Five pest species now immune to GMO corn and cotton

[xchrom]

http://grist.org/news/five-pest-species-now-immune-to-gmo-corn-and-cotton/


Yum, genetically engineered corn and cotton.

That isn’t what most people would think. (Especially the cotton bit. And especially the GMO bit.)

But a growing number of pests appear to share this sentiment. They’ve developed immunity to corn and cotton crops genetically engineered to contain the pesticide Bt, so they’re now munching away with impunity.

As of 2010, five of 13 major pest species had become largely immune to the Bt poisons in GMO corn and cotton, compared to just one species in 2005, scientists write in a paper published in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

[Buzz Clik]

1. Pretty much the natural progression.

The same trends are observed for pesticides of all kinds.

[FogerRox]

6. Resistence to BT thru overuse was known in the 80's

Monsanto might not admit it, but they also knew the possibility that these plants would face insects that developed resistance to BT.

[truebluegreen]

2. Nobody could have predicted....

[roody]

3. +1

[4_TN_TITANS]

4. I'm still amazed that some people deny evolution...

This is evolution in real-time, with critters that have much shorter life cycles.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. I had a conversation with an earnest young man a year or so ago…

He said he believed in (what he called) “microevolution” but not what he called “macroevolution” (He believed that bacteria could evolve resistance to antibiotics for example, but he didn’t believe that higher-order creatures could evolve, or that there was any evidence of it having happened in the past.)

He said that someone had recently raised the example of “whales with feet” though, which he needed to think about…