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 going to start putting the bathroom stuff together. I have to remove both towel racks in order to make the cabinets fit. But I plan on getting a couple of tension rods to fit underneath for the towels. And that made me think...somewhere, I’ve lost a towel ring. It will have to be replaced, for sure.
No sunbeams here for a while. It takes a while for the sun to come up over Mt Kolob, so my place doesn’t exactly get the first rays of sun streaming through the living room window.
Good morning to you, as well!
Yes, another Two-Monday week. And I’ll be wondering why Friday came so soon.
Thank you and g’orning!
Howyaz! Back from several trips and handling various smaller glitches for about an hour. Then I have to go to church for a meeting.
I just got off the phone with Charlie. He didn’t sound very well when he first called, but sounded much better by the time we hung up. He finally got a new phone, and just like the rest of us, he’s trying to get used to the buttons.
He got up in the middle of the night recently and tweaked the worst of his knees, so now he’s using a walker. He said that one of the residents barricaded himself in his apartment, and when management finally contacted this guy’s friend, they all went to the apartment and it was empty. No one knows where they went or when.
Then he said Crazy Frank said he wasn’t moving until he had the key to his temporary apartment, and he was then served with an eviction notice that had something to do with “unauthorized cats,” VHS tapes of porn and something else. I guess he considered the offer and they moved all his stuff to another apartment and suddenly, the eviction notice was rescinded.
I told him the manager who was there was probably going to go somewhere else when the renovation project is finished, and he said it was possible. I suspect she is one of those people who do what has to be done to get desired results.
My Kindle was losing a charge when it was supposed to be charging, and I thought maybe it was the outlet, and grabbed hold of the plug end. It was hot. So I unplugged it and took it into the kitchen to use my cell phone charger. By the time I plugged it in, the Kindle was at 3%. So Amazon is sending me a new charger, free.
Wind chill of 28°. I don’t want to go outside again!
Yesterday we had a high of about 12. Today it’s 32. Tomorrow it will be 41. Thursday we are supposed to get up to around 50. Then back to the 30s.
I foresee some sinus issues in my future.
Things are difficult for your former neighbors and cohorts. It’s very sad.
I had a meeting at church about some upcoming events, and then, when I got home, I had to make all the room reservations and stuff for the events. Then I finally got around to Kathleen’s reading.
How’s your back?
It has been six days since our resident feral, Thomas T. Tomcat, has been seen. In the interim we have had snow, brutal cold, and freezing rain.
He isn’t holed up in any of the sheltered areas we have provided on the farm here and his absence is now becoming a cause for concern for his safety.
He is the last of his family still living ‘free’. We do have his sister who is an in/outdoor cat and his brother who doesn’t go out but they both have been deprived of the ability to continue the family line. (His mother seemed to have only one kitten at a time, or at least only one that lived, thus the two that we have indoors are separate litters.)
Mildly achy. It’s worst when I’m trying to sleep.
Pensive floof says he’s sad for your back and hope it feels purrfect soon.
Good morning.
As I was waking up, I dreamed I had Charlie, my late fiancée
and Crazy Frank in my truck and upon waking, I’m still wondering how three men, one very tall, one on the wide side and one crazy as a moonbat all fit into that little truck. Anyway, we were looking for a place to take a public bath? The question mark is deliberate!
Nudity in public is a good omen in a dream, but the book has gone walkabout so I can’t refer to it for sure.
It was almost 2100 before I slept last night, and I can feel it this morning. I don’t know why, but I think it was the wind. Last night I had to have two extra breathing treatments and that’s not good.
But that was last night. This is morning and its a new start. So I’m going to start with a shower. That should take some of the kinks out of my back and neck.
I haven’t been able to sleep a few reasons one of them are wild dreams...looks like face might be able to help me. Cat update...now the cat is eating the bird food and the birds are eating the cat food. Camp robbers, mtchicks, stellar jays, and one woodpecker. Oh my dog sneaks to get some of the food.
The food, one raw egg, raw ground beef, left over food, cheese. the cat doesn’t like american cheese but does like the swiss cheese. Loves the colby cheese. Camp robbers are Canadian Jays. They love the american cheeses.
They all like peanut butter so none of them are allergic!! Only 5 yesterday am and today hot, bloomin’ heat wave 20 outside only 5 inches of new snow. Later!
What a lively ecosystem you have! Enjoy the warm day!
Good morning. I dreamed Bill the Son was over, and I told him his head looked like a hot dog.
Maybe you were looking for the baths because you were cold.
With the exception of rolling over into a warm, dry spot, I’m almost always cold when I sleep. But that’s CFIDS/ME and I deal with it how I can. Still, we never made it to the baths, for whatever that means!
I can’t roll over into a new spot, only rotate in place.
Charlie sleeps on a twin bed, as big as he is, and I have a queen, because I need a warm dry spot to roll into. Otherwise, I’d be so cold I couldn’t ever get a good night’s sleep. (Charlie treated himself to a new bed before I left, and I helped him take the old one out. He was going to, because I’m a woman, dontchaknow, but he has two bad knees. His knees wouldn’t have let him do it, anyway.)
And flannel sheets all year long because they wick away the moisture and dry much faster than percale, so by the time I wake up again, the first side is dry. Said flannel sheets are beginning to get rather thin, now, though. So sometime this year, I’ll be looking to buy new sheets. NOT paying full price! ;o]
When I have sciatica, like now, one of the most painful maneuvers is rotating in place while lying down. If it wasn’t so cold out, I’d consider setting my tent up.
Or, you could take a page out of 'Face's book and take a sleeping bag to sleep on the floor in the sun room. Or living room. At least there, you could roll over rather than rotate!
And now, for my next trick, I'll be trying to make it to Walmart and back. I love my car!
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