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 ...
My sons are all historical nitpickers, too.
It’s not just nitpicking. Congresscritters draw a pretty good salary for not doing their jobs. And I don’t care how much grandstanding they do about overseeing the DOJ investigation of Donald Trump, they are supposed to create and control budgets, and they don’t do that any more.
Part of that is declaring war and keeping the Army from getting too deep into conflicts that aren’t war.
Yes, that’s a good point.
Good for your body, healing on its own like that. If I think I’m going to take a fall, I injure myself by bracing for the fall, so I may as well just go ahead and fall, because then I can brag about surviving bruises I got from the fall. ;o]
Yes, the gym might be best left alone. Meanwhile, have a hot cuppa and you’ll feel better!
Was your weekend OK? Do you still visit the homeless shelters in cold weather? This year, we’re studying ministering and how to do it, and it sounds as if you already have an excellent idea of how its done!
It wasn’t so cold this weekend as the very frigid temps we had recently, but they’re coming back.
I don’t normally visit homeless shelters, although the Church I attend meets in one. When I was part of Don’t Walk By we actually walked the cold streets looking for homeless. One of those days the high was 9 Fs. We didn’t find to many who weren’t already forced into shelters by NYC’s Code Blue laws that day.
Ugh. High today of 33, but by Thursday the high is forecast to be 18.
We need to get off this rooooooooooly-coaster.
The Korean War was the first conflict that the PC crowd said was a “policing action”.
It as only after awhile that they admitted “Yup, it’s a war.”
“President Harry S. Truman declared the war a “police action” because he never asked Congress to pass an official declaration of war.”
Truman was an okay president, all things considered.
About the only thing I really remember about Truman was his really nasal voice. It used to drive me to distraction, even as a kid. Eisenhower wasn’t much better, but they were both men of honor. (At least, I thought so, even though I didn’t understand what voting was or why we did it.)
I finished pinning the hem, and got about 12” of it stitched, and then realized I was getting tired and my fingers weren’t obeying the commands my mind was giving them. So it was a good time to call it quits. I’ll start working on it first thing in the morning and will have it done in a couple of hours. I could do it on the machine but as it is, the hem is invisible from the outside, which the original one wasn’t.
And just in the last 90 minutes, the wind began to blow, and the vent cover (inside) is making that horrible sucking sound again. But wait. There’s more. The wind “always blows” in Hurricane. Not a pun. Series.
And now, the ‘Face is off to bed. I’ve had enough busyness for one day. See y’all tomorrow!
Oh, no! It's Ross Perot!
Moppy Handay!
Hope you have a good night. I can do a nice invisible hem, myself.
Happy Monday to you! Tomorrow is Trash Day!
It was merely a police action..
But that of course is NewSpeak for 'war'..
I agree that Congress should declare war instead of sitting on their hands, though.
To be fair, I’m glad they’re sitting on their own hands instead of our hands.
Especially when compared to certain presidents from the same party with names like Clinton or Obama..
!!
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