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 ...
HDMI cables go bad, too.
W00t! Good job for a Friday!! :o])
Ah, yes. It takes me back to the good old days when you could eliminate troublesome annoyances and people would mind their own business about it.
Don’t even try to move something like that by yourself. Does your church have a bulletin board where you could put up a picture and “Free if you’ll come get it!”?
No, most things are word of mouth. Usually, if there’s a need, someone will tell one of the guys and he will announce it in one of the meetings, and/or the women will also. I can drag it from one spot to another, but not lift more than an end. So I’ll tell the folks on Sunday and see what happens.
If it ever stops raining, I’ll load up the truck with most of the stuff that is in my way to the front door. Then I can check out what’s available at the thrift store.
Somehow, I’ll get it figured out. :o]
Oh, look!! A swan singing a swan song! ;o]
Hmmm...I’ll check that out. Thanks.
And to answer your question of yesterday, yes, I helped the snails cross the sidewalk to where the grass was greener! I would not squish them. That’s gross to even think about. They deserve to move wherever they want.
thought it was from the ballet, Swan Lake.
;>)
Swans at the beach? Is it a lake?
Frank, Kathleen, and I were almost flattened by a low-flying goose last night on the way into the gym.
By tossing the troublesome annoyances overboard???
So far as I know, swans are fresh water birds... so lake, plenty of lakes have beaches.
It must have been quite the quandary for you; having spotted the danger but knowing it would be inappropriate to yell "Duck!"
LOL! I believe I yelled, “Aaaaagh!”
Nothing to speak of.
And yelling "GOOSE!!!" brings a new element to the game.
The Mil-Spec general purpose warning is appropriate in such situations.
Nah. Had to be a black swan... ;o]
Yes, I’ve had the issues with plugin things that seize up everything. I have tried to get this to start with every drive device SATA cable disconnected, the NIC card removed, and swapping in another video board. I haven’t checked/replaced the DVI cable, but the monitor knows when I plug it in or remove it from the vid board so the assumption is (I know, I know) that the cable is good - at least in some fashion..
There isn’t a KVM as such - the monitor has both VGA and DVI inputs. I have the VGA connected to my Linux box and the DVI I (normally) use for my ‘projects’ because if I’m working on a project I’m probably not on the Linux machine. If I want to do both I have to play with it a bit to get the correct machine to display (the monitor grabs the DVI input first on powerup then looks for the VGA if no DVI - I just booted the Linux box to verify the monitor is functional). The vid board in the machine in question does not have a VGA output, just DVI and HDwhateveritis..
Because of the liquid cooling swapping in a replacement processor is a pain in the democrat and after doing some pricing, I have a new Mobo and processor on the way from NewEgg.. Of course that will only serve to make the machine less out of date than it is since AMD has the Rhyzen chip out now but all those boards use DDR4. Would have loved to go that route but I’d need to buy everything new rather than being able to reuse the 32 gig of DDR3 I have. Of course I would have loved to update further but since I am not a gamer I don’t need the fastest loudest screaming box on the block for what I do. What I have ordered is an upgrade and in budget.
I do need to decide if, while I have this box on the bench, I want to bite the bullet and go to Win10 now, or postpone that inevitability until next January when M$ kills Win7. I didn’t jump to Win7 until they killed XP... This box I’m on now was my Win10 ‘project’ box to see if I could deal with it without resorting to application of big hammer therapy. I’m not really thrilled by it - largely because M$ hid stuff in unusual and nonintuitive places from where it used to be in Win7 - that and the forced updates, that sucks. Big time. But I can survive with it grumbling all the while. It IS after all better than WinAte..
Oh great. Linux box just told me Cinnamon crashed and won’t restart.. I think it’s a conspiracy.
Defenestration works wonders..
As soon as Spring REALLY arrives, and not this rainy, swampy period we’re currently going through, I’m going to change the OS on this to Linux Mint (I think) so I can keep a machine from fighting me every day, all day, and balking when the interminable updates occur.
I will add a special prayer for you tonight, that you are inspired as to which way to go with everything.
And with that, I’m taking my silly self to bed.
Ta.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.