July 04, 2019
The Day of the Roach
Timothy Birdnow
Hew Boy! Cockroaches are becoming immune to insecticides - and America is facing a roachpocalypse!
From Science Mag:
Ye Cats! An immortal roach?! That's scarier than the words "Madam President Clinton".
I have some questions as to the methodology of the study. From the article:
This isn't exactly a controlled experiment. These bugs could have been exposed to all of these chemicals in the past; there is no way of telling if they weren't already immune to them. Also, we don't know for sure that wild roaches weren't getting into the building, replacing sick ones. The article doesn't say what concentration of these chemicals were being used, either.
This experiment should have been done under laboratory controls, rather than in the field.
But be that as it may, it is still disturbing that roaches are surviving our mustard gas attacks. We want to win the war - not have a stalemate. Roaches are vile little critters, almost as bad as CNN.
Cockroaches are very hard to get rid of once they infest a place, but are hardly the most difficult; bedbugs and bird mites are worse. (If you ever have a bird make a nest against your house get it down right away; if the bird has bird mites it will eventually fly away, leaving its parasites homeless, and they may choose to make you their next banquet hall.) But roaches, despite being related to lobsters, have no redeeming features and are just plain nasty. We want to be able to exterminate them with extreme prejudice.
Like the rise of the socialist Democrats in America, the rise of the roach spells trouble.The Day of the Roach seems to be at hand in America - bot in politics and in slum properties.
Hew Boy! Cockroaches are becoming immune to insecticides - and America is facing a roachpocalypse!
From Science Mag:
Cockroaches are becoming invincible. Or at least German cockroaches (Blattella germanica) are, according to a new study. Researchers have found that these creatures, which have long been a prevalent urban pest, are becoming increasingly resistant to almost every kind of chemical insecticide.
Not all insecticides are created equal. Some degrade the nervous system, whereas others attack the exoskeleton; they also have to be left out for varying amounts of time. But many insects, including cockroaches, have evolved resistance to at least one of the most commonly-used insecticides. And because cockroaches live only for about 100 days, that resistance can evolve quickly, with genes from the most resistant cockroaches being passed to the next generation.
Not all insecticides are created equal. Some degrade the nervous system, whereas others attack the exoskeleton; they also have to be left out for varying amounts of time. But many insects, including cockroaches, have evolved resistance to at least one of the most commonly-used insecticides. And because cockroaches live only for about 100 days, that resistance can evolve quickly, with genes from the most resistant cockroaches being passed to the next generation.
Ye Cats! An immortal roach?! That's scarier than the words "Madam President Clinton".
I have some questions as to the methodology of the study. From the article:
To test resistance in German cockroaches, researchers treated three different colonies in multiple apartment buildings in Indiana and Illinois over the course of 6 months. The populations were tested for their level of resistance to three different insecticides: abamectin, boric acid, and thiamethoxam. One treatment used all three pesticides, one after another, for 3 months before repeating the cycle. In another treatment, researchers used a mixture of insecticides over the full 6 months. A final treatment scenario used just one chemical that the selected roach population had a low resistance to for the entire time.
Regardless of the different treatments, the size of most of the cockroach populations didn’t drop over time, the researchers wrote last month in Scientific Reports. That was true even when the researchers used multiple insecticides at once—a standard practice among exterminators. That suggests cockroaches are quickly evolving resistance to all three of the chemicals that were tested. On the upside, the researchers found that one kind of treatment—abamectin gel bait—could wipe out a portion of the colony—if the roaches had a low-level resistance.
Regardless of the different treatments, the size of most of the cockroach populations didn’t drop over time, the researchers wrote last month in Scientific Reports. That was true even when the researchers used multiple insecticides at once—a standard practice among exterminators. That suggests cockroaches are quickly evolving resistance to all three of the chemicals that were tested. On the upside, the researchers found that one kind of treatment—abamectin gel bait—could wipe out a portion of the colony—if the roaches had a low-level resistance.
This isn't exactly a controlled experiment. These bugs could have been exposed to all of these chemicals in the past; there is no way of telling if they weren't already immune to them. Also, we don't know for sure that wild roaches weren't getting into the building, replacing sick ones. The article doesn't say what concentration of these chemicals were being used, either.
This experiment should have been done under laboratory controls, rather than in the field.
But be that as it may, it is still disturbing that roaches are surviving our mustard gas attacks. We want to win the war - not have a stalemate. Roaches are vile little critters, almost as bad as CNN.
Cockroaches are very hard to get rid of once they infest a place, but are hardly the most difficult; bedbugs and bird mites are worse. (If you ever have a bird make a nest against your house get it down right away; if the bird has bird mites it will eventually fly away, leaving its parasites homeless, and they may choose to make you their next banquet hall.) But roaches, despite being related to lobsters, have no redeeming features and are just plain nasty. We want to be able to exterminate them with extreme prejudice.
Like the rise of the socialist Democrats in America, the rise of the roach spells trouble.The Day of the Roach seems to be at hand in America - bot in politics and in slum properties.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
07:43 AM
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You're right about the experiment not being a controlled one. Perhaps we should try it on CNN (your comparison is accurate), or at least their headquarters. It would be much easier to evaluate the results.
Posted by: Dana Mathewson at July 04, 2019 09:36 AM (5yyaV)
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