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 ...
Or how scary it would be when we did?
Not as scary as a 21-year-old Marine girl driving a Humvee on the wrong side of the road, though.
Woot!
Good morning, marmot!
I was really hoping the latest troll would get the zot, but they posted and ran.
Our resident flat earther also refuses to post their thread on how the earth is flat.
They just don’t want to play with us anymore.
Thank you!
G’daft ernoon, y’all!
It is a slightly dafternoon here. I took some yutes to the Pike Nursery looking for plants, but I forgot my phone, which has pictures of the plants I want, so I got Coleus instead: one medium-size and four small. It’s raining right now, so I’ll wait to plant them, but I put them out on the doorstep by the garden so they start getting used to it.
G’naftern oon
Howya, Darks! I planted my four small and one large Coleus. It looks like we’ll get more rain before the end of the day.
Once you enter the abyss, medicine works differently than here in real space.
I will say, the abyss *is* peaceful.
Look, a squirrel!
Maybe I could grab that theory off the internet that the Democrats are trying to Annex Mexico and start a thread with that topic.
I haven’t watched it yet, but maybe I could base it on this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIC8uuC5R_A
And traveling at light speed. Maybe now it can cross the road safely.
It’s been crap this way.
But that’s normal.
The grass has mutated in the rain, growing more powerful as we speak.
And the deer?
Useless at helping keep the lawn at bay.
Annex Mexico?
That would be a hilariously bad idea.
I don’t get the deer. They’re supposed to eat cultivated green stuff!
Fussier than a toddler, deer.
Unless it’s Hostas, then they act like it’s crack candy.
I’m not surprised. The abbess spends much of her time in prayer and contemplation.
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