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The spotted lanternfly has become one of the most destructive invasive insects in the United States, threatening vineyards, orchards and forests by feeding on the sap of hundreds of plant species. Finding its egg masses before they hatch is one of the most effective ways to slow its spread, but the eggs are well camouflaged and often overlooked by human searchers.

Over three summers, a doctoral researcher named Douglas Boyes spent more than 400 hours crouched beside English roadside hedges after dark, tapping branches with a stick and counting how many moth caterpillars fell onto a canvas tray below. Boyes, who split his time between Newcastle University and the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, expected artificial street lighting to reduce caterpillar numbers by something like 10 per cent.

Indian scientists at ICAR-NRRI, Cuttack, have shown that an artificial intelligence-designed enzyme, OpenCRISPR-1, can precisely edit rice DNA, matching the famous CRISPR-Cas9 across knockout, base editing and prime editing. The open-source platform, named POC1, could ease the patent burden on gene editing and speed India's push for climate-resilient, self-reliant crops.