Humanity is constantly devising new and exciting ways to thoroughly exterminate insect species. It’s not our fault that they are killing us as they spread disease and damage crops.
To fight back so we can maintain a foothold on our domination of the earth, researchers Samuel Beach and Maciej Maselko from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia have come up with a method they call the “toxic male technique.” This technique involves genetically modifying insects so that they create venom proteins in their reproductive systems and expel poisoned semen when they mate.
Literal Toxic Masculinity Could Help Suppress Insect Populations
The idea is that these literally toxic male insects will pass on their rancid semen to females during mating, thus prematurely killing the female before it can give birth. The researchers tested a variety of venom proteins in fruit flies. They found that proteins from the Brazilian wandering spider and the sea anemone were especially effective, shortening the lifespans of mated females by up to 64%.
Pair that up with other methods of reducing insect populations like releasing genetically modified mosquitoes or making mosquitoes that are born deaf so they’ll stop having sex, and we may soon live in a world that has just enough insects to maintain ecological balance while ensuring as few humans contract the disease as they carry.
The success of this method depends entirely on whether scientists can precisely control the amount of venom proteins in males without harming them before they can pass on their poisoned cum. Because we wouldn’t want to kill insects before we use them to kill other insects.
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