Word: reds
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...scrubby flatland outside Copenhagen Airport, Jarne Elleholm and Carsten Meier are watching green foliage turn red. This is no autumn leaf-peeping exercise. Rather, they're keeping an eye on a swath of weeds they're growing that should turn red in the proximity of land mines. If the weeds change hues as designed, Elleholm and Meier could save thousands of lives and limbs...
Their company, Aresa, a Copenhagen-based biotech start-up, has genetically modified a common weed called thale-cress so that its leaves turn red when the plant comes in contact with nitrogen dioxide--a compound that naturally leaches into the soil from unexploded land mines made from plastic and held together by leaky rubber seals. Aresa is growing large patches of the stuff on old army shooting ranges that have been seeded with land mines...
Aresa uses a seeding hose known as a "hydroseeder"--groundskeepers use such a hose to grow green grass on golf courses--to cover about a football field of territory in a day. After four to five weeks the thale-cress will have sprouted and turned red if it encounters nitrogen dioxide. Normally, plants neutralize nitrogen dioxide, which they recognize as harmful. But Aresa scientists, led by founder Meier, have genetically engineered thale-cress, fusing its nitrogen dioxide neutralizer with an enzyme that creates red pigment (plants naturally produce red pigment, which isn't visible until the green disappears in autumn...
...says with a laugh, declining to mention the companies involved. Or consider the experience of Maha Sherif, president and CEO of Ageless Beauty, a beauty company based in Valencia, Calif., that markets Marvel-Minis, three separate light-based devices that are claimed to tackle acne (blue light), wrinkles (red) and sun spots (green). The brush-shaped tools ($225 each), which have not yet gotten the FDA's nod, went on sale at Nordstrom in April. "We ran out of stock in the first 30 days," boasts Sherif. "And I got phone calls from [potential partners and buyers] after just...
...that was nothing compared to the damage done in the dark hours of Sunday morning by vandals who kicked down thousands of the flags and left behind a cardboard sign with a single word splattered in red spray paint: "MURDERERS...