The reemergence of the New World screwworm in the United States has put the livestock industry on high alert. 🪰 To explain the parasite and the technique used to fight it, we talked to one of the world’s premier New World screwworm experts — NC State entomologist Maxwell Scott. The New World screwworm is a flesh-eating parasite that targets living mammals, laying eggs in open wounds that can quickly turn fatal if left untreated. For decades, populations have successfully been controlled with the sterile insect technique — the release of sterilized males to mate with wild females, which prevents them from reproducing. The recent identification of the parasite in Texas and New Mexico requires advanced biological solutions, and through U.S. Department of Agriculture-funded research, Scott and his team have developed a male-only line of sterile screwworms that’s now under review with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the name NovoFly. The male-only strain developed by his...