Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides: study

Re:Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in tox... by mhkool on Sunday August 11, 2019 @07:42AM (#20667689)

You are making an assumtpion that your dsRNA is safe. The same type of assumption was made with Roundup where Roundup "only" effected a single pathway. We now know that this assumption was wrong and that Roundup causes cancer. Making assumptions is a very dangerous game.

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Re:Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in tox... by gravelc on Sunday August 11, 2019 @08:11AM (#20667785)

You're already eating dsRNA. Plants have microRNA precursors and viruses. We eat plants.

Roundup is a synthetic herbicide - that they both could be used in agriculture is when the similarity ends.

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Re:Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in tox... by mhkool on Sunday August 11, 2019 @08:30AM (#20667863)

I know the difference between herbicides and microRNA but you do not seem to see the assumptions that you make.

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Re:Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in tox... by irq11 on Sunday August 11, 2019 @12:59PM (#20669063)

Your logic disallows absolutely everything: I don’t know what the impact is of your existence, so the safe thing to do is to not allow you to exist.

At some point, you take calculated risks, because there is no action in life that comes without risk. Even your preferred solution of eliminating all chemicals and switching to alternative farming practices comes with substantial risk: it’s very likely it won’t scale. Millions would starve.

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Re:Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in tox... by dang on Sunday August 11, 2019 @01:02PM (#20669082)

Please don't cross into getting personal. No comment contains everything someone sees.

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Re:Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in tox... by gravelc on Sunday August 11, 2019 @08:40AM (#20667909)

What is the difference?

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Re:Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in tox... by skosch on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @12:41PM (#20687495)

The difference is: the dose makes the poison.

Organisms may be able to handle everyday quantities of dsRNA, but beyond a certain concentration, you may suddenly see unexpected problems, which then cause domino effects throughout the ecosystem. These kinds of relationships are unknown unknowns, and they rarely behave linearly.

I really like the RNA-based approach, don't get me wrong, but the other commenters here are right to point out that hubris is dangerous.

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