Interesting as it might be - There is science and there is irresponsible science - this comes under the latter.

Just hope none escape into the wild - Experiments like this can have devastating effects if they go wrong for example competition for the Monarch butterfly (think grey squirrels in the UK), or problems for the predators of the fruit fly and its numbers end up out of control.

Such experiments, if done, need to be housed in very secure containment lab facilities similar to those used for other highly dangerous biological material such as smallpox. it might seem like a good idea at first, but unintended consequences can be horrendous (think Africanized honey bees).

The old adage if it can go wrong it will go wrong comes to mind!

Then birds eats them and die! Very stupid!

Why has this been done? What is the motivation?

Thats all we need, billions of toxic fruit flies to poison all the birds that help remove them from orchards.
This would class as a crime against humanity, and all small bird, and animal life.
Perhaps it could be called treason against life.
The penalties for treason in most countries are often the ultimate.

VERY irresponsible!! Are we re-doing the stupidity of Africanized Bees, and birds dying?? Making stuff with only money in mind, and not thinking about the consequences is idiotic at best. If you want to do something, work on human errors - they don't run as fast.

Obviously this is being done at the direction of killer AI with designs on taking over humanity that or any other TV, movie or woo woo inspired thinking.

Darwin has done this many times over the ages (e.g., Monarch butterfly FTA). I say we dox the D.

Now that they've proven this works, have they destroyed all the specimens? Absolutely not something that should be allowed to get into the wild.

They should work on making beneficial insects able to eat and excrete poisons without ill effects to them or what preys on them.

Dr. Ian Malcolm:
Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.

Boggles the mind that UC Berkeley allowed this, and put their name on it. There's SO MANY beneficial things they could have done instead, but they created an advanced pest and made it toxic to predators instead. Our race is doomed - even supposedly smart people just have no capacity to engage their brains.

Now why in the world would anyone in their right mind create a fruit fly that becomes poisonous??? The damned things are bad enough without being toxic, imagine should they escape and reproduce outside the lab