The Great American Worm Wall

The US battle against the New World screwworm involves breeding screwworms in a Panamanian factory so we can carpet bomb that country with bioengineered screwworms that, well, screw other screwworms. Panama is a long way from the US, yet we worked our way down there in an amazing story of parasitic species eradication that took decades and does not involve dumping tons of chemicals into the environment. And it's working! You might be squicked out by the thought of hiking the Darién Gap and the one danger you didn't prepare for being worms falling from the sky (which might make a great movie). But you will also be charmed by learning that deer love to eat doughnut holes. The program costs about $15 million a year, in case you are wondering where your couple thousand in income tax goes, but the benefits are that we get to have a livestock industry, and our booboos don't get infected with flesh-eating maggots. The video ends at 7:30, an ad follows. (via reddit)