LOS ANGELES TIMES - In a windowless shack on the far outskirts of Fresno, an ominious red glow illuminates a lab filled with X-ray machines, shelves of glowing boxes, a quietly humming incubator and a miniature wind tunnel.
While the scene looks like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, its actually part of an experimental program to prevent a damaging almond pest from successfully mating.
With California almond growers reeling from dropping nut prices and rising costs, the pests have only added to their woes.
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However, research is increasingly showing that chemical pesticides are not only harmful to the environment but to people as well. One new study found that the impact of nearby pesticide use on cancer incidence “may rival that of smoking.”
“When you have to don a spacesuit, basically, to apply something, you’re definitely thinking, ‘This is not good,’” said Houston Wilson, a UC Riverside entomology researcher and the mastermind behind the sci-fi shack at UC ANR’s Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center.
“Across the board, folks want to get away from chemical controls,” he said.