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Thread: cockroaches

  1. #1
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    cockroach smugglers

    Elderly couple try to take 200 live cockroaches onto flight for use in medicinal skin cream
    BY ALEX LINDER IN NEWS ON NOV 29, 2017 10:00 PM



    On Saturday, workers at the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport happened to notice something unusual inside of a container that had been put through the X-ray machine at one of the airport's pre-flight security checkpoints.
    When they opened the container up to see what exactly was inside, out scuttled a cockroach, scaring one poor female worker.



    However, things only got worse upon further inspection. Inside the container they found a white plastic bag that was filled with around 200 live cockroaches, Knews reports.
    The container's owners turned out to be an elderly couple. The old man explained that his wife had a skin condition and that the cockroaches were for a kind of traditional folk remedy. He said that the roaches were all mixed into some medicinal cream which was then rubbed on his wife's skin.
    Unfortunately for the woman, security did not allow them to carry a bucket full of live cockroaches onto their flight. The roaches were all left behind at the checkpoint with staff -- who we now presume have flawless skin.
    You might remember how just last month more than 100 cockroaches were mysteriously discovered on board two separate flights that landed at the Kunming airport. Authorities failed to explain how or why the roaches got there, but we may now finally have our reason. TCM!
    [Images via Knews]


    weird stuff - smuggling fail
    Gene Ching
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  2. #2
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    6B cockroaches

    Do cockroaches need their own indie thread here? Cuz TCM is that weird?

    A Chinese farm is breeding 6 billion cockroaches a year for medicine


    Just don't think about what's in it. (Flickr user ZoomyPhotography (Ciaran Dundson))

    WRITTEN BY Zheping Huang
    April 20, 2018

    To most people, cockroaches are disgusting pests. To some, the insects are delicious fried snacks. To a few people, they are medicine.

    A Chinese farm is breeding 6 billion adult cockroaches a year for medicinal use, the first time in human history that so many of the insects have been bred and confined in an indoor space, according to a report published this week by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post (SCMP).

    The farm, operated by pharmaceutical company Gooddoctor in Xichang city in southwestern China, is equipped with rows of shelves lined with open containers of food and water in a concrete building covering an area of about two sports fields, according to the SCMP. It is kept warm, humid, and dark all year around, with an AI-powered system tracking how individual cockroaches are growing.

    Cockroach-rearing is a booming industry in China—pulverized roach powder is patented as a Traditional Chinese Medicine ingredient and cosmetics companies use the insects as a cheap source of protein. There were about 100 large-scale cockroach farms in China in 2013, and farmers could earn as much as $20 a pound, the Los Angeles Times reported at the time. In the case of the Xichang facility, the world’s biggest cockroach farm, the insects are made into a liquid concoction that millions of Chinese patients use to treat respiratory, gastric, and other illnesses with doctor prescriptions, the SCMP said citing a local government report. A bottle of 100 ml of the medicine costs about $4.

    Apparently people consuming the medicine may not even know that it’s almost entirely made of cockroaches, because Gooddoctor only lists the ingredient as Periplaneta americana, the scientific name of the American cockroach—the reddish-brown insect that can fly when mature. One patient told the SCMP, “This is knowledge I’d rather live without.”

    If, because of a human error or an earthquake, millions of cockroaches are released into nature, it would be a disaster for the near-800,000 inhabitants in Xichang and beyond. In 2013, about a million cockroaches escaped from a farm in southeastern China after someone sabotaged a nursery that was breeding the insects. Local authorities conducted a “large-scale disinfection” and urged residents to stay calm. Local authorities claimed (link in Chinese) that they properly handled the incident.

    heh heh. roaches on 420.
    Gene Ching
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    This has the makings of an epic apocalyptic movie..

    ...or a terrifying reality.


    A giant indoor farm in China is breeding 6 billion cockroaches a year. Here's why

    The Post turns a spotlight on the ‘disgusting’ insect with apparently remarkable medicinal qualities at the world’s largest breeding facility, where the bugs outnumber the planet’s human population
    PUBLISHED : Thursday, 19 April, 2018, 9:02am
    UPDATED : Thursday, 19 April, 2018, 11:42pm
    Stephen Chen
    https://www.facebook.com/Stephen.Chen.SCMP


    This photo provided by PolyPEDAL Lab UC Berkeley, shows the compressible robot, CRAM with a real cockroach. When buildings collapse in future disasters, the hero helping rescue trapped people may be a cheap robotic roach. Repulsive as they seem, cockroaches have the unusual ability to squish their bodies down to one quarter their normal size, yet still scamper at lightning speed. Add to that, the common roach can withstand 900 times its own body weight without being hurt. That’s the equivalent to a 200-pound man who wouldn’t be crushed 90 tons on his head. (PolyPEDAL Lab UC Berkeley/Tom Libby, Kaushik Jayaram and Pauline Jennings via AP)

    Long, narrowly spaced rows of shelves fill a multi-storey building about the size of two sports fields. The shelves are lined with open containers of food and water.

