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 ...
So many marmalades! My Friday Eve is complete! NOW I can have a good day!
Thank you, T-c and Covenantor! <3 <3
We can. We did. But then someone decided they had to be electronic.
Funny, I never see that happen with lottery ticket machines.
Oh.
You can blame the costly insurance laws for that part. I have a 2003 Ford Escape with > 230k miles on it. I park it on the side of the road in Manhattan so it has more dings than if it were left out in a hailstorm. Once when it was actually hit hard enough to get a repair I asked the adjuster to please just make it derivable, not like new. She said that was illegal. So I had to pay the entire deductible rather than maybe $200 it might have required.
I'm also with USAA.
I’ve loved the voices in my head for longer than I can remember.
Not to worry. The Chinese are on it.
Happy Friday Eve, all.
Now they say $9,000. There no such thing as “just a dent” with new(er) vehicles. The safety sensors that didn’t keep Tom or the other driver from colliding cost a fortune to replace. The side panel that might just have been dented on an older vehicle was shattered.
And they say it will be done by the end of the month, *sigh*. I assume the repair shop is coordinating their prioritizing with USAA, knowing that we have the rental car coverage until, conveniently, the end of the month.
And I do only those things the voices in my head tell me to. However, if the voices in my head bother you, I suggest you move a few feet away so they’re only whispers. ;o]
Easier to run a system every day than to cold start it a couple times every two years run it for less than a day and box it up until the next time.
I’m very disappointed in Laxalt. I said he’d work with Sisolak.
He should have said as long as Sisolak is moving in the direction of more freedom, fewer restrictions, lower taxes and less intrusion in private lives he will work with him, but he will fight every penny of tax increase, every line of intrusive laws, every burden on the employers who hire and pay the people to do useful things, will be fought tooth and nail by any means necessary!
HE said he’d work with Sisolak. I never said I would.
None of those sensors are in my old car. But I've seen the ads. Every one has a disclaimer that none of them replaces the key safety sensor - which is the nut behind the steering wheel.
“Laxalt” and “Sisolak” both sound like digestive aids.
I knew that! I don’t trust Sisolak. He’s an abuser, and was extremely evil to the mother of his daughters. To this day, the daughters won’t speak to their mother, even though she had them until they got out of high school.
He’s going to help flush Nevada into the toilets of Calimexico.
Sisolak is more of an emetic.
Exactly. In this case, both nuts behind both steering wheels were careless. Tom should not even have parked where he did; he should have been in the part of the parking lot that doesn’t have the traffic from the drive-through. The other driver could have stopped if he had been alert and going an appropriate speed.
Good one.
Thank you for the face!
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