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 ...
Have you tried shouting for Alexa or Siri for help?
No, I just closed the windows.
Is kitteh in process of being hypnotized?
We greatly appreciate all well wishes.
Actually, he fell at church while repairing a light fixture so my P.O. said I’m O.K. pro tem.
I think you’re referring to the Heimlich valve. What Mr. Sg would have gotten was a tension pneumo, which is a lot more insidious than a sucking chest wound.
Good Morning Floof looks mahvelous today.
The nieces (with one husband in tow) made it to my village, at around 1530 MDT and we loaded up. Since the day after I moved in, the neighbor in my building has parked in front of her apartment. Without fail. Yesterday, because there was strange car with Idaho plates, devoid of passengers in her assigned spot (pit stop and gathering my travel gear) she decided she wanted to park there.
Then she saw it was MY visitors, and still insisted they move. They did. We loaded up. Sixteen hundred hours, and we are on the way. The wind was blowing but not bad for Hurricane, which got its name from the wind, until such time as we got out of the Slot Canyon.
Number Five niece, who has never driven in real city traffic, had to drive through Las Vegas at rush hour and she was almost a nervous wreck by the time we got to Boulder City.
We faced high winds and volumes of dust for 300+ miles, and made it into Mesa around 0100 hours MDT this morning. Barely five hours of sleep and I was up and ready for the day. But wait. I didn’t know the Wi-Fi password, so I had to cool my heels while I waited for Number One niece to wake up.
In the meantime, I spied a very large photo of Billary and Hill in this gal’s study. I need to find another place to stay. The viewing is tonight and the funeral tomorrow, and I’ll be a prisoner until probably Sunday morning.
Unngh!
Me. Want. Several.
Afternoon! I hope the next couple of days go better than expected. At least you’ll be able to talk to people other than the fan of the Clintons!
That’s like reading the script from a John Wayne Movie.
The only thing missing is an ambush at the intersection. :)
Take care ‘Face. Look after yourself.
If today is any indication, things will be far worse before they are better. I’m not hopeful.
Several times this day I have wished I had stayed home, and at the “picnic” today, the wind was blowing too much that I could do nothing but try to be nice. I was “admonished” by a niece that my talk may be better off not said at the funeral. Having done her duty, that was the first and last I saw of her. So I’m in the “lodging” room, because I just can’t deal with stupidity any more today.
I think the thing that bothers me most is that at the mother’s funeral six years ago, it was OK for the kids to poke fun at each other, but when my living brother asked me to tell of a childhood incident concerning the recently deceased brother, I’m asked not to. Maybe things will look better tomorrow, but right now, they are downright dismal. I feel like she was asked to caution me because I’m not my brother’s child, only his sister — the only one that would talk to him in the last 40 years.
If I were independently wealthy, I would rent a car, and drive home right after the funeral tomorrow.
Yes, Moosie, there was an ambush at the intersection. Most assuredly so.
*tagline*
Yes.
WordPerfect. It was a word processor long before Microsoft could speak a Word..
And they don’t change file formats every time they have a version update.
Open Office/Libre Office interface (which I use on my Linux box) is too - WORDy.. ;-)
I suppose if I were so inclined I could make some of those. Over there (points in the general direction of a set of plastic storage bins into which things disappear never to be seen again) is a box of 100 well aged 3.5” formatted floppies most of which are unused.
I think they’re beige colored. If your daughter needs more raw material let me know and I’ll see if they’re really there and then we can work out something.. ;-)
And if she can think of a use for a slew of PATA ribbons or some Centronics port cables (you know, the ones that look a lot like IEEE 1284 connectors..) let me know. I know a source, cheap.. ;-)
Don’t have any RS232 cables though.
Morning Floof looks very Floof-like today.
Good morning. I’m off to the shower.
Someone is in the shower here, too. I will need to kick him out so the next person can get in.
Shannon chased a squirrel up a tree. #waytocat
Thank you for the offer, NC. If anyone actually orders any of the few she made from the old floppies I could find, I’ll put you two in touch.
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