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 ...
What a squeeful Morning Floof!
Good morning. It’s Saturday. I have letters to write. I also have to go to Walmart, as I’m out of stuff.
I will go in a few minutes. When I come home, I will set up the fan for eventual use. And when its light outside, I’m going into the bedroom and wash that filthy window. I thought what I was seeing this winter was steam on the window, but yesterday, I went to open the window farther and found out there is just a FILM of CRUD on it! Dis-gusting!
I priced tires this morning because I could. Do you know if Walmart will mount and balance the tires I buy there? I’m assuming so, but I would hate to order them online and find out they don’t. I’m thinking maybe I can try in June or July to get two tires, and then again the next month. It seems that’s the only way I’m going to afford them.
Good morning. I don’t know whether Walmart will put the tires on. I would call and ask before ordering!
It’s peaceful here with only four children at home. I’m thinking about filling the cats’ bowl and turning the lights on for the lizards. So much for peaceful: someone’s up overhead!
I usually don’t call Walmart because they are notoriously slow at answering, if at all. I’m usually left on Perma-Hold to languish for 30 minutes. If I had that amount of patience. I give them 10 minutes, then hang up.
When I go, I’ll see if anyone is in automotive.
Ah, yes...the peace of a quiet house!! <3
Kathleen turned up, but the three boys are still in bed.
There’s one in every family....
So true.
I got the Saturday “Charlotte Observer,” which is junk, instead of the weekend “Wall Street Journal.”
Well, having the boys in bed and not sick can be a good contributor to peace and quiet!
When I get back, I’m going to write letters. I wrote to Charlie yesterday, as he seems to get stressed when he has to wait long for a letter from me, poor ol’ guy. They moved him into his new apartment “that he was going to really love,” and he is a real curmudgeon about it. He always was a testy old man, but the move has made him a lot worse.
So I write to him and mail it on Fridays so he can have it by Monday.
We befriended the butcher in the next-town-east Wal Mart, and they answered the phone and connected us promptly. (We shared a recipe for doing something-or-other to their frozen chicken breasts.) Maybe the Wal Mart in your new home is different from the big-city one. Just a suggestion. P.S. How’s Beaker? What’s the other little one’s name?
Is the Charlotte Observer free?
No, it costs as much as the Wall Street Journal. The same contractor delivers all the newspapers, and sometimes they get mixed up. We’ve received the New York Times occasionally. At least it has book reviews!
I’m reading the Journal online, but it’s not the same.
Can you cancel it or does it give you local info?
5733 is an interesting article. I have a friend who visited J-berg on a business trip with her husband. She offered me firsthand opinions on same.
We don’t subscribe to the Charlotte Observer. The delivery person mixed up the delivery. The same contractor delivers a bunch of different newspapers, and you have a colored sticker on your mailbox, telling the driver which paper to drop. Sometimes they get it wrong.
I complained to both the Observer and the Wall Street Journal, but it probably won’t get me a weekend WSJ, just an additional day on my subscription.
Yes, that was interesting. I think that one lesson is that, when government is supposed to provide everything, everybody feels like they’re getting the short end of the stick.
The joys of substandard service. When we get a product that actually works the way it’s supposed to, we rejoice! What’s wrong with that? Ugh.
You would think, with print media under threat from every direction, they would make a point of actually delivering the paper to the dead-tree subscribers.
So many clowns.
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.