Article

2025-07-03 Science & Technology

Federal government plans to air-drop sterile flies over Texas to fight flesh-eating maggots

[FOX] The federal government is planning to breed millions of flies and dump them over Mexico and Texas via airplanes in an effort to combat a flesh-eating maggot.

The pest being targeted is the flesh-eating larva of the New World Screwworm (NWS) fly. The Department of Agriculture plans to ramp up the breeding and distribution of adult male flies. The flies will be sterilized with radiation before they are released.

They mate with females in the wild, and the eggs laid by the female aren't fertilized and don't hatch. There are fewer larvae, and over time, the fly population dies out.

Posted by Skidmark 2025-07-03 00:00|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| ||Comments [80 views ] Top
File under: Migrants/Illegal Immigrants

#1 as article notes, the sterile fly strategy has been used before

it worked to halt the spread but didn't eliminate the species

Posted by Lord Garth 2025-07-03 10:27|| 2025-07-03 10:27|| Front Page || Comments Top

#2 I would question the method of development given the GM mosquito craze. Same way MRNA vaccine is it really a traditional vaccine.

Posted by Jefe101 2025-07-03 14:40|| 2025-07-03 14:40|| Front Page || Comments Top

#3 Oxitec
https://www.genewatch.org/uploads/f03c6d66a9b354535738483c1c3d49e4/DBMbrief_fin.pdf

And this is from 2015. by 2019 they had evidence that genetic exchange was occuring in both the GM orgnaism and the host.

Posted by jefe101 2025-07-03 15:48|| 2025-07-03 15:48|| Front Page || Comments Top

#4 https://www.science.org/content/article/study-dna-spread-genetically-modified-mosquitoes-prompts-backlash

one day ill figure out how to make cool hyperlinks like Skid

Posted by jefe101 2025-07-03 15:50|| 2025-07-03 15:50|| Front Page || Comments Top

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