The United States has, for 70 years, been fighting a continuous aerial war against the New World screwworm, a parasite that eats animals alive: cow, pig, deer, dog, even human. (Its scientific name, C. hominivorax, translates to “man-eater.”) Larvae of the parasitic fly chew through flesh, transforming small nicks into big, gruesome wounds. But in the 1950s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture laid the groundwork for a continent-wide assault. Workers raised screwworms in factories, blasted them with radiation until they were sterile, and dropped the sterile adult screwworms by the millions—even hundreds of millions—weekly over the U.S., then farther south in Mexico, and eventually in the rest of North America.
The sterile flies proceeded to, well, screw the continent’s wild populations into oblivion, and in 2006, an invisible barrier was established at the Darién Gap, the jungle that straddles the Panama-Colombia border, to cordon the screwworm-free north off from the south. The barrier, as I observed when I reported from Panama several years ago, consisted of planes releasing millions of sterile screwworms to rain down over the Darién Gap every week. This never-ending battle kept the threat of screwworms far from America.
But in 2022, the barrier was breached. Cases in Panama—mostly in cattle—skyrocketed from dozens a year to 1,000, despite ongoing drops of sterile flies. The parasite then began moving northward, at first slowly and then rapidly by 2024, which is when I began getting alarmed emails from those following the situation in Central America. As of this month, the parasite has advanced 1,600 miles through eight countries to reach Oaxaca and Veracruz in Mexico, with 700 miles left to go until the Texas border. The U.S. subsequently suspended live-cattle imports from Mexico.
Central America is shaped like a funnel with a long, bumpy tail that reaches its skinniest point in Panama. Back in the day, the USDA helped pay for screwworm eradication down to Panama out of not pure altruism but economic pragmatism: Establishing a 100-mile screwworm barrier there is cheaper than creating one at the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. Even after screwworms began creeping up the tail of the funnel recently, the anti-screwworm campaign had one last good chance of stopping them at a narrow isthmus in southern Mexico—after which the funnel grows dramatically wider. It failed. The latest screwworm detections in Oaxaca and Veracruz are just beyond the isthmus.
Rather go back to the bird flu please.
Gold thing we have the most incompotent administration in history to deal with this one.
The USDA was certainly not spared the doge axe, they closed offices all along what will soon be the battlefront in this war.
We need to send them down there, the leaders need to see things firsthand in the screwworm swamps.
Turns out the worms don’t care about borders, and we shouldn’t have stopped at an imaginary line to save a few bucks.
It was a very well run and thought out practical plan, it was also cut by doge in breeding season.
The brainworm is calling its allies
ahh yes the Pestilence is in good form but my money is on famine, even though a parlay on war and death together has a big payday. Make your bets folks, scared money don’t make money.
I know this isn’t the time or place. But Death deserves a proper name. It’s a weird hill I preach on since figuring it out.
Death comes for us all.
Pestilence - disease, by virus, bacteria, parasite, prion, etc will lead to death.
Famine - starvation, or dehydration, or simply lack of proper nutrition leads to death.
War - violence, man vs man, for reasons unknown, but entirely human made leads to death.
Death - Leads to death? His name should be something else we fear. And what we fear is related to the above. A few names I propose are Mortality, Age, or just Time - we cannot live forever.
It’s called Entropy and ironically it is also responsible for life.
A wall tends to fall apart (and not the other way around) because these individual pieces have greater degrees of freedom (of movement) than the wall itself. Living beings, through their exchanges with the environment, breathing, consuming and excreting, end up increasing the degrees of freedom of the matter in their vicinity.
In more concise words:
“Life, as a highly organized system, exists in a state of relatively low entropy, while the universe as a whole is constantly moving towards higher entropy (more disorder) according to the second law of thermodynamics. It may seem paradoxical, a violation of a fundamental law of physics, but life actually increases the overall entropy of the universe as it utilizes energy and resources to maintain its own order, eventually releasing waste and heat back into the environment.”
In short, life ultimately increases movement, transformation, decay, disorder and thus death.
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Death and “decay” right? The little dust motes, the stray sock on your chair, the mold in your shower, the grey hair on your head, the new wrinkle near your eye, the new ache in your knee, the yellowing family photos, the moment when you can’t quite remember your nephews name.
The little things that fall apart until that one day you just… stop.
Sorta fun related fact, in the original text Death is actually the only one who has a name at all, the rest have just been inferred based on historical context.
