Popular Science reports that geneticist in Canada have taught a breed of fruit flies to count to four. It has only taken them 40 generations (they must have smoked a lot of weed in that breed). I’m sure the scientists were high 5ing each other but I remember something else that started out like this….. Planet Of The Apes.
Maybe I’m just paranoid but there are already a bazillion of flies around the world but it seems to me the last thing we need to do is help them develop the skills necessary to take over the world more than they already have. Math and language are the building blocks of society. We just gave flies 1 and we assume they don’t have the other but I’m sure they can communicate with each other. Even if they kill them all I’m sure 1 will get away in a sort of Outbreak scenario (that movie is where most of my ideas about the disease originate).
Once the fly escapes its only a matter of time until he becomes the Einstein of the fly world and gives them the fly equivalent of the atomic bomb with his theories. He’ll end up having children and passing along the necessary requirements to do his complicated levels of math and from there the ball will be rolling. Soon the flies will find a way to defeat all the predators in their food chain and then will become top of the food chain and it will just be a matter of time before they dominate our food chain.
All this because some scientist thought it would be cool to make money showing flies how to count….. Or maybe I’m just paranoid.
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