The Pentagon Wants to Make an Army of Virus-Spreading Insects. Scientists Are Concerned.

.livescience.com ^ | October 5, 2018 12:57pm ET | Brandon Specktor

[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."

[NicknamedBob]

High Flight
by
John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

[Covenantor]

well done sir, well done.

what a fine fit.

[ArGee]

That was actually my first thought, especially when we were informed it was found next to a Catterpillar.

But the photo takes me back to the 1980s when I was living in base housing for Offut AFB in Omaha-ha-ha-ha, Nebraska. At some point they decided all the stoops needed to be replaced so they brought in a Bobcat with a jackhammer add-on to jack-hammer out the old stoops.

When they tried it on the first house they realized that the stoops had been poured over 6 feet deep. So poor Captain what’s his name and his family had to do without a stoop for a month while the contractor got great big Caterpillar backhoes with jackhammers to do the work.

That’s the gub-mint for you, and why I really, really, really don’t want them in charge of any part of my life ever again.

[ArGee]

Just remember, “Interchangeable parts aren’t.”

-Murphy

[ArGee]

Good morning, all. Huppy Hampday!

They tell me it’s Wednesday. It sure looks like Monday, without the snow.

[ArGee]

Nicely done.

[ArGee]

For the very short period of time I was in AF pilot training they called going out for a flight, "Slipping the surlies."

We had to memorize "High Flight."

At that time, I had not seen this.

[NicknamedBob]

Somewhere in Japan, you can walk around with your head upturned, to see penguins swimming overhead.

They were talking about the acrylic artwork, but I saw the poetic majesty.

[Monkey Face]

When we were stationed at Yuma Proving grounds, the TV stations all signed off with that poem. It always gives me the chills!

Thanks for posting it.

[Silentgypsy]

Dreamy....

[Silentgypsy]

Ah-HA! I didn’t even see it coming.

[Silentgypsy]

Very dreamy....

[Silentgypsy]

G’daft ernoon, y’all!

[Darksheare]

Goo Daftern Oon

[Monkey Face]

Thanks. Not bad for someone who’s running a fever again. I thought it would make me feel better to snag it but it hasn’t.

I need to go take some pills and something for the pain, and find something for the maw. Some days, it doesn’t pay to beat down the Wererabbit.

[ArGee]

Yellow!

[Monkey Face]

Happy Friday Eve!!

Without the Morning Floof, the UT comes to a standstill.

At any rate, yes, thank you, I feel much better this morning, and no more fever. Although, I still have almost six hours of morning and a few hours of afternoon to get through, and I’m thinking it will be after the sun begin its descent that the fever will show up again. Hopefully, not as rabidly as previous days. These relapses are hideous!

[ArGee]

Yes, Happy Friday Eve and thanks for jump-starting the day.

Hopefully the fever won’t return at all, except, possibly, the fever for more cowbell.

Sunny and cold here in the big frozen apple. But my car was able to climb the ice hill last night and find a new ice hill to park on, so that went well.

[Monkey Face]

Good morning. I’m adjusting to not adjusting, and I feel a little better, though still tired and wobbly.

The rain has stopped for the moment, but the next three or four days will provide more, and I’m hoping the aquafers are filling for the first time since Man began to tap them.

We seem to have reached the Not Winter part of the year. It’s that time of year in the winter that is not really winter, but not really spring, either. I keep scanning the trees to see if there are any little green things starting to peep out on their ways to becoming leaves, but so far, nothing. :o[

I really do want some summer! Charlie called yesterday and said that they had gotten quite a bit of rain, and insinuated that it was my fault!

He said that the construction company had no idea that there were over 36 studio apartments in the center of the complex, even though Charlie had brought it up at one of the meetings over a year ago. So now, they have to move those who have been in studios into one-bedrooms until the studios are done. He said they were probably four months behind schedule and this was going to make it worse.

ArGee, I’m so glad you convinced me that this was a better place to live!! ;o]

[NicknamedBob]

"We seem to have reached the Not Winter part of the year. It’s that time of year in the winter that is not really winter, but not really spring, either. I keep scanning the trees to see if there are any little green things starting to peep out on their ways to becoming leaves, but so far, nothing."

Sonnet to Almost Spring

The flowers stir, and stretch their tender shoots,
Awakened by a warmth come softly seeping,
“Rise up!” the call has traced their hidden roots,
To rouse them from their winter’s peaceful sleeping.

The den of slumbers has become,
A din of noisy childish clatter.
Impetuous and impish in its sum,
They split the earth and clamber up its ladder.

Emerging into sunlit air, and softening caresses,
Of nurture at its basest form, the soil on which we stand,
Which all too quickly grips them and compresses,
As night falls much too early in the land.

False spring has lured them out. Cruel season’s dying play,
Receding from the shores of Spring, the Winter ebbs away.

NicknamedBob . . . . . . . . . March 17, 2007