Could 1)Insects Be Used as Instruments of Biological Warfare

Broadcast: Jan 29, 2003

 

The use of insects as agents of warfare¹ is not a new idea. In the ²⁾Biblical story of the ³⁾Exodus, one of the ⁴⁾plagues visited upon the Egyptians was a horde² of ⁵⁾locusts. In a short-lived program in the mid-20th century, the U.S. Army reared 100 million yellow fever mosquitoes each week for possible use as a biological weapon against enemy troops.

"There are very few examples of where insects were used in the context of weapons of war, and there's almost no examples of where they were effective," Mr. Carey said.

James Carey is a professor of ⁶⁾entomology at the University of California, Davis, a specialist in what he calls 'invasion biology.' Although he doesn't consider the potential entomological threat to the United States to be as important as other forms of bioterrorism, he does see a way insects could be used as an economic weapon, targeted at American agriculture. Crop-destroying pests, he said, would be one likely form of attack.

"If you find what they call a 'Class-A pest' like the Mediterranean³ fruit fly and you have someone with a bottle full of Medflies deliberately⁴ planting them in traps, what happens is that it sets in motion the ⁷⁾eradication programs, it sets in motion the ⁸⁾quarantines so far, because it's very difficult to distinguish between a real outbreak and one that's deliberately planted. So I can see that as the worst nightmare situation," he said.

The ⁹⁾screwworm, which can devastate⁵ cattle herds⁶, is also small enough to carry in a bottle and release onto a ranch⁷, triggering an ¹⁰⁾infestation that, if unchecked, could cause serious economic damage.

But according to Ian McDonnell, executive director of the North American Plant Protection Organization, there are myriad⁸ systems in place in the United States, as well as Canada and Mexico, that can identify, control and eradicate⁹ pests, no matter how they're introduced.

"We certainly rely on surveillance and the ability to rapidly identify the existence of a new pest and that's not restricted to governments. Producers, who are very well in tune¹⁰ with their crop, will be able to identify a new pest situation. We rely on universities and other academic institutions, scientific societies such as the Entomological Society of America, literature reports. So there's a vast array of sources that we count on to identify these new pest situations," Mr. McDonnell said.

In addition, the diversity of American agriculture makes it unlikely that an insect attack on a single commodity could have the ¹¹⁾catastrophic effect a terrorist group would probably be seeking. Still, entomologist James Carey says he would like to see closer ¹²⁾collaboration between medical ¹³⁾epidemiologists and invasion biologists in developing a national policy to prepare for pest outbreaks caused by such ¹⁴⁾saboteurs.

"Clearly, you need a short-term program where you're always prepared for these outbreaks, but that's no different than preparing for naturally occurring outbreaks. I think one of the dangers here is for regulatory agencies to start seeing terrorist bogeymen all over the place and attribute these naturally occurring outbreaks to the terrorist planet and so forth," Mr. Carey said.

Yet, even as some entomologists discount the threat of insects being used as weapons, others are working to develop insects for military defense¹¹ for example, wasps¹² trained to become weapon detectors¹³.

"One of the things we've learned is that wasps can be trained to detect numerous odors, and so you can train them to detect odors, like explosives food odors, and perform certain behaviors in response," Jim Tumlinson works for the USDA's Agricultural Research Service, in Gainesville, Florida. His work takes advantage of the wasps' natural feeding responses, such as rubbing their ¹⁵⁾antennas on a spot with food or getting in position to sting their prey¹⁴. Once the wasps learn to associate a particular odor with food, the scientists can watch for those feeding behaviors.

"One of the projects we were working on was to see if we could train wasps to locate explosives that might be in ¹⁶⁾landmines. This project is not complete and there's still a long way to go to develop wasps as detectors of chemicals of various types. But certainly they have the ability to learn we haven't found a chemical yet that they couldn't learn," Mr. Tumlinson said.

Mr. Tumlinson predicts that trained wasps might one day also be used to detect dangerous food contaminants like ¹⁷⁾salmonella and aflotoxin.

In this post 9-11 world, the U.S. government and the farming community are on high-alert to possible sabotage¹⁵ - aware that even in peacetime, they can expect insects will annually¹⁶ do billions of dollars in damage to the nation's crops and livestock¹⁷. If terrorists try to cause similar damage with the deliberate release of a nasty agricultural pest, experts say chances are very good the outbreak would be quickly halted.

For our words, I'm Faith Lapidus in Washington.

1)      insect[5insekt]n. 昆虫

2)      Biblical[5biblikEl]adj. 圣经的

3)      Exodus[5eksEdEs] (古代以色列人)出埃及记

4)      plague[plei^]n. 瘟疫, 麻烦, 苦恼, 灾祸

5)      locust[5lEukEst]n. [动]蝗虫, 蚱蜢, 蝉

6)      entomology[entEu5mClEdVi]n. 昆虫学<%2

1 warfare   

n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突

参考例句：

• He addressed the audience on the subject of atomic warfare.他向听众演讲有关原子战争的问题。
• Their struggle consists mainly in peasant guerrilla warfare.他们的斗争主要是农民游击战。

2 horde   

n.群众，一大群

参考例句：

• A horde of children ran over the office building.一大群孩子在办公大楼里到处奔跑。
• Two women were quarrelling on the street,surrounded by horde of people.有两个妇人在街上争吵，被一大群人围住了。

3 Mediterranean   

adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的

参考例句：

• The houses are Mediterranean in character.这些房子都属地中海风格。
• Gibraltar is the key to the Mediterranean.直布罗陀是地中海的要冲。

4 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

5 devastate   

v.使荒芜，破坏，压倒

参考例句：

• A few days before,a fire had devastated large parts of Windsor Castle.几天前，温莎城堡的大部分被一场大火烧毁。
• Earthquakes can also cause tsunamis,which devastate coastal regions.地震还引发海啸，它直接破坏海岸地区。

6 herds   

兽群( herd的名词复数 )； 牧群； 人群； 群众

参考例句：

• Regularly at daybreak they drive their herds to the pasture. 每天天一亮他们就把牲畜赶到草场上去。
• There we saw herds of cows grazing on the pasture. 我们在那里看到一群群的牛在草地上吃草。

7 ranch   

n.大牧场，大农场

参考例句：

• He went to work on a ranch.他去一个大农场干活。
• The ranch is in the middle of a large plateau.该牧场位于一个辽阔高原的中部。

8 myriad   

adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量

参考例句：

• They offered no solution for all our myriad problems.对于我们数不清的问题他们束手无策。
• I had three weeks to make a myriad of arrangements.我花了三个星期做大量准备工作。

9 eradicate   

v.根除，消灭，杜绝

参考例句：

• These insects are very difficult to eradicate.这些昆虫很难根除。
• They are already battling to eradicate illnesses such as malaria and tetanus.他们已经在努力消灭疟疾、破伤风等疾病。

10 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

11 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

12 wasps   

黄蜂( wasp的名词复数 )； 胡蜂； 易动怒的人； 刻毒的人

参考例句：

• There's a wasps' nest in that old tree. 那棵老树上有一个黄蜂巢。
• We live in dread not only of unpleasant insects like spiders or wasps, but of quite harmless ones like moths. 我们不仅生活在对象蜘蛛或黄蜂这样的小虫的惧怕中，而且生活在对诸如飞蛾这样无害昆虫的惧怕中

13 detectors   

探测器( detector的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The report advocated that all buildings be fitted with smoke detectors. 报告主张所有的建筑物都应安装烟火探测器。
• This is heady wine for experimenters using these neutrino detectors. 对于使用中微子探测器的实验工作者，这是令人兴奋的美酒。 来自英汉非文学 - 科技

14 prey   

n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨

参考例句：

• Stronger animals prey on weaker ones.弱肉强食。
• The lion was hunting for its prey.狮子在寻找猎物。

15 sabotage   

n.怠工，破坏活动，破坏；v.从事破坏活动，妨害，破坏

参考例句：

• They tried to sabotage my birthday party.他们企图破坏我的生日晚会。
• The fire at the factory was caused by sabotage.那家工厂的火灾是有人蓄意破坏引起的。

16 annually   

adv.一年一次，每年

参考例句：

• Many migratory birds visit this lake annually.许多候鸟每年到这个湖上作短期逗留。
• They celebrate their wedding anniversary annually.他们每年庆祝一番结婚纪念日。

17 livestock   

n.家畜，牲畜

参考例句：

• Both men and livestock are flourishing.人畜两旺。
• The heavy rains and flooding killed scores of livestock.暴雨和大水淹死了许多牲口。