    It is warm, humid and dark all year round, with freedom to roam to find food and reproduce. Fully sealed like a prison, it has strict limitations on access to visitors. From birth to death, inhabitants never see the sun.

    The world’s largest cockroach farm is breeding 6 billion adult cockroaches a year and using artificial intelligence to manage a colony larger than the world’s human population – all for medicinal use.

    It is part of the production process for a “healing potion” consumed by millions of patients in China, according to the government.

    There are many cockroach breeding facilities in China, for use as an ingredient in medicine or as a source of protein for livestock feed. But no other facility can match the productivity of the farm in the city of Xichang, in southwestern Sichuan province.


    Gooddoctor Pharmaceutical Group’s cockroach farm in Xichang. Photo: HANDOUT

    Nearly 28,000 full-sized cockroaches per square foot are produced there annually, the Sichuan government said in a report submitted to Beijing early this year.

    It is the first time in history so many cockroaches have been confined and bred in one space. The project had achieved so many “scientific and technological breakthroughs” that it deserved a national science award, the provincial government said.

    The facility achieved its unrivalled efficiency partly by being controlled by a “smart manufacturing” system powered by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, according to the report.

    The system constantly collects and analyses more than 80 categories of “big data”, including humidity, temperature, food supply and consumption. It monitors changes such as genetic mutations and how these affect the growing rates of individual cockroaches.

    AI is transforming China in many sectors, from powerful facial recognition systems capable of identifying 1.3 billion citizens in seconds to nuclear submarines that can help a captain make faster, more accurate decisions in combat.

    In the cockroach farm, the AI system learns from past work, self-adjusting to improve cockroach production.

    Dr Zhang Wei, former assistant researcher at the College of Mechanical Engineering at Zhejiang University, who was involved in the development of the system, told the South China Morning Post: “There is nothing like it in the world. It has used some unique solutions to address some unique issues.”

    Rustling in the darkness

    Zhang confirmed the use of AI technology in the project but declined to give details.

    The farm is operated by the Gooddoctor Pharmaceutical Group of Chengdu, Sichuan, which confirmed the validity of the government document but could not answer the Post’s queries because the matter involved trade secrets.

    According to a 2011 report by the government newspaper Guangming Daily, a visitor must change into a sanitised working suit to avoid bringing in pollutants or pathogens.

    “There were very few human beings in the facility,” the article stated. On shelves, floors and ceiling, the cockroaches were “everywhere”.

    “Hold your breath and (you) only hear a rustling sound,” it continued. “Whenever flashlights swept, the cockroaches fled. Wherever the beam landed, there was a sound like wind blowing through leaves.

    “It was just like standing in the depths of a bamboo forest in late autumn. The cool breeze blows, and the leaves rustle.”

    Could super-breed terrorise a city?

    The sheer number of insects locked in the facility – the largest colony of cockroaches ever to have existed on the planet – conjures some nightmarish scenarios.
    Every cockroach is a super-cockroach. Mother Nature has already done its job. There is little room left for us to make improvementsPROFESSOR ZHU CHAODONG, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
    Professor Zhu Chaodong, the Institute of Zoology’s lead scientist in insect evolution studies at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said it would be a “catastrophe” if billions of cockroaches were suddenly released into the environment – be it through human error or a natural disaster like an earthquake that damaged the building.

    To Xichang’s near-800,000 inhabitants, one such accident could be “terrifying”, Zhu said. The farm is also located close to Xichang’s Qingshan airport.

    “Multiple lines of defence must be in place and work properly to prevent the disaster of accidental release,” Zhu said.

    Cockroaches multiply rapidly in a suitable environment, said Zhu. Given Xichang’s warm climate and ample rainfall, a dozen of them could infest an entire neighbourhood.

    There are also concerns that the farm’s intensive reproduction and genetic screening would accelerate the insect’s evolution and produce “super-cockroaches”, of abnormal size and breeding capability, although Zhu said this was unlikely to happen.

