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 ...
Frank is writing an essay about why one of the other Cub Scouts should get a haircut.
LOL! I’d like to read that!
I just went in and made a first pass at the bedroom floor. The water marks came up, but the tile is stained yellow. Strange.
In a few minutes, I have to go to Walmart and get some water. I could drink the tap water but at great risk to my kidneys. The Pur filter needs to be changed, so if I used tap water, that’s what would come out of the filter...without being filtered.
I have to pick Pat up at school in half an hour. Frank is coming along on the essay. Tom is lumbering about; he doesn’t have to be at school until 11:30.
“I want catnip Neaaaaaaaaaao!!!”
In order to make fun of Bon Jovi, of course! ;>)
Have you considered getting help?
OK.
Actually, that was caption for kitteh @273, and, certainly, kitteh would grant your request gratis, but, if you can figure out how to send check to kitteh, kitteh would probably put it to good use. Kitteh has not passed out contact information. Mirabile dictu that kitteh hasn’t passed out.
OTOH, how concerned is kitteh about DST? P.S. How about those commas?
Good stuff, Maynard!
For what?
For catnip addiction. It was a joke, in which you were attributing the statement to the kitten, but I was pretending it was you.
Just as I was ready to leave Walmart, the phone rang. It was my son, telling me I was on his mind. (I should have asked him if I was heavy.) So while I had him on the phone (in the letter I mailed to him yesterday, I asked him to call me) I asked him the question I had asked in my letter.
I bought a floor lamp in Mesa at a thrift store, and needed to rewire it, the problem being that I had no idea how to get the length I needed from the socket to the wall outlet with the length of wiring in the lamp repair kit. His solution was much better than the idea I’d had. He said to get an extension cord the length of the height of the lamp from the floor to the socket, plus five or six feet. Simple!
I already had the lamp kit and plenty of extension cords, so I just had to find the right length. I’m in business!
Now all I have to do it fit it into my busy schedule! *ha-ha*
I see many 3s ...
Sometimes all it takes is another point of view. And with that, I must go to Walmart.
Haha—thought you were referring to my comma confusion!
Anyhoo, gotta ton of boring stuff to do so have a great day!
If I ever played the Lottery and then if I ever won the Lottery I wouldn’t claim the prize. I’d have a non-profit tax-free organization set up so fast it would make your head spin. Then I’d invest the money and create grant request forms and a grant review committee. I’d pay my wife to administer the entire thing.
The primary reason for any of the above is so that no government would get another nickel of money they already got their share of. I’d rather live like a pauper the rest of my days than help them with their scam.
Good mor - er - afternoon, all.
Tappy Whoseday?
P'r'aps the original color of the tile was yellow and the water marks protected those areas from fading in the U-V light?
One doesn’t need help to make fun of Bon Jovi. It’s easy enough to do.
Example, we have a word for people “Living on a Prayer.” It’s called “poor.”
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