Posted on 10/06/2018 2:02:35 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Pentagon research project called "Insect Allies." Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the project involves using gene-editing techniques like CRISPR to infect insects with modified viruses that could help make America's crops more resilient. If a cornfield were hit by an unexpected drought or suddenly exposed to a pathogen, for example, Insect Allies might deploy an army of aphids carrying a genetically modified virus to slow the corn plant's growth rate.
According to the DARPA website, these "targeted therapies" could take effect in a single growing season, potentially protecting the American crop system from food security threats like disease, flooding, frost and even "threats introduced by state or non-state actors.
… Insect Allies, is less concerned. "Anytime you're developing a new and revolutionary technology, there is that potential for [both offensive and defensive] capability," Bextine told The Washington Post. "But that is not what we are doing. We are delivering positive traits to plants… We want to make sure we ensure food security, because food security is national security in our eyes."
Insect Allies is still in the early stages of development, and at least four U.S. colleges (Boyce Thompson Institute, Penn State University, The Ohio State University and the University of Texas at Austin)have received funding to carry out research. Bextine told The Washington Post that the project recently achieved its first milestone — testing whether an aphid could infect a stalk of corn with a designer virus that caused fluorescence. According to the Washington Post, "the corn glowed."
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Sorry, I responded to the wrong post.
RCP is Real Clear Politics.
Task Mangler is my less than affectionate name for the Task Manager under Windows. You can use it to close one program that’s causing problems without shutting down your entire PC. Google Chrome has its own to manage the tasks within Chrome.
Does that help?
Ah, yes. The Magical Self-filling Laundry Basket. I'm familiar with those, though not in recent history!
True, but the Gospel tells us that Jesus declared all foods clean, so there’s no problem with our eating a ham at any season.
And I agree about the ads.
Slightly. There are several sites that I won’t visit because the ads crash everything.
Finished again.
G’orning!
Every animal is fit to eat but the camel. Who’d want to eat that, anyway?
Depends on how hungry you are.
Good morning.
Welcome back!!!! Thank you for beautiful kitteh! Hope y’all had a rollicking good time.
I just got done hanging up the sleep shirts. Wash day is almost officially over. The bed still needs to be made, but I’ll do that after I get back in from visiting with the neighbors. (Sylvia pretty much monopolizes the conversations. I don’t know how to get around that.)
We froze our gazoogles at the graduation. The next day was very pleasant, and we went to this state park
https://southcarolinaparks.com/hunting-island
where we climbed the lighthouse and hiked the Maritime Forest Trail.
I have planned music for the next two Sundays and sent the plans to the lady who will put the lyrics on the viewscreens at church. I still need to make song sheets for the choir, but that’s less urgent.
I’m not suggesting that we can’t eat ham. I am curious that we celebrate Jesus death with a food he would not have eaten, and especially since his death is associated with the Jewish festival of Passover.
And don't get me started about the stations that are already playing all Christmas, all the time.
I swear, if I hear that George Michael song one more time ...
Last Christmas, your food made me fart
The very next day I was carried away.
Just give it a REST.
Everything we do gets commercialized. It’s the American way.
We’re celebrating Jesus’s Resurrection on Easter Sunday. We fasted on Friday.
Anyway, it’s probably a USDA plot.
Wow! Looks beautiful! Did you see a lot of wildlife?
Where we stayed on Fripp Island, the deer were wandering through the lawns eating the shrubbery like they owned the place. At the state park, we mostly saw birds, but there were a lot of deer and raccoon tracks.
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