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 ...
Of course, now damp hay is going to fork the story line.
Ah, well, such is life.
Sanity Why would you want sanity to deal with bureaucrats?
Lovely—thank you!
You’re welcome.
G’orning, y’all!
G’orning, y’all!
And to you. Hope all is well as we turn the corner on the way to Friday.
I see, by some of the structure in #4177 that I should keep my comments to a minimum, no matter where I go the rest of this morning. My trip to Wally’s took almost 90 minutes. I couldn’t find what I wanted.
I still need to get a landline phone. This trip to get grocks was more expensive than any in a long time.
—
I went gathering wool. It’s been over 20 minutes since I started this and meant to post it. Not a good omen.
I need sanity because I see so little of it.
Maybe a little rest is in order.
Well, good look finding it with the bureaucrats.
For what it’s worth, this style of fiction is much easier for me to write than the Program Quality Plan I’m working on.
For what it’s worth, this style of fiction is much easier for me to write than the Program Quality Plan I’m working on.
The Xagthrath was patient. It had learned the hard way that patience was the best way to catch a biped. That’s how it had acquired the extra camouflage of socks, jeans, and shirts that seemed to attract them so well.
The bipeds were great because they were filling. The one biped was worth several of the small quadrupeds with the sharp teeth that it normally captured. And, usually, just being very still and waiting for them to touch it was sufficient to snare one.
This one was different, though. It seemed to be more wary than the others. The Xagthrath had really disliked being poked with that stick. He probably shouldn’t have reacted by swatting at the biped with it, but it had HURT. He wasn’t used to being hurt.
And now the biped seemed to be more wary than before. It was making sounds with another biped, and they were both looking at him. He hoped one or both of them would stick around and try again. He would try to avoid doing anything else to frighten the biped.
He would wait. He was good at that. He had learned to be patient.
There was no time for resting. I had to get the bills paid and get up to the clubhouse to mail them and to put The Letter in Chuck’s personal mail drop along with the rent check. Then I was on my way.
I experienced some minor confusion finding the right office in the building, but the doctor is very personable and willing to help. He contacted the pain clinic and I had just barely walked in the door at home and they called to schedule an appointment. He has already put in a prescription for the steroid and the Gabapentin, so I’m waiting for a text from Walgreen’s.
Tomorrow I see the eye doctor. And right now, I’m worn out. The good news is that my BP was 134/70. :o]
Hurricane utilities doesn’t accept AmEx, so they used the energy assistance balance. I told the gal that waited on me that whatever it is I’m supposed to do here, Satan doesn’t want me to do it. Her response was, “It must be something he’s afraid of.” OK. I’ll take that.
Walgreen’s just sent me a text and said the steroid was ready and the Gabapentin isn’t. Things happen fast here!
The drive was very nice, actually, as I took the Old Highway. There is so much growth here, its not funny. However, my phone led me the right way!
They accepted my written excuse, and that’s all I cared about! Most of them here are pretty “small townish” and haven’t been bitten by the Snooty Bug.
As long as they accept my check for the next utility bill, I don’t care what kind of attitude they have. I’m not driving all over town trying to get cash and money orders with that cash, when I’m not feeling well. It’s hard enough for me to function as it is. I don’t need Bureaucratic nonsense when I’m trying to fix things.
I just went gathering wool again. It must be time for me to go lie down and call this a day.
Understood. So first, please fill out this FT-104 form and take it, and your proof of identity, over to window 4. Once there she can get you a BT-205 form to explain what was broken that you're trying to fix. You'll then tak the two forms and your Money Order for $29.99 (plus shipping and handling) over to window 7 and she'll take care of it for you.
NEXT!
After she left I looked back at the pile of clothes. What could she possibly have meant about the Super being in on it. In on what?
While I was thinking, I heard a scratching noise coming from behind the rack of washers and a rat poked his nose around the corner. I held very still, tightening my grip on the broom handle in case it decided to come my way. It was tentatively sniffing the room and moving farther away from the machines. There wasn’t a sound but its claws on the tile.
It decided to check out the wet pile of clothes. It moved closer, sniffing.
Suddenly it’s feet started furiously scrabbling back against the tile. It started squealing, but a sock wrapped around its head and shut off the sound. The rat was frantic now, but it was being pulled inexorably toward the pile.
After a few minutes its head was no longer visible. It stopped struggling and went limp. But it kept being pulled. Slowly it disappeared until only the tail was left. Then that disappeared, too.
Some people might have been shocked, but I’ve seen a lot in my years. There was that amusement-park scale I had to disassemble after some guy floated off it. But if I start telling those stories I won’t finish this one.
Oldie from us:
“My ancillary nerceptor tentacle can’t quite reach the subject’s amygdala Master Inceptor Gworvash!” cried the alien examiner in training.
Master Inceptor Gworvash wriggled over, he was a mass of tentacles and eyestalks.
He was also several hundred years old.
“Marrumph, you’re just too young. Your tentacle stalks haven’t grown in yet. See if you can interface with his visual cortex.”
“You mean, lay on his face and mess with his eyes?” the examiner in training asked.
“Yes, yes. Quite.”
Hours later, the man would wake up screaming about how a pulsating shag pile rug laid on his face and blinked light into his eyes while noting his reactions down on a clipboard.
Two days later, the vet looked at him and said, “It’s a cat. I don’t have any idea what you mean about playing with your eyes and taking notes. Cats have been known to lay on your face until you wake up. The rest must have been a nightmare.”
Meanwhile, Master Inceptor Gworvash chuckled behind his feline whiskers content in the knowledge that feline alien origins had not been uncovered.
Nor would they be.
Gworvash and his protege loaded their subject back into an alien device for another night of prodding and experimentation.
The novice asked, “How much longer will this study be? The stupid human keeps expecting me to eat that fishy stuff he takes out of a can. He seems to get upset if I don’t choke it down like some kind of animal. Then, when I do get an opportunity for some good food, my stomach hurts too much.”
“A few more tests before we send him over the edge and we move on to unsuspecting doting humans.” Gworvash said to his protege.
The sounds coming from inside the device were terrible.
It sounded like a crazed poodle was doing nasty things to a spinning agitator in a washing machine.
Attack of the cat -by Argee and Darksheare 12 Feb 2013
Another short
The Laundry.
“I arrived back to my place to after the party.
Mounds of the usual laundry greeted me, and my antediluvian headache.
Socks, shirts, briefs, pants, a jacket that I never wear, and a sequined thong.
I stopped to consider the thong.
The alien object sitting there, glittering a taunt at me.
“You don’t wear these, so why am I here?!” it jabbered.
“I have no idea, but in with the rest of the clothes you go.” I said, as I hideously mixed lights with darks, gentle knits with permanent press.
My work of evil complete, I sat on my davenport and listened to the pained screech of the laundry convulse in its death throes.”
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