5 ms·

It’s going to be fascinating to see what new laser resistant weeds and bugs come out of this.

tossandthrow 2y ago
Why would that develop? The only reason why crops needs to have resistens now is because we treat the entire field with the stuff. With lasers, you can treat the individual item.
- ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
  GP wasn't talking about crops, but about the selective pressure that would be placed on weeds to better survive laser attacks. I could imagine that weeds would either develop heat resistance or would change appearance to make detection harder.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - goda90 2y ago
    Changing appearance to avoid detection is as old a agriculture. In fact it's why we have some foods we enjoy now. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vavilovian_mimicry https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vavilovian_mimicry
- BenFranklin100 2y ago
  The OP is making a joke.
isoprophlex 2y ago
I'm imagining a field full of chrome-plated beetles and metallic, reflective grasses, haha
Mistletoe 2y ago
That’s probably not possible for the same reason that we don’t get bacteria resistant to things like ethanol and bleach. https://ehs.weill.cornell.edu/pathogen-resistance-and-disinfectants https://ehs.weill.cornell.edu/pathogen-resistance-and-disinf...
- ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
  Are you sure? This article claims that we are seeing bacteria evolve to better tolerate alcohols: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322646#Alcohol-resistant-bacteria https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322646#Alcohol-res...
  - throwup238 2y ago
    The paper is titled ” Increasing tolerance of hospital Enterococcus faecium to _handwash_ alcohols” [1]. They’re tolerating small concentrations of alcohol used in hand sanitizer, not a concentrated disinfectant. [1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.aar6115 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.aar6115
    - realharo 2y ago
      The concentration of alcohol in hand sanitizers is like 70%, not small.
    - Mistletoe 2y ago
      Thank you for the interesting article! The response letter at the bottom- “Is the effectiveness of alcohol-based handrubs against enterococci really compromised?” by INGEBORG SCHWEBKE has some interesting counterpoints and implies they used 23% isopropanol instead of 70%, which is not enough to sterilize.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- notamy 2y ago
  > bacteria resistant to things like [...] bleach. About that... https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.001418 https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/micro/1...
  - throwup238 2y ago
EGreg 2y ago
Most likely they will become AI-resistant. PS: I know the above was a joke, but it shows people embrace the power of AI so much they can see the weeds withstanding lasers before they can withstand AI classification.
m_fayer 2y ago
Skipped right over the bulletproof bugs…
raldi 2y ago
I’d expect the robots to evolve faster than the bugs.
- ysofunny 2y ago
  but I rather be lazier, and have a low effort lifestyle rather than be engaged in an arms race against insect lifeforms! and I said this becase I take "robots evolving" to mean tech workers being pressured to work by their bosses
  - raldi 2y ago
    I think if you asked a farmer, "buy laser robots" is a lot lazier than "deal with insect pests". Robots evolving would be someone signing off on the investment of doing a big compute run.
eurekin 2y ago
there already are mirror like beetles, maybe weeds will catch up to that :D
datadata 2y ago
Or perhaps Vavilovian mimicry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vavilovian_mimicry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vavilovian_mimicry) that can fool the computer vision weed classifier.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
M95D 2y ago
Larry Niven's sunflowers? https://larryniven.fandom.com/wiki/Slaver_Sunflower https://larryniven.fandom.com/wiki/Slaver_Sunflower

Why would that develop? The only reason why crops needs to have resistens now is because we treat the entire field with the stuff. With lasers, you can treat the individual item.

ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
GP wasn't talking about crops, but about the selective pressure that would be placed on weeds to better survive laser attacks. I could imagine that weeds would either develop heat resistance or would change appearance to make detection harder.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- goda90 2y ago
  Changing appearance to avoid detection is as old a agriculture. In fact it's why we have some foods we enjoy now. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vavilovian_mimicry https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vavilovian_mimicry
BenFranklin100 2y ago
The OP is making a joke.

isoprophlex 2y ago

I'm imagining a field full of chrome-plated beetles and metallic, reflective grasses, haha

Mistletoe 2y ago

That’s probably not possible for the same reason that we don’t get bacteria resistant to things like ethanol and bleach. https://ehs.weill.cornell.edu/pathogen-resistance-and-disinfectants https://ehs.weill.cornell.edu/pathogen-resistance-and-disinf...

ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
Are you sure? This article claims that we are seeing bacteria evolve to better tolerate alcohols: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322646#Alcohol-resistant-bacteria https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322646#Alcohol-res...
- throwup238 2y ago
  The paper is titled ” Increasing tolerance of hospital Enterococcus faecium to _handwash_ alcohols” [1]. They’re tolerating small concentrations of alcohol used in hand sanitizer, not a concentrated disinfectant. [1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.aar6115 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.aar6115
  - realharo 2y ago
    The concentration of alcohol in hand sanitizers is like 70%, not small.
  - Mistletoe 2y ago
    Thank you for the interesting article! The response letter at the bottom- “Is the effectiveness of alcohol-based handrubs against enterococci really compromised?” by INGEBORG SCHWEBKE has some interesting counterpoints and implies they used 23% isopropanol instead of 70%, which is not enough to sterilize.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
notamy 2y ago
> bacteria resistant to things like [...] bleach. About that... https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.001418 https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/micro/1...
- throwup238 2y ago

EGreg 2y ago

Most likely they will become AI-resistant. PS: I know the above was a joke, but it shows people embrace the power of AI so much they can see the weeds withstanding lasers before they can withstand AI classification.

m_fayer 2y ago

Skipped right over the bulletproof bugs…

raldi 2y ago

I’d expect the robots to evolve faster than the bugs.

ysofunny 2y ago
but I rather be lazier, and have a low effort lifestyle rather than be engaged in an arms race against insect lifeforms! and I said this becase I take "robots evolving" to mean tech workers being pressured to work by their bosses
- raldi 2y ago
  I think if you asked a farmer, "buy laser robots" is a lot lazier than "deal with insect pests". Robots evolving would be someone signing off on the investment of doing a big compute run.

eurekin 2y ago

there already are mirror like beetles, maybe weeds will catch up to that :D

datadata 2y ago

Or perhaps Vavilovian mimicry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vavilovian_mimicry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vavilovian_mimicry) that can fool the computer vision weed classifier.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

M95D 2y ago

Larry Niven's sunflowers? https://larryniven.fandom.com/wiki/Slaver_Sunflower https://larryniven.fandom.com/wiki/Slaver_Sunflower