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 having a Thursday.
Apparently Thursday has been getting a little ticked at me for trying to remove it from its place in the calendar. Hopefully it isn’t taking that out on you.
Hopefully...
My current year calendar, which is the one from 2013, has pictures of antique cars on it.
If I had started this program early enough, I could have calendars with pictures of antique cars, that were actually current year sales advertisements!
If the pile of wet laundry didn’t just eat a rat, I was hard pressed to describe what HAD just happened. But my dark ops training kicked in and I tried to catalog what I knew so far. It wasn’t much. The pile wasn’t wet clothing. At least 4 people had disappeared recently. There is evidence that 2 of them were preparing to deal with the pile. It was able to grab hold of things. It could swing a club. And it had some oomph. I decided to put aside a possible involvement on the part of the super as hearsay.
There were more things I didn’t know. How aware was the pile of its surroundings? Did it understand what was happening or just react to stimuli? Was it camouflaged as clothing or was the clothing some kind of addition? Could it camouflage itself as other things? And what, if anything, could hurt or kill it?
Don’t go all PETA on me. If that thing has a habitat then it’s free to live there. Right then it was in mine, and it didn’t belong. It was either it or me, and I had no plans of it being me.
This being New York City, I wasn’t going to go to my illegal stash of weapons and bring one here. So it was plan B, at least for now.
I wondered if it was always wet. I started looking around the area as best I could without getting too close. I had no idea how far it could reach with those socks, or what else it might reach with. But I couldn’t see any evident leaks that would explain it being wet. I assumed it kept itself wet. And that led me to wonder if it had to be damp to survive. Finding that out would be a lot less dangerous than trying to carry one of my weapons through the city.
I went to the supply closet and go two big space heaters and one of those rug dryer fans. I brought them in, set them up to dry out the pile, and stood back to see what would happen.
the next one is the dentist. I’m NOT looking forward to that one! But it needs to be done.
I had my recent checkup on Monday last. All is well. A really nice Armenian lady but she’s rough with the cavitron.
Anyway, I can smile for a while longer.
:o])
FYI, in case I forget to mention it, I don’t know if I’ll have the interwebs first thing in the morning because TDS is stopping the cable service (presumably at 0000 this night) and I don’t know if they got my email cancelling the ISP service. It took them four days to respond to an email and I had time to re-think their sucky service.
So I contacted Century Link and went with them for ISP and phone/fax service. I hope the ISP is still alive when I wake up, because it will be after my shower before my brain shifts into gear from a very slow idle.
4204?
I scribbled it this morning.
I’m aware of that movie, no involvement in this one.
However, the experience of selling cell phones from Cellular One WAS involved.
If they could have put it in the contract that they had to be allowed feudal carnal rights to your female relatives, they would have.
I hope your interwebs are all there. Maybe you need to be nicer to spiders ...
That has always been my policy.
Spiders
I know you don’t like spiders. I think we all agree.
Nature’s wonders are all great, some things I need not see.
Like spiders in the bathroom! Some folks deny the fact,
But traces show they’ve been around, them and their trapeze act!
You may not see a spider, but proof remains behind.
Their spiderwebs displaying dust, in corners and aligned.
They are not there to prove to you your dusting could improve,
But only that some tiny bugs have been upon the move.
Spiders are exterminators, no need to give a call,
They show up anytime you’ve got those bugs there on your wall.
They’ll clean up all those crawly pests, but if they miss a guest,
They’ll lay some eggs down so their young will dine upon the rest.
NicknamedBob . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 13, 2005
‘Twas a visiting Xagthrath.
I have always taken good care of my spiders.
That is not near me, fortunately. Yuck!
Today at about 5pm George T Cat, fur person, took temporary leave of his humans and crossed the rainbow bridge to wait for them over there. He had spent 19 years less one week on this earth giving joy to everyone except the meeses whom he loved to pieces.
A couple of weeks ago a cancerous tumor began to interfere with his breathing and he began his decline. Today he was no longer able to go on and sadly we had to bid him goodbye.
He will be laid rest under the pines, guarding the parameter as a good cat should, on dawn and evening patrol.
He will be missed.
I’m so sorry about your loss, but what a good, long life he had. Happy hunting fields to George T!
Oh, so sad. Good kitteh will be missed. 19 years is a long, good kitteh life.
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