Bzzz. zzz. Ever wish that pesky fly
would just drop dead? Well that day just might be around the corner! The U.K.-based company Oxitec has submitted
an application to release genetically modified olive fruit flies under netted olive
trees in Spain. Oxitec has modified the
flies to all be male and to carry a deadly trait. After mating with wild female fruit flies,
offspring will either be a) female flies that will die as maggots or b) male
flies that will carry the same gene.
Oxitec is the same company that
modified mosquitoes and released in a Brazilian town. As a result of the modified mosquitoes, the
population of the dengue-fever-carrying mosquito population was brought down by
96%! This company has stated that their GM fruit flies will reduce the need for pesticides and that the deadly gene would only affect this particular fly.
How do you feel about this? I’ve been known to go ninja on flies, but I’m
not sure how I feel about releasing genetically modified insects into
nature. Do you think it is wise to mess
with nature in such a way?
Check out the article here!
Well you stated that the deadly gene, according to Oxitec, would not harm humans. In that case, I'm all for the regulation of deadly fruit fly populations. The only thing is, what types of other life would be affected by the loss of fruit fly populations? Other than that, nothing controversial seems to be coming to mind. That's just me though haha.
ReplyDeleteYep, I think this is not very beneficial as it seems to be. Creating GMO's and releasing them to the ecosystem is not a good idea: we are exterminating a whole specie just because we are irritated. Humans should not temper with this intricate food chain. Many animals hunt for these flies to survive, and this could have serious implications on us. Flies are there for a reason , and if we cannot see this currently, It doesn't mean we eradicate them from existence because they bother us at night. I understand and agree on the usage of pesticides and repels etc as an alternative.
ReplyDeleteOh the things you could do with a fruit fly. This technique seems to be quite similar to balancers on chromosomes. To keep a heterozygous population of fruit flies during experiments, fruit fly geneticists often implemented balancer chromosomes that are composed of inversion repeats to block recombination. The results are quite similar to the results in this study. Either no recombination will occur and the offspring will be born heterozygous, or recombination occurs but is lethal to the progeny.
ReplyDeleteWell, the mosquito experiment proved to pay off for protecting humans. Of course they don't say how other species were affected. I don't feel one way or another about it really...
ReplyDelete