Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Decision awaited on genetically modified insect trial
The hope is that the male fruit flies will seek out and mate with the wild females to pass on the gene
A UK biotechnology company has applied for permission to carry out the first field trial in Europe of a genetically modified insect.
If it receives approval, the company, Oxitec, will carry out a small-scale test of GM olive flies in Spain.
The aim is to combat this olive crop pest by releasing male flies that have a "female-killing gene".
If the GM flies can outbreed the wild flies, the female offspring will die - reducing the olive fly population.
Bumper crop
- Approximately 5 million hectares of farmland in the European Union
- More than half of the world's supply of olive oil is produced in Spain
- Olive oil fraud - where oils are mislabelled or cut with cheaper oils - has become such a recognised problem that the European Commission held a workshop earlier this year, dedicated to finding a reliable way to authenticate olive oil.
Source: European Commission
The technology was created by the co-founder and chief scientific officer at Oxitec, Dr Luke Alphey.
"Olive fly is the single major pest of olive production," Dr Alphey explained.
"In a bad year, you can lose the whole of an olive crop.
"And it's a very hard pest to control; it's been treated with insecticides, but now there's a lot of resistance."
Olives are an important commercial crop in Europe; olive groves account for about five million hectares in the EU. And, according to Oxitec, the olive industry in Greece spends approximately 35 million euros (£30m) annually on insecticides to control olive flies - to prevent an estimated loss to the industry of 650 million euros.
Killer mosquitoesThousands of miles from the Europe's olive groves, the company is testing the ability of its technology to combat a lethal disease.
In Brazil, Oxitec and its collaborators are trialling genetically modified mosquitoes - releasing males with the killer gene in.
The basis of the technology is to inject the insect eggs with the lethal gene - a chunk of genetic code that essentially programmes the flies to die as they're developing.
The scientists have tuned their modification so that it specifically kills females. And, in the laboratory, the scientists rear their flies with a dietary supplement that acts as an antidote to this killer gene.
This means they can breed and rear generations of their GM flies to release into the wild, and have a male-only population.
Once those male GM flies are released, Dr Alphey explained, "they will seek out the wild females, mate with those females and then their female offspring will inherit that gene and as they grow up, they will die."
In the most recent trial in Brazil - in a town called Mandacaru - the company has reported a 96% reduction in the dengue mosquito (Aedes aegypti) population.
The scientists use almost identical technology in their fruit fly research, with the ultimate aim of rearing a female-killing strain of GM male flies.
"We have had years of lab experiments and cage experiments, and an experiment in a glasshouse in Crete," explained Dr Alphey.
"And the next step is the first transition to the field, which is what this Spain trial is."
If they receive permission from the Spanish authorities, the researchers will release GM flies around net-covered olive trees, to contain the insects and to prevent the experiment from "being swamped by flies in the environment".
Unpredictable environment
Helen Wallace from Genewatch, an organisation that monitors the use of genetic technology, has criticised the company.
A major concern, she says is that these non-native flies could have "undesirable genetic traits", such as pesticide resistance, which could spread into the wild population when the flies mate.
"We also don't think it's a very effective technology, "she told BBC News.
"These flies are not sterile. They will produce offspring and those female offspring are programmed to die at the larval stage, which means there will be lots of GM maggots in these olives."
But Dr Alphey says that years of incremental trials and safety testing have now shown "any negative effects on human health or the environment from the use of these insects".
The crop in for this planned Spanish trial will be destroyed after the test. And the company maintains that the specificity of their technology could have significant environmental benefits.
Dr Alphey pointed out that the male flies seek out and mate with the pest species, whereas chemical pesticides can affect a number of different insect species.
Oxitec's chief executive, Hadyn Parry said: "It will have to be approved by regulators in the EU and no regulator would approve a product that carries a health risk."
UK Environment Secretary Owen Paterson recently branded as "wicked" opponents of genetically modified (GM) rice enriched with vitamin A, highlighting his support of research into GM crops.
