Many of the pests that eat our farm crops have been sprayed with pesticides so much they have evolved resistance and can't be killed by them, just like some bacteria have evolved to become resistant to antibiotics.
But scientists at UC San Diego can now genetically engineer new insects of the same species that are not resistant to pesticides. And they can easily pass on their traits when they breed with pesticide-resistant bugs.
They've done it with fruit flies and say the same can be done with beetles, moths and other pests. "So if you can make the insects sensitive to it again, then you can just keep on using the same pesticides we already have that work, but at much lower frequency and much lower doses," said Ethan Bier, professor of biology at UC San Diego. "So the total burden you put on the environment could go down by orders of magnitude, potentially."
The bugs, engineered in a lab, carry a genetic drive that eliminates the pesticide-resistant mutations.
Read more at KPBS