I iz sneakin.
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 iz sneakin.
Strong stuff that sneakin’!
I’m still looking for the bolts for the small table I want to put in front of the bookcases. I ran across them the first week I was here and thought for sure I put them with the table top and legs, but no dice. I hope it turns up before I have to go buy more stove bolts.
I would prefer cats’ sneaking to cats’ tearing around howling. Good luck on the bolts.
Thank you and g’orning!
I keep hoping for inspiration on the bolts, but my mind is a blank. Gray lint. Common for me.
Maybe I’ll run across them again. Maybe.
Good morning. Happy Friday Eve.
I’m alive, but my regular spot doesn’t have Internet access (yet). I’ll drop by when I can.
We’ll wait for you! Hang in there!
Tomorrow is Friday!
That it is, and I may have wireless at my work site, but it may have a monthly cap on it.
I’ve already pinged this company about the cost of being cheap.
That it is, and I may have wireless at my work site, but it may have a monthly cap on it.
I’ve already pinged this company about the cost of being cheap.
Happy Friday Eve to you, too!
That would be me without the fur coat! Floofy!
Good morning. It’s still raining. Hopefully, it will obey the foregnosticators and quit in a few hours, but I’m not going to bet money on it.
Nope. Ain’t gonna happen. I hear thunder. In January. Wow.
The rain is coming down so hard that its blurring the houses across the street and making the TV hard to hear. Strange. You might expect this at the beginning of the week of rain, but isn’t it supposed to ease off just before it quits altogether?
I’m going to go shower and ponder this...
Nuh-uh. Not gonna get me on this one. Invite me to do a tummy tickle and I pull back a bloody stump....
I didn’t think you would fall for it!
It has stopped raining here. The cats have been outside and aren’t wet.
The rain slowed down a bit, but I still have to go to Walmart. And now of course, I worry about the tires. I really don’t want to go into a skid on the twisty, hilly nine mile round trip.
And the windows have to be down, rain, cold, snow or not. :o|
I just got a text from the USPS that the package I sent to my son on January 4 is in Memphis and headed to Little Rock. It’s amazing what a little determination can do. I began a tracking search yesterday at about this time, and voila! Some news about it 24 hours later! Hopefully, he’ll get it today because my instructions were for them to deliver it to him, unopened.
By the time I left for Walmart there was no rain, but it didn’t take any time at all for the windshield to fog over because the defroster seems to be getting weaker and weaker. I keep hoping the thing will last until warmer weather but this is only January, so I’ll have to take it back to Casey and have him look at it.
Glad you made it! I’ve been watching travel videos with Frank and Kathleen. Minoan ruins of Crete. My back hurts, and I can’t get warm.
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