5 ms·
This is pretty alarming and suggests that soaking agricultural land in insecticides might be having some far-reaching side effects.
by jpm_sd 9y ago
This is pretty alarming and suggests that soaking agricultural land in insecticides might be having some far-reaching side effects.
- tobltobs 9y agoside effects?
- undersuit 9y agoPrimary effects.
- rando444 9y agoWhile plausible, this study doesn't suggest that. They mention it as a potential cause, but did no research to that effect and even state they made no attempt to measure such things.
- DoodleBuggy 9y agoWell, the intention of insecticides is to kill insects. All insects. It's working, but perhaps a little too well?
- turk184 9y agoExactly. It's what humanity set out to do--we applied chemistry and other sciences to the problem and solved it and now somebody is complaining. Someone who didn't get malaria.
- lightbyte 9y agoThe intention of insecticides is to kill the insects that prey on specific crops, not to kill every single insect there is. It's working better than they thought, causing it to have unintended consequences.
- doctorcroc 9y agoThe primary suspected cause of this is a class of insecticides called neonicotinoids. These are not sprayed, but rather coated on seeds (which is arguably even more alarming). See: https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v521/n7550/full/nature14420.html https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v521/n7550/full/nature...