Is the Pentagon Modifying Viruses to save crops
Article by Dan Charles
The flies start feeding on this plant, and as they do, they infect it
with the virus. The virus starts replicating and moving throughout the
plant. A person named Polston spent years studying this triangle of virus,
insect, and plant so that she could figure out ways to disrupt it and
stop viruses from harming crops. But she's now getting ready to
carry out a different kind of experiment in a different
greenhouse, a super-secure one that no one was allowed to visit. What's
going on in that greenhouse is the brainchild of Blake Bextine, a
program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. He thinks there's a way to use this infectious triangle for
good. "This is a beautifully elegant system that puts genes
into plants, that causes negative effects. Why can't we turn this system
upside down, and use it to deliver positive traits into plants?"
Bextine says.
If you would like more information, the website is posted below
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/11/07/658471432/is-the-pentagon-modifying-viruses-to-save-crops-or-to-wage-biological-warfare
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment