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Science Quickly

Warming Climate Implies More Flies—and Disease

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.2639 Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2019

⏱️ 3 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The incidence of foodborne illness could jump in a warming world, due to an increase in housefly activity. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

0:05.8

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years.

0:11.0

Yacold also partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for gut health, an investigator-led research program.

0:19.6

To learn more about Yachtolt, visit yacolp.co.

0:22.7

.j.p. That's y-A-K-U-L-T.C-O.J-P. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacolt.

0:33.6

This is Scientific American's 60-second science. I'm Christopher in Taliatta.

0:39.0

A recent analysis predicts that 40% of the world's insect species could go extinct within a couple decades.

0:45.8

The highest death tolls could be among butterflies, moths, bees, and dung beetles.

0:50.9

Conspicuously absent from that list, though, are the houseflies, because they may actually do

0:55.5

better in a hotter world. Under a warming scenario, you would have a larger fly population,

1:01.9

which is able to hang around for a longer period of time. Amy Greer, an epidemiologist and mathematical

1:08.5

modeler at the University of Guelph in Ontario.

1:11.3

She says flies are also more active when it's warm, meaning more chances to land on your picnic dips.

1:17.8

Greer's student Melanie Cousins, now a doctoral candidate at the University of Waterloo,

1:22.2

explains the effect on us.

1:23.7

With this increase in fly population and fly activity, this may lead to more transmission

1:29.7

of campbellactor. The common foodborne illness, like the flies, fluctuates with the seasons.

1:34.9

So with warmer temperatures, Campbellvactor will be able to replicate more efficiently.

1:40.6

Cousins modeled both the insect and bacterial trends under different global warming scenarios

1:45.1

and found that the uptick in fly population numbers did not matter much. But if warming truly

1:50.8

does increase fly activity, then campelobacter cases in the Ontario-Canada area could more than

1:56.5

double with a moderate 4-degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature by 2080. The results are in the

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