[neverdem]

There are two pdf links in the article. You can avoid them by right clicking on a link which will give a pop-up or drop-down menu, and then right or left clicking on "Properties" will give you the URL which will or will not show a terminal .pdf on the address.

[esarlls3]

Reminds me of The White Plague, a 1982 novel by Frank Herbert.

[Lancey Howard]

[ruination]

This is right up my alley. I’ve been doing viral engineering for the past 11 years. These proposed restrictions on DNA synthesis or the required equipment seem absurd to me. It’s getting so simple and so cheap to do this stuff, I can’t see new laws and regulations being very effective. It’s pretty low-tech stuff - **far** less so than making a nuke, for example, and no restricted, or chemically rare or complex materials are needed.

What’s to keep some random lab in China or Mexico or even Bangladesh from doing this? Not too much!

[ruination]

By the way, the last two times I've had commercial gene synthesis done, the companies (one in Canada, one in Texas) were largely run by Chinese expats.

[endthematrix]

I guess humans will have to mutate themselves to keep one step ahead...

[neverdem]

The Inconvenient Science of Racial DNA Profiling

Poll: Most OK birth control for schools(another BOGUS poll)

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks neverdem. I can see you’ve been giving this a lot of thought... ;’)

[djf]

Some company out there sells PCR technology.

If you have good DNA, you can make quarts of the stuff. Gallons.

I think it would be fairly hard to do without contaminating the sample, though. It would end up being like fruit fly DNA or bread mold DNA or something.

[djf]

Or OJ’s DNA.

;-)