Chapter 58: Chapter 56: Are you the devil?
The female American cockroach keeled over dead, over an hour past since the cockroaches first began to nibble on the gel bait.
Consequently, besides this unlucky one, the first batch of cockroaches that consumed the gel bait began to show reactions one after another.
At this moment, in containers 1-3, clusters of cockroaches could be clearly seen gathered together, rustling and indulging in a feast.
In stark contrast to this was the scene inside containers 4-6:
Over forty minutes had passed, and even in container number 4, which had the best efficacy, only five or six cockroaches exhibited an excited state.
Another hour passed.
In container number 2, the males that had nibbled on the female cockroaches also began to show abnormalities successively.
Meanwhile, due to the pheromone diffusion, each male cockroach was surrounded by multiple female cockroaches.
The corpses of the male cockroaches, after their death, also became the food for the female cockroaches.
Then, these female cockroaches dispersed one after another, continuously engaging in the next round of transmission.
Eight hours later.
Only a few cockroaches remaining in containers 1-3 still showed signs of life, while the rest were either reduced to corpses or had completely perished.
In container number 4, there were only about ten cockroach corpses, and around fifteen or sixteen in an excited and poisoned state.
As for containers 5 and 6, the death toll was in the single digits.
Seeing this scene, the youngest among them, Tang Yiqiu, couldn’t contain her excitement and exclaimed "Yay!":
"Senior Brother, it seems our experiment is very successful!"
As a fourth-year undergraduate, it was her first time participating in a project of this level, and seeing the research team achieve results, how could the young girl not be thrilled?
However, to her surprise, Xu Yun gently shook his head:
"Success? Xiaotang, this isn’t considered a success yet. Although we’ve developed the Fourth Generation Imidacloprid, is it really the perfect form of Imidacloprid?"
Seeing this junior looking a bit puzzled, Xu Yun pointed to the biological container and said:
"Tell me, during the experiment just now, what did the cockroaches do after nibbling on the corpses of their kind?"
Tang Yiqiu blinked blankly and instinctively replied:
"Neurological excitement, then they released pheromones and mated with the opposite sex cockroaches."
"You see, doesn’t that bring up a problem?"
Xu Yun clapped his hands and laughed:
"Due to our prepared biological container’s limited volume, it resulted in all cockroaches inside being covered by pheromones, prompting mating behavior.
But in their living environment, the activity range of cockroaches isn’t just a small container like this?
Their biological density may not compare to the container, but the complexity of intersecting paths and scents far exceeds that of the container. This is the difference between experimental and real environments."
Tang Yiqiu nodded half-understandingly, her ponytail swishing behind her, and asked:
"So, Senior Brother Xu, are you planning to improve the pheromone protein, expanding the diffusion range of the pheromones?"
"No, no, no, you’ve misunderstood my point."
Xu Yun quickly shook his head and said:
"What I mean is...
According to our current Imidacloprid formula, if a male cockroach A would only attract female B before dying, what if there happened to be one or several male C passing by at this time?
If lucky, C might wait for B and A to finish mating and then be attracted by B’s pheromone, following up by mating with B, thus getting poisoned.
But the drug’s effect takes time; what if C leaves during the latent period of the drug?
Doesn’t this potentially lead to a significant number of targets not being covered?"
Looking at the confused expressions of Tang Yiqiu and others, Xu Yun smiled happily:
"So...could we add an attractant to the pheromone protein, allowing the pheromones emitted by those first-time nibbling cockroaches to be non-gender-specific, thereby letting A attract C, resulting in...
A mating with C, or even males swapping lymph fluids?"
As Xu Yun finished speaking, the entire laboratory fell into silence.
After a few seconds, Tang Yiqiu and Zhou Peiyao exclaimed in unison:
"Senior Brother, are you a devil?!"
Xu Yun shook his head, seriously explaining:
"No, no, no, this is just a logical supplement based on a realistic perspective.
After all, we operate on biological models—within a standard one-kilometer residential zone, male cockroaches interact only 0.37 times a day with each other.
So, the scenario I described has a significant chance of occurring in reality.
Moreover, if we can solve the attractant issue, we might even develop corresponding insecticides for mosquitoes and flies in the future, which opens up a vast space indeed."
Xu Yun spoke with tremendous confidence because a key aspect of his obtained Fifth Generation Imidacloprid formula was inducing specific attractants through cell receptors, thereby causing cognitive disruption among cockroaches.
Of course.
A little bit of personal emotion is involved here, which we won’t delve into for now.
Then Xu Yun paused and said sternly:
"Lastly, regarding the efficiency of the insecticide, although our Fourth Generation Imidacloprid acts faster than the other three gel baits, I still feel that the binding speed of the target protein is somewhat slow.
Considering the attraction effect generated by the movement of live cockroaches, I personally feel the configurations should be: the first generation vector for 20 minutes, and the vector spanning from the second to the fifth generation for an hour."
Because even after death, cockroaches will attract others to come and nibble on them."
Initially, considering that the research team had not even successfully developed the Fourth Generation Imidacloprid, Xu Yun reserved some optimization directions for the Fifth Generation Imidacloprid without revealing them.
After all, discussing the fifth generation before breaking through with the fourth seemed a bit too ambitious.
However, now, with the technological breakthrough of the Fourth Generation Imidacloprid, some of his ideas could also be brought into focus:
"For example, the target of Imidacloprid is nAchR, specifically the R81 arginine residue in the Loop D region of the β1 subunit, and the binding time is generally no less than thirty minutes.
So....
Could we consider supplementing with other approaches?
For instance, inhibiting acetylcholinesterase or targeting the sodium channel?"
Watching the group descend into deep thought, Xu Yun continued:
"Mammalian sodium channels have 9 subtypes, namely NaV1.1-NaV1.9, whereas insect subtypes are more complex, so we need to deduce the receptor binding patterns."
"However, since we’ve crossed the most challenging hurdle of forming the cyclic structure, the subsequent stages will undoubtedly be much easier, so everyone, let’s give it some extra effort?"
"Let’s strive to send the cockroaches to heaven as soon as possible!"