Posted on 06/11/2014 10:55:30 AM PDT by chessplayer
Scientists have created a life-threatening virus that closely resembles the 1918 Spanish flu strain that killed an estimated 50m people in an experiment labelled as "crazy" by opponents.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison used a technique called reverse genetics to build the virus from fragments of wild bird flu strains. They then mutated the virus to make it airborne to spread more easily from one animal to another.
"The work they are doing is absolutely crazy. The whole thing is exceedingly dangerous," said Lord May, the former President of the Royal Society and one time chief science adviser to the UK government. "Yes, there is a danger, but it's not arising form the viruses out there in the animals, it's arising from the labs of grossly ambitious people."
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
This is SCAREY!
I scare know what else to say.
Like the effort to generate black holes,
this WILL eventually succeed.
Like the effort to generate black holes,
this WILL eventually succeed.
Wheeeee!!!
Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
See what happens when “science” becomes a religion after stripping out true morality and ethics?
The douchebag hipsters love to scream “I f’ing love science”. Well here is some science that you can die for.
If a terrorist organization sets its mind to obtaining it, especially since they now, thanks to Obama have hundreds of millions of dollars, they will get it.
The only safe place to conduct this experiment is on the moon.
Sounds like the start of a very scary movie.
Sounds like the plot to a horror flick.
What’s scary? That they just announced it? What makes you think every major military power hasn’t already secretly done this?
What could possibly go wrong? /sarcasm
The article reads like the start of a horror movie.
Or the 1970s TV show “Survivors”.
The 2010s version was the same concept but way too anti-corporation and big business conspiracy.
I haven;t a clue as to what anyone else may have done.
The possibility that ANYONE would be so foolish as to create such a pandora’s box never occured to me
This article was in 2007. Why wasn't more of an alarm raised then?
Scientists Describe How 1918 Influenza Virus Sample Was Exhumed In Alaska
The laboratory should be sterilized and the scientists executed.
I worked for a while 10 years back with a PhD bio-chemist. She told us she could whip up something like this in her garage for under $10k. The only really limiting factor is knowledge, not money or equipment, as in chemical or atomic WMDs.
I assume the tech has only gotten easier to use and the knowledge of how to use it more widely spread in the time since.
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