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@Stubble

Invasion of the Screwworm
The New World screwworm is marching northward from Central America at an alarming rate. The fly’s larvae eat the flesh of livestock and have moved some 1,400 miles from southern Panama to southern Mexico in about two years. The northernmost sighting is currently about 700 miles south of the U.S. border.

Why it matters: Screwworms are disastrous for ranchers, whose cattle can become infected when the flies lay eggs in cuts or wounds, after which their resulting larvae burrow, or screw, into that flesh. The resulting infection can cause weight loss, impaired milk production and even death from secondary infections. The fly larvae can infect humans too, especially those who work closely with livestock, for which there is no treatment other than surgery.

What can be done: Throughout Central America, agricultural departments keep fly populations down by releasing millions of sterile male flies per week. Female screwworms mate only once in their lifetime, so the infertile males reduce the size of the next generation of flies. In May, ethicists and entomologists wrote in a paper in Science that the screwworm is a good candidate for complete elimination that won’t adversely affect local ecology. Scientists could use genetic engineering to insert a deadly mutation into the fly’s sperm and egg cells, which would be passed on to the next generation.

What the experts say: Consistent use of the sterile male flies technique eradicated the screwworm from the U.S. in 1966 and from regions north of the Darién Gap (the zone that connects Central and South America) in 2006. But the flies are spreading again. “I don’t know how it got away so quickly,” says Maxwell Scott, an entomologist at North Carolina State University. “There had to be some movement of infested livestock, particularly through the middle [of Central America].... It just moved too fast.”

@d_blades said:
We already know AI lies, I'm not buying it.

But if it supported your argument, would you have responded the same way?

I wonder if it would constant phantom pain like some amputees suffer?

Ditto, same gutter
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WordleBot
Skill 87/99
Luck 45/99

146 day streak snapped. Between two words and I guessed the wrong one.
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Rudyard Kipling​
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The Betrothed​
"You must choose between me and your cigar."
-- BREACH OF PROMISE CASE, CIRCA 1885.

Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,
For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.

We quarrelled about Havanas -- we fought o'er a good cheroot,
And I knew she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.

Open the old cigar-box -- let me consider a space;
In the soft blue veil of the vapour musing on Maggie's face.

Maggie is pretty to look at -- Maggie's a loving lass,
But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pass.

There's peace in a Larranaga, there's calm in a Henry Clay;
But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away --

Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown --
But I could not throw away Maggie for fear o' the talk o' the town!

Maggie, my wife at fifty -- grey and dour and old --
With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold!

And the light of Days that have Been the dark of the Days that Are,
And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar --

The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket --
With never a new one to light tho' it's charred and black to the socket!

Open the old cigar-box -- let me consider a while.
Here is a mild Manila -- there is a wifely smile.

Which is the better portion -- bondage bought with a ring,
Or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string?

Counsellors cunning and silent -- comforters true and tried,
And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride?

Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes,
Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close,

This will the fifty give me, asking nought in return,
With only a Suttee's passion -- to do their duty and burn.

This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead,
Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.

The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main,
When they hear my harem is empty will send me my brides again.

I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal,
So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.

I will scent 'em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their hides,
And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides.

For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between
The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o' Teen.

And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth clear,
But I have been Priest of Cabanas a matter of seven year;

And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light
Of stumps that I burned to Friendship and Pleasure and Work and Fight.

And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove,
But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o'-the-Wisp of Love.

Will it see me safe through my journey or leave me bogged in the mire?
Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?

Open the old cigar-box -- let me consider anew --
Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon you?

A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;
And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.

Light me another Cuba -- I hold to my first-sworn vows.
If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for Spouse!