The Pentagon Wants to Make an Army of Virus-Spreading Insects. Scientists Are Concerned.

.livescience.com ^ | October 5, 2018 12:57pm ET | Brandon Specktor

[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."

[ArGee]

Mexico had a birthday? I would have sent a card.

[Tax-chick]

Heh, good one. It was a nice party at the park, but they didn’t have Mexican food.

[Jet Jaguar]

Time to move the castle. Candidate posted earlier today.

[Tax-chick]

The Sistine Chapel one, or do you mean another?

[Jet Jaguar]

That one. I just found it and pinged Darksheare.

[Tax-chick]

I pinged it to some people earlier, too. Maybe we can hop over!

[Jet Jaguar]

Posting from my phone. I could not do the moving day pics. And I don’t have the pinglist. We can wait til Darks sees the message.

[Tax-chick]

If there’s a groundswell of support, Darks will get to it when he can.

[Jet Jaguar]

Agreed

[Monkey Face]

I have the ping list on my home page so if you want to use it, feel free to do so. You could also get a message to Darks by way of No Cmpromiz.

[Darksheare]

Moving day

[Darksheare]

This is the END of the
Spawn of the Undead Thread: The October - May Chronicles

Join us at
Spawn of the Undead Thread: The June Chronicles redux

This is the END of the
Spawn of the Undead Thread: The October - May Chronicles

Join us at
Spawn of the Undead Thread: The June Chronicles redux

[SunkenCiv]

:^) Thanks!

[Silentgypsy]

I can’t wait until this team learns how to do its job.

How long do you think it will take?

[Monkey Face]

We’ve been hung out to dry!!!

[ArGee]

How long do you think it will take?

If I were truly in charge, instead of holding the place of the guy who ran off to get married, about a month.

[Darksheare]

Uh oh, wha happen?

[Monkey Face]

The new UT was pulled, so I FReepmailed Jim Robinson and he restored it for us, so it truly is Undead!!

[NicknamedBob]

"The new UT was pulled, so I FReepmailed Jim Robinson and he restored it for us, so it truly is Undead!!"

I suspect he did that only to keep all us troublemakers under proper scrutiny.

[Monkey Face]

He actually answered very quickly! So we have it back! :o])