Radiolab Return of the Flesh-Eaters
89 snips
Mar 13, 2026 
Sarah Kari, reporter and producer who led the investigation into screwworm outbreaks, narrates a hunt for a revived parasite and the century-spanning effort to exterminate it. The story covers the sterile-male method, massive aerial releases, a Panama barrier, a 2023 resurgence, rebuilding production, and the ethical debate over deliberately wiping a species from the planet.
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Single Mating Vulnerability
- Knipling realized female screwworms mate only once, so sterilizing males could render females infertile after a single mating.
- That single-mate biology made a sterile-male flood strategy theoretically powerful and population-suppressing.
From Secret X-Rays To A Fly Factory
- Knipling clandestinely sterilized flies with X-rays using military hospital machines, then field-tested on Sanibel Island where an initial release failed.
- He later scaled up successfully in Curaçao with an industrial rearing factory feeding maggots a putrid meat slurry.
Sterile Insect Technique Scaled To A Continent
- Mass production and aerial release of sterile males eradicated screwworms across North America over decades.
- Factories reared millions weekly and planes dumped refrigerated sterile males, pushing infestations south to a Panama-Colombia barrier.