this post was submitted on 18 May 2024
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The insect glue, produced from edible oils, was inspired by plants such as sundews that use the strategy to capture their prey. A key advantage of physical pesticides over toxic pesticides is that pests are highly unlikely to evolve resistance, as this would require them to develop much larger and stronger bodies, while bigger beneficial insects, like bees, are not trapped by the drops.

The drops were tested on the western flower thrip, which are known to attack more than 500 species of vegetable, fruit and ornamental crops. More than 60% of the thrips were captured within the two days of the test, and the drops remained sticky for weeks.

Work on the sticky pesticide is continuing, but Dr Thomas Kodger at Wageningen University & Research, in the Netherlands, who is part of the self defence project doing the work, said: “We hope it will have not nearly as disastrous side-effects on the local environment or on accidental poisonings of humans. And the alternatives are much worse, which are potential starvation due to crop loss or the overuse of chemical pesticides, which are a known hazard.”

Link to the study

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[–] bratosch@lemm.ee 66 points 7 months ago (4 children)

A key advantage of physical pesticides over toxic pesticides is that pests are highly unlikely to evolve resistance, as this would require them to develop much larger and stronger bodies.

Goddammit, stop playing with fire, scientists!!

[–] Hacksaw@lemmy.ca 19 points 7 months ago (5 children)

In the Jurassic period there were giant insects like dragonflies with 4ft wingspan. Turns out THIS is how we get to Jurassic park

[–] vaultdweller013 13 points 7 months ago

Insect body size is dictated by oxygen levels, and since they absorb oxygen through their skin if they get too large with too little oxygen they suffocate.

[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 13 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Carboniferous period. Jurassic was about 100m years later.

[–] nokturne213@sopuli.xyz 9 points 7 months ago (2 children)
[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Shit was fire (30% atmospheric oxygen levels)

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[–] Hacksaw@lemmy.ca 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

It was a wild guess and I was hoping someone smarter than me would correct me ❤️

In my defense the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park came from wildly different eras so Carboniferous super bugs can still fit in!

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[–] Haagel@lemmings.world 62 points 7 months ago

All jokes aside, this is another great example of a trend towards bio-inspired engineering.

[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 43 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (5 children)

There are plenty of ways we shorten a specific phrase that renders it general but still understand it as the specific version.

The word “chemicals” is rarely misunderstood when used this way. Colloquially, many/most people mean “harmful chemicals” when they say it.

Is there room for misunderstanding? Yes. Is that a problem? Not any bigger than most problems with using spoken/written language to communicate.

You don’t come off as wise when you point this inaccuracy out, and It doesn’t invalidate the whole article.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 43 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

You are correct, but having spent 7 years of my life learning general chemistry, biochemistry, and organic chemistry.... I will fight with my last breath that chemicals exist.

To play devils advocate, lets say we "agree" that "no chemicals" means no harmful chemicals.... now we have given corporations the weasel defense to say anything has "no chemicals" because they will define away any measure of harm.

Pointing out the incorrectness of the article doesn't mean it has no merit, but now the critical reader must be extra cautious because the author has demonstrated very poor domain knowledge, and their conclusions are suspect.

[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

Well “technically correct” is the best kind of correct, so I’ll agree.

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[–] AmidFuror@fedia.io 13 points 7 months ago (4 children)

You don't serve the greater good by misusing words. A new sticky substance as an alternative to chemicals? If you want to educate people through your reporting, then you try to make it accurate and choose words carefully.

It doesn't invalidate the whole article, fair enough. But it does make a "wise" person question what else they got wrong.

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 11 points 7 months ago (2 children)
[–] captain_aggravated 6 points 7 months ago

Which is why it should be considered bad practice to use the word "chemicals" as a synonym for "poison."

[–] Maeve@kbin.social 5 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Yep. Cooking is a chemical reaction.

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Beware of dihydrogen monoxide.

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[–] Kichae@lemmy.ca 12 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I've watched chunks of society freak out over everything from basic food ingredients to vaccines because they contained polysyllabic words that people decried as "chemicals".

And I've spent my whole damn life listening to people abuse the word "theory" until the the Christofascists and neo-nazis managed to become mainstream.

People abuse technical words with a purpose. Don't play apologetics for them because you believe their understanding of words is more nuanced than they are.

[–] Wogi@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I don't ingest anything with ingredients I can't pronounce.

Drinks mercury

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[–] b000rg@midwest.social 8 points 7 months ago (3 children)

It just really feels weird to me to describe something as GLUE, but then also say that it doesn't use chemicals. One thing I take into consideration most times I'm using glue, is whether the item I'm gluing will be melted by the glue.

I get what they're trying to say, but glue is a description of a chemical compound in my mind.

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 24 points 7 months ago (6 children)

The sticky drops will biodegrade but the team is investigating how long this takes.

They probably should have waited to write such a glowing article until after we find this out.

Because I'm thinking people aren't going to be all that into trying to pull apart grapes that have been glued together.

[–] Peppycito 19 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Sticky grapes that taste like orange peel.

[–] herrcaptain@lemmy.ca 15 points 7 months ago

And are covered in dead bugs.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)
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[–] irmoz@lemmy.world 22 points 7 months ago (3 children)

"Without chemicals"

Okay, no need to take this seriously.

