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!!
this post was submitted on 18 May 2024
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Isn't that Lamarckism? If I recall correctly, that's an older model of evolution that is not commonly recognized anymore.
slightly stronger ones survive to pass their genes to their offspring, that's the idea.
Natural selection is usually implied. So, in long form, smaller insects would have to be less reproductively successful, and that's hard when you're a pest that really benefits from being tiny, stealthy and energy-economical.
In the Jurassic period there were giant insects like dragonflies with 4ft wingspan. Turns out THIS is how we get to Jurassic park
Carboniferous period. Jurassic was about 100m years later.
Carboniferous Park
Shit was fire (30% atmospheric oxygen levels)
35%, even. It's more like 20% today, for comparison.
Let's make s movie!
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!
I just asked ChatGPT because I knew something was off.
Not unless the level of oxygen in the air goes up dramatically, that's what allowed those big bodies when they had no lungs
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.
How many oil plants to you have to mill up in order to have enough oil to coat a plant?
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.
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(6 replies)
"Without chemicals"
Okay, no need to take this seriously.
A new non-toxic pesticide can be valuable regardless of the journalist who wrote an article.
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.
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.
You don't understand, this new pesticide consists of tiny leaflets with stories so complelling the insects cannot stop reading them. They are literally (not literally) glued to the page.
edit: and yet the leaflets would be made of chemicals and in the long run would be harmful
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.
Everything is chemicals.
Which is why it should be considered bad practice to use the word "chemicals" as a synonym for "poison."
Yep. Cooking is a chemical reaction.
Beware of dihydrogen monoxide.
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(3 replies)
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.
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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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I doubt any kind of glue can be free of harmful chemicals, especially in the long run.
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.
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