In response to Oxitec's application, a spokesperson for the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said: "It's crucial that scientific studies like this can go ahead, so we can gather the evidence required about GM technologies that could bring great benefits to farmers and the environment."
Police Could Start Using This High-Tech GPS Tracker To Give You Speeding Tickets
High-speed pursuits cause nearly 400 deaths a year and cost the government more than a billion dollars a year in damages, lawsuits, and medical bills. A new GPS technology may offer a better way to catch crooks.
StarChase is a GPS system that shoots sticky GPS “bullets” onto suspect vehicles from a cannon mounted inside the grille of a police car.
Field trials of the technology indicate that StarChase has a suspect apprehension rate of greater than 80%, with no injuries, fatalities, or property damage.
Here’s how it works:
Courtesy of StarChase
Popular Mechanics has a good explanation of the technology:
StarChase uses a double-barreled compressed-air unit installed in the grille of a police car and loaded with twin 4.5-inch GPS projectiles. When the officer needs to pursue a suspect, he or she activates the launcher using an in-car console or remote key fob. The system uses laser acquisition to target the suspect's fleeing or stationary car and then shoots one of the GPS cartridges like a spud out of a potato gun at its rear end ...
The projectiles are tipped with an industrial-strength adhesive, so they stick. Once the suspect's car is tagged, the GPS module relays the car's coordinates, heading, and speed every 3 to 5 seconds to police dispatch. When officers know the tag is in place, they can pull back and wait for backup—they might even turn off their lights and sirens. Dispatch monitors the tagged vehicle on a digital road map and directs officers to where the suspect is headed. Thinking they are not being followed, suspects return to normal speeds or stop, allowing for safer apprehension.
One roadblock to the system's widespread use is the price tag. The system costs $5,000 per police car and each GPS-projectile runs for about $250 a pop.
According to StarChase president Trevor Fischbach, that price isn't likely to go down because the devices aren't cheap to build. Even so, he thinks that potential benefits outweigh the monetary costs.
“$5,000 is a high cost, but when you factor in that it’s a multibillion dollar problem that leads to lawsuit payout, loss of life, loss of productivity or regular people like you or me getting slammed into at an intersection, that calculation changes,” Fischbach told Business Insider.
Fischbach says that in most pursuits a minimum of $3,000 in property damage occurs. StarChase severely reduces that potential.
More than 15 police agencies, including the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Iowa State Patrol, and the Austin Police Department have begun to use the technology. The Arizona police have had the most high-profile success, using the technology to apprehend a number of stolen cars, seize thousands of pounds of meth and other drugs, and also to uncover a group of underage women who were kidnapped and smuggled across the U.S.-Mexican border.
There has been some question as to the legality of StarChase, which police officers use on the spot. Last year's Supreme Court case, U.S. v Jones, determined that GPS devices constitute a search under the 4th amendment and therefore require a warrant. The use of StarChase, however, has yet to be struck down in court, due to limit in how the system is used.
StarChase isn’t a system designed to GPS-track a car for thirty days, said Fischbach, but rather in a specific set of circumstances, where the situation and public safety warrants it.
“The reason we passed that litmus test is because we fit in a very unique area within GPS,” said Fischbach. “Our technology isn’t deployed until probable cause [has been established] or exigent circumstances.”
If police decide to use it in another manner, say for long-term tracking without a warrant, it may be brought before the court again.
Other potential issues with the technology reside with the efficacy of the GPS-cannon. In the video below, you can see the cannon in use. It appears that, for the GPS-slug to attach to the suspect vehicle, police need to be directly behind the car.
In addition, there is some fear that criminals will act to avoid StarChase, once they know that certain police departments are using it. Fischbach indicated that most police departments using the technology don't want to be named for precisely that reason.
Here's a video from StarChase on the technology. Skip ahead to 0:54 to see it in action:
Robert F Kennedy Jr., shocking Vaccine cover-up
Simpson wood Memo, from the CDC themselves:
link to www.scribd.com