NEWS INDEX Archives 2004 February

Run for your popcorn: Mutant insects expected to take over Illinois campus

Jim Barlow, Life Sciences Editor
217-333-5802; jebarlow@uiuc.edu

2/10/04

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The world’s latest most-feared technological nightmare comes true Feb. 28, but only for about six hours. Genetically engineered insects will be running amok – though just on the big screen – during the 21st annual Insect Fear Film Festival at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The festival is an evening of entertaining but scientifically implausible
insect-monster films mixed with a bit of entomological education for all ages. It begins at 6 p.m. at Foellinger Auditorium on the south end of the Quad, with an hour of exhibits, a petting zoo, a children’s art contest and other activities. Welcoming remarks begin at 7 p.m., and feature films begin at about 8, 9:30 and 11 p.m. Admission is free.

“There’s no keeping us down,” says May Berenbaum, the head of the entomology department who created the event in 1984. She and the Entomology Graduate Student Association plan the festival. “Hollywood keeps providing us with cannon fodder.”

This year’s feature films are “The Tuxedo” (2002), “Mimic” (1997) and “Tail Sting” (2001). Among short films to be shown, beginning about 7:20 p.m., are two from the Cartoon Network: “Bus of the Undead,” an episode of “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” featuring super-hero fast foods and Monstermothman; and “Insect Inside,” in which the Power Puff Girls confront a villainous engineered giant cockroach.

This year’s genetic engineering theme, Berenbaum says, reflects the evolution of insect horror films that began with radiation-related worries of the 1950s and moved forward to insect mutations resulting from environmental pollution in the 1970s. Genetic engineering of insects entered the radar (and movie) screen in 1982 when A.C. Spradling and G.M. Rubin reported, in the journal Science, a possible mechanism for gene manipulation of insects, using Drosophila, the laboratory fruit fly.

“About the same time that insects were first being successfully transformed, they showed up in the movies, transformed in ways even today unimaginable by science,” Berenbaum said.

“The reality of transgenic insects is not so scary,” she said. “Only a handful of species have been transformed to date, and the vast majority of genes currently being moved around are marker genes, such as the fluorescent protein in newly commercialized GloFish.”

It is the fear of what conceivably could be done with the new technology – and its unintended consequences – that has some people worried, Berenbaum says, referring to last month’s report issued by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology.

The PEW report suggested that research could outpace regulatory preparedness and was highly critical of the absence of clear definitions of how research projects involving transgenic insects should be reviewed and regulated by the federal government.

“For many people, the only reason that insects are even marginally tolerated is that they are small and can be stepped on,” says Berenbaum. “The worst possible scenario is that, because of technology gone awry, they aren’t small anymore.”

Two of the films being shown – “The Tuxedo” and “Mimic” – had been suggested as festival friendly by Pulitzer Prize-winning movie critic Roger Ebert, an Illinois alumnus.

Before each film, Berenbaum describes noteworthy aspects of the plots, characters, dialogue, scientific inaccuracies and other absurdities – all of which usually draw laughter.

A synopsis of each of this year’s feature films:

• “The Tuxedo,” with Jackie Chan and Jennifer Love Hewitt. An unscrupulous company that produces bottled water uses genetic engineering on water striders, the insects often seen scooting across the surface of ponds, so that they grow large and destroy fresh water supplies. (PG-13 and suitable for the younger festival-goers.)

• “Mimic,” with Mira Sorvino and Jeremy Northam. An entomologist (Sorvino) creates genetically engineered “Judas” bugs to destroy cockroaches carrying a disease fatal to children, but well after the bugs should have self-destructed they return in human form, which allows them to seek human prey in the subways of New York City.

• “Tail Sting,” with Christian Scott and Laura Putney. On a flight from Australia to Los Angeles, genetically altered scorpions designed to combat disease break free, grow to enormous size and begin attacking passengers. The film is one of two that came out in recent years about genetically engineered insects attacking passengers on airplanes, Berenbaum said. “As if air travel weren’t stressful enough these days,” she said. “Now we’re worried about mutant genetically engineered killer venomous arthropods hiding behind the beverage cart.”

(“Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” “The Powerpuff Girls” and all related characters and elements are trademarks of Cartoon Network, 2004, a Time Warner company.)