    Cockroaches are believed to have been around since the dinosaurs, surviving extreme environmental conditions that brought extinction for other species.

    “Every cockroach is a super-cockroach,” Zhu said. “Mother Nature has already done its job. There is little room left for us to make improvements.”

    Creating the potion

    At the time of the government report, the farm had generated a total of 4.3 billion yuan (US$684 million) in revenue over the years by manufacturing a potion made entirely of cockroaches.

    When they reach the desired weight and size, the cockroaches are fed into machines and crushed to make the potion, which had “remarkable effects” on stomach pain and other ailments, said the provincial government.

    The potion has a tea-like colour, tastes “slightly sweet” and has “a slightly fishy smell”, according to the product’s packaging.

    More than 40 million patients with respiratory, gastric and other diseases were cured after taking the potion on doctors’ prescriptions, according to the official report, which stated that the farm was selling it to more than 4,000 hospitals across the country.

    The miracle-like cure

    Cockroach has been an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years. In some rural areas in southern China, infants are still occasionally fed cockroaches mixed with garlic to treat fever caused by an infection or upset stomach.

    The Chinese government financed nationwide studies into cockroaches’ medical value that, after more than two decades of laboratory investigation and clinical trials, had discovered or confirmed dozens of disease-fighting proteins and biochemical compounds with huge potential value in medicine.

    Thousands of pages of Chinese medical journals have detailed findings suggesting the rejuvenating effect of the cockroach potion. It could stimulate regrowth of damaged tissues such as skin and mucosa, the sticky membrane on the surface of internal organs that is difficult to heal and causes chronic pain.

    Patients suffering burns or serious stomach inflammations recovered faster with the potion treatment than without, according to numerous studies.

    “The potion is not a panacea – it does not have a magic power against all diseases,” said a researcher experienced in cockroach-related medicines at the Institute of Materia Medica at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS) in Beijing.

    “But its effect on certain symptoms is well established, and confirmed by molecular science and large-scale hospital applications.”
    continued next post
    Gene Ching
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    Continued from previous post

    Patients learn the Latin

    There is a potentially major disadvantage to the potion, according to the CAMS researcher, who requested not to be named. “The source of raw material, to most people, is disgusting,” she said. “That is an important reason why the use of the potion is not found in other countries.

    “Even in China, most patients might not know the liquid came from cockroaches.”

    The potion is not for sale over the counter, but the Post has bought it in a drug store in Beijing without being asked for a doctor’s prescription.


    Bottles of Gooddoctor products. Photo: HANDOUT

    A pack containing two bottles of 100ml cost a bit more than 50 yuan (US$8).

    On the packaging and in the user instructions, only one ingredient was listed: Periplaneta americana, the Latin name of the American cockroach, one of the largest cockroach species.

    The internet has played host to lively discussions about the medicine, known as kangfuxin ye, or “potion of recovery”.

    “I searched for Periplaneta americana when drinking the potion. I saw the picture and spat it all on screen,” wrote one user on Baidu Tieba, the large Chinese online community run by search engine company Baidu.

    Several patients who had consumed the potion told the Post they were not aware of its content when they drank it.

    “This is knowledge I’d rather live without,” said a young mother in Beijing who was prescribed it to accelerate recovery after giving birth a year ago.

    “I don’t know the effect, but I healed eventually,” said another patient, who took the potion to cure a back injury.

    ‘Disgusting but powerful’

    Han Yijun, a representative of Gooddoctor Pharmaceutical Group in Beijing, has denied the company misleads patients by referring to the giant cockroach by its academic name.

    “Our drug has been used in hospitals for many, many years and established an enormous number of fans,” she said.

    Some patients with chronic stomach illness were taking the potion regularly because it could relieve their pain significantly, she said.

    “They all know it’s made from cockroaches,” Han said. “It is a disgusting insect, but there are hardly any drugs on the shelves with the same effect.”
    Missed the AI bit on this when I posted this previously in Weird stuff in TCM...... List it!.
    Gene Ching
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  5. #5
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    Splitting this into its own thread

    I never thought this much about cockroaches but clearly it deserves an indie thread distinct now from our Weird stuff in TCM...... List it! thread.

