Designing DNA Specific Bio-Weapons 227
Hugh Pickens writes writes "The Atlantic reports that experts in genetics and microbiology are convinced we may be only a few years away from the development of advanced, genetic bio-weapons able to target a single human being based on their DNA. The authors paint a scenario of the development of a virus that causes only mild flu in the general population but when the virus crosses paths with cells containing a very specific DNA sequence, the sequence would act as a molecular key to unlock secondary functions that would trigger a fast-acting neuro-destructive disease that produces memory loss and, eventually, death. The requisite equipment including gene sequencers, micro-array scanners, and mass spectrometers now cost over $1 million but on eBay, it can be had for as little as $10,000. According to Ronald Kessler, the author of the 2009 book In the President's Secret Service, Navy stewards gather bedsheets, drinking glasses, and other objects the president has touched—they are later sanitized or destroyed—in an effort to keep would-be malefactors from obtaining his genetic material. However no amount of Secret Service vigilance can ever fully secure the president's DNA, because an entire genetic blueprint can now be produced from the information within just a single cell. How to protect the President? The authors propose open-sourcing the president's genetic information to a select group of security-cleared researchers who could follow in the footsteps of the computer sciences, where 'red-team exercises,' are extremely common practices so a similar testing environment could be developed for biological war games. 'Advances in biotechnology are radically changing the scientific landscape. We are entering a world where imagination is the only brake on biology,' write the authors. 'In light of this coming synbio revolution, a wider-ranging relationship between scientists and security organizations—one defined by open exchange, continual collaboration, and crowd-sourced defenses—may prove the only way to protect the president.'"
I hate it (Score:2, Insightful)
This is just cruel. A bullet would be more humane than to cause an eventual death by progressively shutting down their body.
What a great thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
For every interest group when they figure out that they can target "unwanted" groups of people. And imagine what the Nazis of Germany could have done during WWII - a virus designed to kill off everyone that wasn't pure Arian.
I had to cringe (Score:5, Insightful)
We haven't yet found a cure for cancer, or other horrible and debilitating diseases, but we've found time to research something like this?
Re:Frank Herbert's The White Plague (Score:4, Insightful)
Iran must be quite worried. Struxnet was nothing.
Idiots (Score:2, Insightful)
We've found cures for many cancers. "cancer" isn't a disease, it's a family of diseases, and killing is a whole lot easier when you're less selective. By the way, this isn't research, this is spouting notions. The two are only conflated in think tanks and idiots. but I repeat myself.
Re:Frank Herbert's The White Plague (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I hate it (Score:2, Insightful)
To the contrary, putting some crook in confinement for sixty years instead of letting him go quickly is quite cruel, and forcing all honest citizens to pay for that crook is theft. I'm proud that my country, Poland, did not ratify this part of the EU Charter, and sad that despite overwhelming public support, we do not actually use it.
You might say there's a risk of court errors. There's an easy solution: a criminal would be eligible for capital punishment only if there are no doubts he actually intentionally took part in the crime. This should not apply to any doubts as for legal qualification, such as jurisdiction issues, mental health, mental retardation, who dealt the death blow, etc. If two junkies cut someone with knives, kicked the victim and jumped on his head, it should not matter whose knife slashed the throat -- a notorious legal loophole that lets both crooks get off with a minor charge like battery. In this scheme, both would be eligible, even if for whatever reason they end up with a far lesser sentence, or, with our jokes for a court, even scot free.
This scheme risks us having to pay for the crook's shelter, food, TV and health if there's any shred of doubt -- like, if the conviction relied on DNA evidence that's usually good enough for a criminal case but leaves _some_ room of error -- but that's the price of reducing the risk of killing an innocent person. Not that I consider sitting in jail for the rest of the life to be better than death.
Another thing is, thirty years on the death row is both cruel and costly. If there's death penalty, it must be dealt swiftly. Under the scheme I just mentioned, there's at least no doubt as for guilt, and issues like "should someone with IQ of 75 be allowed to murder free?" are something in a dire need of reform.