All the Ways the World Can End by Abby Sher

Author:Abby Sher [Sher, Abby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Published: 2017-07-11T05:00:00+00:00

Designer Pathogens and Bioterrorism

Fun facts!

• “You can download the gene sequence for smallpox or the 1918 flu virus from the Internet.” (Nick Bostrom, The Atlantic, 2012)

• Half of Hollywood is walking around with bioweapons in their lips. Botox—which is actually a neurotoxic protein produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum—is one wrinkle away from botulism. Which is fatal.

• It’s just some DNA tweaking and we’ll be dealing with bubonic plague possibilities—which, I recently heard was not imported to the US by rats, even though they eat, sleep, and make love in garbage. (Not sure rats can “make love,” but sounds better than “rat sex.”)

• At the same time, genetically engineered bacteria—aka adjuvants—boost the human immune response and help prevent fun icks like pertussis, cholera, and HPV. So if we want to have any hope of stopping AIDS, heart disease, MS, and cancer, don’t we have to design new pathogens?

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