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being 50-70 USD per in the US.
Imagine working at the screwworm factory.
0 - https://x.com/alexpotato/status/1559865770515087360?s=20
May you and your smelling nose wife live happily ever after.
Chesterson's Fence strikes again. It's so easy to wax poetic about how ineffective government spending always is and should be cut to the bone that we don't stop to recognize that preventative programs like this save us from billions in economic losses.
Yep.
“Sometime around 2023, the barrier at Panama failed”
And further text suggesting a fairly normal incursion in ‘21 that didn’t become a major issue until much later.
> and over zealous COVID lockdowns
“The disruption caused by COVID-19 seems to be partly to blame”
I love when people insert hyper-inflammatory bullshit because they have a stupid axe to grind.
There are like, 10 paragraphs of equally relevant contributors, but you picked out the two that make you angry and are pretending those are the “main causes”?
Come the fuck on.
> during the pandemic livestock inspectors were forced to stay home, vehicles broke down and couldn’t be repaired due to a lack of replacement parts
You can be pedantic about the exact start time, but the initial outbreak was detected in 2021, the barrier breach became clear in 2022 and was widely spread by 2023. In any case this had nothing whatsoever to do with budget cuts in 2025.
I found and read through some of the reports of the time to try and prove myself correct. I'm wrong.
https://www.nal.usda.gov/exhibits/speccoll/exhibits/show/sto...