It’s almost like iron age peasants weren’t the best people to write stories about the machinations of the universe
There was once a writing prompts story on reddit. The fifth horseman called Kyle. If anyone can, please repost it here. It was very good.
I vote for him.
Think I found it The prompt itself called him Kyle so not sure which response you had in mind.
This one is the top comment:
Death was the oldest. Since time immemorial, people have died and they have come to him. Mankind fights an endless war against him. Though they may have succeeded in stifling his actions, Death is patient. He knows that in the end, all things come to him.
Pestilence was Death’s brother. He brought plague upon the lands. Staining the Earth black with disease and blight. His method of bringing people to his brother was slow and excruciating. However, mankind have begun to stave him off. Disease was beaten by technology and he increasingly faded into irrelevance.
Famine was as old as Death and pre-dated the birth of mankind. He worked with Pestilence to target the source of man’s strength, his food and fuel. He destroyed crop and rotted grain. Starvation and a slow path to Death awaited those afflicted by him. However, man stood strong against him. They developed methods to create a surplus of food, too much for Famine to destroy. They developed methods to deflect his hand so that he may no longer afflict the source of man’s strength. Thus, Famine, like Pestilence, faded into irrelevance.
War was the youngest. He was smart and cunning. He channeled man’s strength against themselves. Conflict and strife became the grounds for which man displayed his strength. Efficient in work, he brought many to Death. However after his most brilliant work, where War embroiled the world twice over, mankind caught on to his cunning. Man made laws and grew to depend on each other. Though they may never fully quell War’s influence, they made sure he would never afflict the world so spectacularly ever again.
Death was unhappy. Mankind had defeated his brothers and impeded his work. In his impatience and anger, he consulted his 5th brother, Kyle.
Kyle was a strange fellow amongst the brothers. He was quiet, lazy and seemed to care little for Death’s work. He decided that his own birthname was too tedious to pronounce and opted for an easier name. Gaelic in origin, “Kyle” meant “narrow” a strange name for a Horseman to take on.
“Help me Kyle. My brothers are defeated. Mankind may one day defeat me as well. Please help out just this once.” Kyle said nothing and merely nodded. He then disappeared off to perform his work.
As Death sat around his bedridden brothers, a miracle occured. Pestilence finger twitched and he his hands grew fleshy. Disease once again spread around the world. No longer as powerful as he once was, but alive once again.
Famine groaned and began to sit upright. Once again, crops wilted and people starved. Famine however, felt something amiss, some of his work was…voluntary. Mankind began to starve itself.
War rose from his bed with new found strength. The gears of conflict shook off their rust and began to turn once again. Innocents die in battle again, widows gained and fathers lost. Misguided soldiers die under authority’s whims.
“You revived our brothers Kyle. How did you do it?” Asked Death, impressed with Kyle’s work.
"I am Kyle, “narrow”, the fourth of the Horsemen. Born with humanity but before War. My influence appeared when the first man decided that he did not need his tribe to survive. Narrow are the minds of humans.
Humans defeated disease with miracle cures. Now some fear that those cures are harmful to them. Let them face Pestilence’s wrath.
Humans defeated Famine through piling resources and modifying crop. Now they hoard but never give. They let their breathren starve. Now they feel that excess of food is sin. They willing starve themselves of their source of strength to meet society’s whims. Let them suffer by Famine’s hand.
Humans defeated War through tolerance, diplomacy and restraint. Now they turn intolerant and unleash violence against those not of their own group. They justify their “Holy Wars” with the blood of innocents. Violence begets violence, vengeance for innocent blood spilled is carried out by the sword. Let them spiral down to oblivion, guided by War.
Narrow are the minds of humans. They do not think before they act. They believe what they want to believe and ignore what they don’t.
I am Ignorance. Until mankind is capable of defeating me, they can never truly destroy the Horsemen."
That’s the one! Thanks.
Shouldn’t it be “he consulted his 4th brother”? Unless there’s one we don’t know about… yet.
Pestilence, TACO Don and the Ketamine Kid. Just waiting on the fourth horseman. This is shaping up to be an amazing year. :p
As scary as the article makes screworms look, that thing doing the calling is way scarier.
Oh, and the worm that died inside its brain once too.
