Word: insectes
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...moment, the scientists report, the robotyke has the brainpower of bacteria: "We hope to get up to insect level in a couple of years." Meantime, in another part of the forest, the human genome project is nearly complete. Peering into the future, one dimly discerns a convergence. Here are the projected patterns...
...hostility is understandable. Most of the genetically engineered crops introduced so far represent minor variations on the same two themes: resistance to insect pests and to herbicides used to control the growth of weeds. And they are often marketed by large, multinational corporations that produce and sell the very agricultural chemicals farmers are spraying on their fields. So while many farmers have embraced such crops as Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybeans, with their genetically engineered resistance to Monsanto's Roundup-brand herbicide, that let them spray weed killer without harming crops, consumers have come to regard such things with mounting...
Viral diseases, along with insect infestations, are a major cause of crop loss in Africa, observes Kenyan plant scientist Florence Wambugu. African sweet-potato fields, for example, yield only 2.4 tons per acre, vs. more than double that in the rest of the world. Soon Wambugu hopes to start raising those yields by introducing a transgenic sweet potato that is resistant to the feathery mottle virus. There really is no other option, explains Wambugu, who currently directs the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications in Nairobi. "You can't control the virus in the field...
...meant to do, then Charles (Chuck) Kristensen, 49, must be counted among the lucky ones. He found his calling in 1973, at 22, while working for an entomologist at the University of Minnesota. "I spent a lot of time watching spiders," he recalls. All that webmaking, spider mating and insect catching resonated with something in his personality--he still can't say what. "It just nailed me," he says. "I knew I would be working with spiders for the rest of my life...
...lazy days of my childhood--which, now that I think of it, consisted of my whining about being bored, then sprinkling sugar across the front stoop to create an ant farm--and then begging my mother to let me out of my room while promising never to unleash another insect plague...