    Chinese farmer unleashes swarm of hungry cockroaches to chew through mountain of food scraps
    Former pharmaceutical worker says his waste disposal system is an environmentally friendly option to fermentation
    PUBLISHED : Sunday, 29 April, 2018, 1:07pm
    UPDATED : Sunday, 29 April, 2018, 1:07pm
    Sidney Leng
    sidney.leng@scmp.com
    http://twitter.com/SidneyLeng



    A former pharmaceutical company employee in central China has abandoned the corporate world to farm millions of cockroaches to process food waste, China News Service reports.

    Li Yanrong’s farm in Zhangqiu district in Jinan, Henan province, houses 300 million American cockroaches that together munch through about 15 tonnes of food waste a day, or about a quarter of the district’s kitchen scraps.

    “These cockroaches are not afraid of anything soft, hard, sour, sweet, bitter, or spicy,” Li was quoted as saying.


    Li Yanrong says he has 300 million cockroaches at his food waste disposal farm in Henan. Photo: CNSTV

    China generates at least 60 million tonnes of kitchen waste annually and most of it is processed through fermentation, an expensive, inefficient system that pollutes the environment, according to the report.

    A giant indoor farm in China is breeding 6 billion cockroaches a year. Here's why

    Li said cockroaches offered an alternative, non-polluting way of disposing of food waste.

    He said he already had about 300 tonnes of cockroaches and planned to expand that total to about 4,000 tonnes to be able to process 200 tonnes of food waste from Zhangqiu and neighbouring cities per day.

    The American cockroach is one of the world’s bigger varieties, with a body around 4 centimetres long and a life cycle of around 700 days. It is often used as an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine to heal wounds and repair tissue.

    Cockroach farms have expanded across China in recent years, in large part to cater to medicinal demand.

    The world’s biggest is in Xichang, southwestern Sichuan province, where 6 billion adult cockroaches are bred a year for the pharmaceutical industry.

    Nearly 28,000 full-sized cockroaches per square foot were produced there annually, the Sichuan government said in a report submitted to Beijing early this year.
    Gene Ching
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  6. #6
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    A city in China is feeding a billion cockroaches 50 tons of kitchen scraps a day in an effort to help with urban waste
    Thomas Suen, Ryan Woo, Reuters Dec. 11, 2018, 10:40 AM


    A staff member shows cockroaches in shelves to the camera at a farm operated by pharmaceutical company Gooddoctor. Thomas Suen/Reuters

    JINAN, China (Reuters) - In the near pitch-dark, you can hear them before you see them - millions of cockroaches scuttling and fluttering across stacks of wooden boards as they devour food scraps by the ton in a novel form of urban waste disposal.

    The air is warm and humid - just as cockroaches like it - to ensure the colonies keep their health and voracious appetites.

    Expanding Chinese cities are generating more food waste than they can accommodate in landfills, and cockroaches could be a way to get rid of hills of food scraps, providing nutritious food for livestock when the bugs eventually die and, some say, cures for stomach illness and beauty treatments.

    On the outskirts of Jinan, capital of eastern Shandong province, a billion cockroaches are being fed with 50 tons of kitchen waste a day - the equivalent in weight to seven adult elephants.

    The waste arrives before daybreak at the plant run by Shandong Qiaobin Agricultural Technology Co, where it is fed through pipes to cockroaches in their cells.

    Shandong Qiaobin plans to set up three more such plants next year, aiming to process a third of the kitchen waste produced by Jinan, home to about seven million people.

    A nationwide ban on using food waste as pig feed due to African swine fever outbreaks is also spurring the growth of the cockroach industry.

    "Cockroaches are a bio-technological pathway for the converting and processing of kitchen waste," said Liu Yusheng, president of Shandong Insect Industry Association.

    Cockroaches are also a good source of protein for pigs and other livestock. "It's like turning trash into resources," said Shandong Qiaobin chairwoman Li Hongyi.

    In a remote village in Sichuan, Li Bingcai, 47, has similar ideas.

    Li, formerly a mobile phone vendor, has invested a million yuan ($146,300) in cockroaches, which he sells to pig farms and fisheries as feed and to drug companies as medicinal ingredients.

    His farm now has 3.4 million cockroaches.

    "People think it's strange that I do this kind of business," Li said. "It has great economic value, and my goal is to lead other villagers to prosperity if they follow my lead."

    His village has two farms. Li's goal is to create 20.

    Elsewhere in Sichuan, a company called Gooddoctor is rearing six billion cockroaches.

    "The essence of cockroach is good for curing oral and peptic ulcers, skin wounds and even stomach cancer," said Wen Jianguo, manager of Gooddoctor's cockroach facility.

