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 ...
Oh what a tiny Morning Floof! Exquisite coloring, and looks like he’ll grow into a long-haired beauty with a regal feline bearing.
Makes me want one... :o])
Good morning. The sun is shining in my living room window again, and maybe one day soon, it will have moved far enough to the north that when it comes over the butte, it will shine full into the window and on me! What a wonderful thing to think about. ;o]
If your eyes matched your fur, you’d feel superior, too.
I pruned my wisteria this morning. It’s just beginning to put out leaves, so I could see which branches were still alive and which were dead. Other wisterias are already blooming, but mine is at least six weeks behind them.
Beauteous kitteh just woke up.
Probably. Kittens sleep a lot! We weeded the front flowerbeds this afternoon, thus avoiding a nastygram from the HOA.
Is your HOA very pesty?
No, not really. We get a note about the yard about once a year.
Hmmm. No FReepathon...
Yogic downward-cat-with-purloined-paper-in-mouth pose.
The price on small forsythias was quite reasonable, I thought — $14 plus S&H. The latter is more than a single plant so I would have to get two. I can order them any time during the year and they will be shipped in time for spring planting. Next year!
And then I’d have to get a lilac bush... :o])
“Ima kill dis fing! RAWR! You scaredame?” Morning Floof is very intimidating this morning.
Good morning. On the way to the laundry room as soon as I proof-read the letters I wrote so I can drop them in the mail slot when I get over there. I’ll take the driver’s handbook this time, and see how far I can get, complete with notes!
When I get back, I’ll see what I can do to swap out the TV table with the little round one that I’m so proud of in front of the bookcase!! The only other things will be making the bed and cleaning the cage before the Muppet Bird Gang begin to riot.
I hope you can keep the HOA demons away from your emails...
Patience! FReepathons are like the Undead Thread. You can kill them but they will never die!
Good morning. Happy Monday!
60s yesterday, high of 49 today. I commuted in 34 degrees.
Oh, well. Helloooooooo, April.
When I lived in southern New Hampshire the lilac bushes were weeds.
Happy Monday! Kitteh will bite you.
Just passing through on my way to get a Mapquest to Vlad’s carpool pickup for tomorrow’s middle-school Envirothon. We have a lilac bush.
Happy Monday I to you as well!
I think we may get up to 60° today! Right now, it’s mostly cloudy, so I don’t know what the rest of the day will be like.
We had a lilac bush in our front yard, and I just loved it. For some reason, it had to go and that always made me sad. Now of course, lilacs remind me of my late sis-in-law/5th cousin once removed and friend. So I want one!
Good luck to Vlad at the Envirothon!
Now I need to get busy, as the bed still needs to be made, and I have to hang the sleep shirts. Then I’ll get to work on moving the TV stand to a place out of the way... I hope my back holds up. I’ve taken the max on the morphine.
G’orning, y’all!
Good afternoon (now), SG. How’s tricks?
Again!
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