This explains everything going on in the world
RFK Jr “Yall hear a new worm just dropped! Gawd damn gotta get me one!” (Insert jackhammered freak shake voice)
you are the first person that I’ve seen to finally mention his voice. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with his entire vocal box?? How can a person, any person, listen to RFK Jr for any period of time, and think to himself “This person seems to know a lot about health”???
you are the first person that I’ve seen to finally mention his voice. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with his entire vocal box??
I think most people don’t talk about it because there are plenty of things to complain about with RFK Jr, we don’t have to resort to ableism.
He has a condition called spasmodic dysphonia. Legendary NPR interviewer Diane Rehm also suffered from this condition, which eventually ended her radio career.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think it’s because of his terrible health decisions. It happens to some people.
Apologies, I never intended to sound ableist. I see now how my comment came across.
I didn’t think you meant to, and I wasn’t trying to be accusatory. It’s a pretty fair assumption to think he messed himself up, judging by his…colorful habits.
It’s the worms talking for him. He’s like that guy from Nightmare before Christmas.
All you need to do is look at the man… His face looks like an old catcher’s mitt
A balloon full of jam
Popped American football lookin ass
If you do heroine for 15 years like RFK jr did then you’ll suffer actual brain damage which will make you sound like that. Spasmodic dysphonia my ass, maybe shouldn’t have taken all that H eh? His brain worm was keeping the lights on, that dude gave way better advice than the human taco shell that is RFK jr
Anybody who wants more info on this can watch this video https://youtu.be/zxq60I5RSW8
From the one and only Kurzgesagt
So why is the “wall” not working anymore? Do we have a scientific explanation?
How screwworms managed to jump the barrier in 2022 is not fully clear. But in the years immediately before, the coronavirus pandemic reportedly created supply-chain snarls at the fly factory in Panama and disrupted regular cattle inspections that might have set off the alarm bells earlier.
Still, the screwworm advanced relatively slowly through Panama and Costa Rica for the first couple of years.
800,000 cattle a year are raised illegally in nature reserves [in Central America] and then smuggled by boat and truck up to Mexico. This allowed the screwworm to spread much faster than it can fly [beginning in 2024]. The line of new screwworm cases followed known smuggling routes
Thanks
Maybe they learned to swim…
Was wondering myself. I’m worried we’ve done the same thing to these bugs that we did to bacterial pathogens with antibiotics. I.e. we found a REALLY powerful weapon, used it enough to massively alter the survival pressures of the species, but not enough to eradicate it entirely until they just genetically adapt around that new pressure. If some genetic lines of the species were more inclined to radiation resistance or to altered reproduction patterns/sexual selection, then those became the only genetic lines that can propogate. Would be slow at first, but exponential growth is a bitch. There is a finite window of generations to wipe them all out before they’re all replaced by the more resistant genetic lines. Super bugs.
That’s not what happened. It’s good old human getting lazy and pandemic delays that allowed them past the Darien Gap. Followed by good old human smuggling cattle north into Mexico that made them move so fast.
please stop playing plague inc with the world
Plagues are constantly happening as pathogens & pest continuously mutate. It’s a constant risk to ourselves and everything we eat.
Don’t worry fam we got the best team on this situation with the best leadership…and…oh shit never mind.
the fucking what?
A worm that screws you
Just in time for the new Kurtzgesagt video about them
there’s also a more in-depth video by tom scott on a similar type of problem with an almost identical solution
There is already one or you’re expecting one soon?
Someone posted it down below. I just hadn’t seen that comment, yet. Thank you for providing a link!
Hey Canadians, you guys still have science up there, right? I got a two-four of Molson or Labatt for ya if you can lend your continental neighbors a hand. Don’t do it for the US, but help out Mexico eh?
Go suck a dick, really- we have been shouting for about 25 years that exactly this was going to happen and you told us “fuck off, you’re America’s hat”
Eh, I’m from Detroit, we drink Canadian beer and would never speak ill of our southern neighbors. Heck, I grew up watching Hockey Night on CBC and listening to 89x. Can’t speak for the rest of the country though.
But for real, these critters sound scary, and apparently we’re all out of science. Or any sort of common sense. Yeah, we’re fucked.
You really are Canadian. That was more polite than we deserved.
Why you mad at Mexico?
Ooh here she comes… Watch out boys, she’ll chew you up!
She only comes out at night, though.
is this something I should be freaking out about? I’d much rather not wind up with a bunch of larvae-infested wounds that I almost certainly would pick at.
Yes, if you live if NA
Dont click, you have been warned.
*is from NA* fuck
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New rfk jr companions (possibly NSFW)