    Researchers are also looking into using cockroach extract in beauty masks, diet pills and even hair-loss treatments.

    At Gooddoctor, when cockroaches reach the end of their lifespan of about six months, they are blasted by steam, washed and dried, before being sent to a huge nutrient extraction tank.

    Asked about the chance of the cockroaches escaping, Wen said that would be worthy of a disaster movie but that he has taken precautions.

    "We have a moat filled with water and fish," he said. "If the cockroaches escape, they will fall into the moat and the fish will eat them all."

    (Reporting by Thomas Suen and Ryan Woo; Editing by Nick Macfie)

    On the outskirts of Jinan, capital of eastern Shandong province, a billion cockroaches are being fed with 50 tons of kitchen waste a day - the equivalent in weight to seven adult elephants.

    Kitchen waste to feed cockroaches is seen at a waste processing facility of Shandong Qiaobin Agriculture Technology. Thomas Suen/Reuters

    The waste arrives before daybreak at the plant run by Shandong Qiaobin Agricultural Technology Co, where it is fed through pipes to cockroaches in their cells.

    Workers sort kitchen waste to feed cockroaches at a waste processing facility. Thomas Suen/Reuters

    Shandong Qiaobin plans to set up three more such plants next year, aiming to process a third of the kitchen waste produced by Jinan, home to about seven million people. A nationwide ban on using food waste as pig feed due to African swine fever outbreaks is also spurring the growth of the cockroach industry.

    A staff member shows cockroaches in shelves to the camera at a farm operated by pharmaceutical company Gooddoctor. Thomas Suen/Reuters

    "Cockroaches are a bio-technological pathway for the converting and processing of kitchen waste," said Liu Yusheng, president of Shandong Insect Industry Association.

    Cockroaches fed with kitchen waste are seen in a cell at a waste processing facility. Thomas Suen/Reuters

    Cockroaches are also a good source of protein for pigs and other livestock. "It's like turning trash into resources," said Shandong Qiaobin chairwoman Li Hongyi.

    Chen Qianjiang shows a spoonful of powder made of cockroaches. Thomas Suen/Reuters

    In a remote village in Sichuan, Li Bingcai, 47, has similar ideas. Li, formerly a mobile phone vendor, has invested a million yuan ($146,300) in cockroaches, which he sells to pig farms and fisheries as feed and to drug companies as medicinal ingredients. His farm now has 3.4 million cockroaches.

    Li Bingcai shows cockroaches at his farm. Thomas Suen/Reuters
    continued next post
    Gene Ching
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    Continued from previous post

    "People think it's strange that I do this kind of business," Li said. "It has great economic value, and my goal is to lead other villagers to prosperity if they follow my lead." His village has two farms. Li's goal is to create 20.

    Children of cockroach farm owner Li Bingcai eat fried cockroaches at his farm in a village in Changning county. Thomas Suen/Reuters

    Elsewhere in Sichuan, a company called Gooddoctor is rearing six billion cockroaches.

    Cockroaches are seen among cardboards at a farm operated by pharmaceutical company Gooddoctor. Thomas Suen/Reuters

    "The essence of cockroach is good for curing oral and peptic ulcers, skin wounds and even stomach cancer," said Wen Jianguo, manager of Gooddoctor's cockroach facility. Researchers are also looking into using cockroach extract in beauty masks, diet pills and even hair-loss treatments.

    Bottles of Kangfuxin Ye, a liquid potion made of cockroaches, are seen on the production line at a facility operated by pharmaceutical company Gooddoctor. Thomas Suen/Reuters

    At Gooddoctor, when cockroaches reach the end of their lifespan of about six months, they are blasted by steam, washed and dried, before being sent to a huge nutrient extraction tank.

    A staff member walks among tanks that extract essence from cockroaches at a facility operated by pharmaceutical company Gooddoctor. Thomas Suen/Reuters

    Asked about the chance of the cockroaches escaping, Wen said that would be worthy of a disaster movie but that he has taken precautions.

    Workers walk next to cockroach cells under construction at a waste processing facility. Thomas Suen/Reuters

    "We have a moat filled with water and fish," he said. "If the cockroaches escape, they will fall into the moat and the fish will eat them all."

    Workers work on cockroach cells under construction at a waste processing facility. Thomas Suen/Reuters
    THREADS
    cockroaches
    China's Pollution problem
    Gene Ching
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