Alexa: Fire Alarm active Tax chick, should I tell Atlas to drop the bomb?
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 ...
I'm familiar with how an icebox works. In fact I still have one.
Physics is great.
True.
The little imperial felines do need walkways and bridges.
Ours have to walk on the floor most of the time.
You’re welcome. She looks very soft.
Yep. As is chemistry, literature, astronomy, geology, and biology. And most of this stuff is freely available to study for anyone who's interested.
People like Adam Smith, who wrote "The Wealth of Nations", had to commit and spend years of study to just gain an understanding of even one subject.
We live in interesting times, but nobody's interested.
I’m watching lectures about the Etruscans today.
That information can be a little jarring.
Heh.
We would have almost no examples of classical Greek pottery if the Etruscans hadn’t put it in their tombs. The lecturer suggests that Athenian potters were working almost entirely for the export market.
‘Face sent me some snaps of the Walmart parking lot in Hurricane, which has mountain views, and of her new apartment, which will be cute when she has her stuff put away.
I was having a lie-down, but the fire alarm went off over and over because someone was baking without having previously cleaned up a mess.
‘Face says, “Let ArGee know the GLK has been found alive!”
Someone needs an apron that says, "Dinner will be ready when the smoke alarm goes off".
Alexa: Fire Alarm active Tax chick, should I tell Atlas to drop the bomb?
I solved that problem by removing the smoke detector from the kitchen..
I left the one alone that is just outside the kitchen door in the hallway. It doesn't seem to get affected by smokey particulates produced from using the broiler..
(And I'm willing to bet that the mess you had in your oven that no one cleaned up was produced by the ever present family member I Don't Know..)
“Sounds like another sponge is ready!”
I believe the mess was left by Not Me.
Kewl.
The lecturer about Etruscans says they had excellent armor and weapons and were no doubt as brave as anyone else kicking around the greater Mediterranean basin ... but they had no units larger than a clan chief and his retainers, so they fought like Germans or Celts and got trounced by a Greek phalanx or a Roman legion.
I’m glad to know that it’s hard to keep a good GLK down.
Happy Monday.
A friend texted me on Saturday with a project in the Department of Social Services that needs a rescue. I’ll be talking to someone about whether I’m the right EMT around noon today.
It may be that the folks here in Education have already messed up my mind too far.
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