Monday 24 March 2014

Tiny weapons wage war on flies

TINY sensors glued to flies will help scientists deploy infiltrators to help protect the $6.9 billion horticultural industry.

The CSIRO has developed a sterile strain of male-only Queensland fruit flies to disrupt the insects' breeding cycles. Each could prevent countless females from breeding because female fruit flies -- unlike the males -- mate only once. The approach, known as sterile insect technology, has been used against fruit flies for 50 years but the national science agency plans to unleash the first flies sterilised by genetic engineering rather than radiation, which hinders them from competing for females.

No comments:

Post a Comment

You only need to enter your comment once! Comments will appear once they have been moderated. This is so as to stop the would-be comedian who has been spamming the comments here with inane and often offensive remarks. You know who you are!

Related Posts with Thumbnails

ShareThis