Is this in danger of being undone by Trump's antics?
Why would it be?
America’s Never-Ending Battle Against Flesh-Eating Worms
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Re: America’s Never-Ending Battle Against Flesh-Eating Worms
#12I was just reading about these drone dispersed little paper balls filled with parasitic wasp larva used to control corn borer.
https://altigator.com/organic-agriculture-the-treatment-of-e...
Re: America’s Never-Ending Battle Against Flesh-Eating Worms
#13Is this in danger of being undone by Trump's antics?
Why would it be?
All he has to do is write one tweet: "Screwworms are the worst! No one likes them and with my powerful leadership we will destroy them even more!" Immediately lots of people will start campaigning to restore the pests to their previous range and the rest of the world too.
Re: America’s Never-Ending Battle Against Flesh-Eating Worms
#14> Scientists now knew, from the horrific consequences of atomic bombs dropped on Japan, that high doses of radiation damage human tissue and cells. When a colleague introduced Knipling to research on the sterilization of other flies by radiation, he wondered: Could radiation sterilize screwworms too?
This is wrong, harmful effects of radiation on cells, that it causes mutations and makes things sterile, were known long before WW2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Joseph_Muller#Discover... They basically just put a lot of fruit flies under X-ray radiation and recorded the effects.
Re: America’s Never-Ending Battle Against Flesh-Eating Worms
#15A little tangential, but having just been in an argument here with someone who advocated a "nightwatchman state," I wonder what they'd think of the USDA's efforts here (as well as the other governments'). It seems almost impossible that this could have been coordinated by private industry alone: while there's an obvious benefit to the cattle industry, it seems hardly likely that they would have sponsored the years of…
> ...it seems hardly likely that they would have sponsored the years of investment in basic research...
That is the easy part. There is a good model for shared infrastructure - a private corporation is established, all the local companies buy a share then the shared company builds, owns and operates the actual infrastructure. The same thing works for funding long-term research in everyone's best interest. A shared research corporation that all the local businesses can buy into. They can be guilted in to a small contribution and the research can happen at a slow-burn to generate results over time.
To me the bigger challenge is who would pay for dumping large numbers of irradiated bugs.
Re: America’s Never-Ending Battle Against Flesh-Eating Worms
#16A little tangential, but having just been in an argument here with someone who advocated a "nightwatchman state," I wonder what they'd think of the USDA's efforts here (as well as the other governments'). It seems almost impossible that this could have been coordinated by private industry alone: while there's an obvious benefit to the cattle industry, it seems hardly likely that they would have sponsored the years of…
> ...it seems hardly likely that they would have sponsored the years of investment in basic research... That is the easy part. There is a good model for shared infrastructure - a private corporation is established, all the local companies buy a share then the shared company builds, owns and operates the actual infrastructure. The same thing works for funding long-term research in everyone's best interest. A shared re…
But this never happens?
Re: America’s Never-Ending Battle Against Flesh-Eating Worms
#17A little tangential, but having just been in an argument here with someone who advocated a "nightwatchman state," I wonder what they'd think of the USDA's efforts here (as well as the other governments'). It seems almost impossible that this could have been coordinated by private industry alone: while there's an obvious benefit to the cattle industry, it seems hardly likely that they would have sponsored the years of…
There's significant cattle industry in South America too, and they still have screw worms. So private industry has not accomplished it there.
Re: America’s Never-Ending Battle Against Flesh-Eating Worms
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would it be?
All he has to do is write one tweet: "Screwworms are the worst! No one likes them and with my powerful leadership we will destroy them even more!" Immediately lots of people will start campaigning to restore the pests to their previous range and the rest of the world too.
Why is it so important to fantasise imaginary scenarios about your idol-of-hate rather than conjure up effective means by which things can improve in society?
Derangement syndrome is a reality. Not everything bad that happens is a result of the scary orange puppet. A lot of times, its mass ignorance that causes the worst ills in society.
Re: America’s Never-Ending Battle Against Flesh-Eating Worms
#19> Scientists now knew, from the horrific consequences of atomic bombs dropped on Japan, that high doses of radiation damage human tissue and cells. When a colleague introduced Knipling to research on the sterilization of other flies by radiation, he wondered: Could radiation sterilize screwworms too? This is wrong, harmful effects of radiation on cells, that it causes mutations and makes things sterile, were known lo…
Well it's a classic journalistic technique. Put two statements adjacent to each other and imply a connection but actually you can see there is no formal conjunction.
Re: America’s Never-Ending Battle Against Flesh-Eating Worms
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
> ...it seems hardly likely that they would have sponsored the years of investment in basic research... That is the easy part. There is a good model for shared infrastructure - a private corporation is established, all the local companies buy a share then the shared company builds, owns and operates the actual infrastructure. The same thing works for funding long-term research in everyone's best interest. A shared re…
But this never happens?
I didn't come up with the idea, I saw it in action in a mining context.
Besides, how you can be sure it does or doesn't happen? The world is large and complicated; and basic research gets nearly no press and is very hard to statistically quantify. Where would you look for proof in the positive or negative?