[–] charles@lemmy.world 60 points 7 months ago

A new non-toxic pesticide can be valuable regardless of the journalist who wrote an article.

[–] NegativeInf@lemmy.world 14 points 7 months ago

While I agree in principle, the people who write the headlines are very often not the writers of the article or the people who are actually working on the solutions to the problems.

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[–] MicrowavedTea@infosec.pub 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

This is good news but I love that our current standard is at "not nearly as disastrous side-effects"

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (6 children)

We gotta start somewhere. Remember that food security is a big part of the issue as well. We can't just stop spraying the toxic stuff without an alternative because global food systems could collapse. I don't like that we were using the toxic stuff in the first place but it has become a cornerstone of our food production.

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[–] The_v@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago (3 children)

This is a really, really, bad idea.

The issue is that sticky traps are non-specific. Any insect the size of a trip can be trapped. Then when predators are attracted to all the free food, they are potentially stuck or damaged as well.

Thrips are also one of the easiest species to control using predatory species.

[–] enbyecho@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Well at least one person agrees with me.

Thrips are a pain in the ass but if you use pesticides you kill the beneficials that eat them, for example Minute Pirate Bugs (Orius insidious).

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[–] GBU_28@lemm.ee 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Article says larger bugs are ok

[–] enbyecho@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Article says larger bugs are ok

And all the smaller beneficials? A huge number are the same size or not much bigger than thrips. They will be caught by this spray.

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[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

They are if the stickiness is tuned so that larger, predatory insects are easily able to escape the glue.

[–] enbyecho@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

They are if the stickiness is tuned so that larger, predatory insects are easily able to escape the glue.

Most beneficials that go after thrips are not that much bigger than them. The study doesn't seem to mention this (tho I'm still looking for the full text).

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[–] enbyecho@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (12 children)

97% of all insects are beneficials, meaning they are completely harmless or predate on the insects that eat your crops.

But sure, kill them all because bugs ewww.

Edit: Apparently this isn't so obvious to people. Ok, let me explain:

No pesticide can be precisely targeted. You will always capture or kill more insects that are beneficial than are not. In the article it mentions that the sticky spray doesn't capture bigger insects like bees. That's certainly progress over other types of physical traps, but not all insects are very big. Key beneficials like lady bugs, green lacewings, various spiders, pirate bugs, etc are very small. They will be trapped by this spray. If it traps a thrip, it will trap those bugs (and the study abstract says this - "small anthropods"). This isn't mentioned in the article but I can speak to this from personal experience farming. I've tried various options and the results are always the same - you may get rid of some thrips (and boy do I have thrips) but you also wipe out the insects that will eat the thrips and you end up in a kind of arms race. The more beneficials you kill the more pesticides you need.

[–] whoreticulture@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Ecologist here ... you're absolutely right. We can have less efficient agriculture that doesn't require indiscriminate killing of species.

Not surprised you got downvoted here, the literal grass-touching prevalence on this site is extremely low.

[–] enbyecho@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

We can have less efficient agriculture that doesn’t require indiscriminate killing of species.

Thank you!

One of the big lies of modern industrialized agriculture is that we have a production problem. We don't! We have a "profit problem" in the sense that industrialized food producers demand ever greater profits which means they have to continually find ways to get people to eat more "value", in volume and/or value-added processes.

In reality we have a distribution problem that is caused by industrialization and centralization. The real solution is decentralization and diversification.

[–] whoreticulture@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

🫰🏻🫰🏻Yes! We don't need to all eat the same things everywhere. I don't need avocados shipped in from Chile. Local foods is a great way to increase efficiency as well, there is less loss from transportation. But it does mean that you can't eat the same things everywhere you go. If we want to live in a sustainable way, there are big policy changes that need to happen, but those policy changes would lead to changes in our everyday lifestyle. The party's over, we see the results happening right before our eyes and being able to eat the same McDonald's cheeseburger in every country is not worth the cost of mass extinction.

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

"boy do I have thrips" triggered a funny memory.

When I worked in Ag. Research we had a big international field day. People from 50+ countries visiting in. I got the wonderful job of doing presentations in the field all day long. This was in late summer on a bad thrip year.

Well, one of the office goons decided that they would order all the staff polo shirts for the three day event. We were all supposed to wear the same color on the specified day.

They ordered in a light blue, yellow, and green polos. The first day was to be light blue. I "accidentally" wore the green one instead and had a few very irate office goons on my back first off that morning. Strangely enough all of the experienced outdoor staff "accidently" wore the green shirt as well.

For those that don't know, thrips are highly attracted to light blue and they bite. I laughed my ass off most of the day.

The following two days everyone wore green. Except for the one determined office goon who wore the yellow shirt. In a field full of honeybee hives...

[–] Hacksaw@lemmy.ca 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (8 children)

It's not because they're gross, it's because they eat our food. And we grow monocultures so it's a perfect breeding ground for pests. Also if you read the article the new pesticide is physical and doesn't harm large predatory insects.

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[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 7 months ago

How many oil plants to you have to mill up in order to have enough oil to coat a plant?

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