Word: screwworms
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...signing of a U.S.-Mexican agreement to try to eradicate the screwworm -which ravages cattle on both sides of the border-had to be delayed because U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz was out of town. More important, Washington seemed disinclined to honor its promise to halt the dumping of salt into the Colorado River, which leaves much of the soil of Mexico's Mexicali Valley cracked and covered with white cakes of salt...
...insects, for example, might actually go a lot better without chemical pesticides that kill the pests' natural enemies, such as birds. One of the best strategies is to nurture the enemies so they can attack the pests; more insect-resistant crops can also be developed. Florida eliminated the screwworm fly not by spraying but by sterilizing hordes of the male flies, then liberating them to produce infertile eggs. A still newer method is the use of sex attractants to lure male insects into traps and thus to their death...
...Long, Screwworm. Solemnly reporting that there are 81,000 varieties of insects in the U.S., Freeman noted that his department had virtually eradicated the screwworm in the southwestern U.S. and parts of Mexico by attacking the insect's reproductive cycle. He said that he was going next day to the Beltsville, Md., agricultural station to see some experiments along the same line, added: "If you want to see how a cockroach acts when there's some sex attractant around, come on along." To which U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, who was last on the list to recite, replied...
...determine wear in metals. In more than 1,700 U.S. hospitals, radiation is used to diagnose disease, treat cancer and tumors, preserve tissue and blood vessels in banks. It has caused mutations in seeds that produce bigger and better crops, been used to destroy such longtime pests as the screwworm, preserved food indefinitely. Nuclear power is already propelling submarines...
Tried out in 1954 on the West Indian island of Curaçao, the scheme exterminated the island's flies in less than a year (TIME. Feb. 7, 1955). Last spring the USDA and the Florida Livestock Board set up a million-dollar screwworm factory at Sebring, Fla. The fierce, legless maggots are fed on 80,000 Ibs. a week of mixed whale and horse meat flavored with 4,500 gals, of beef blood. When they get their growth and turn into pupae, they are harvested, packed into aluminum canisters, and exposed for 6-2 minutes to gamma rays...