The addition of such wild genes to a sneaky virus like the cold virus is
indeed a frightening thought. Especially as it costs a lot less to research
& implement than refining fissile material then designing & building an A
bomb.
Such viri are de facto nanotech war machines - and any impoverished despot
can avail himself of such technology.
Expect this in any future war. It's "better" than a neutron bomb.
cymm
-----Original Message-----
From: John Clark <jonkc@worldnet.att.net>
To: extropians@extropy.org <extropians@extropy.org>
Cc: transhuman <transhuman@logrus.org>
Date: Monday, August 07, 2000 10:48 AM
Subject: >H Ebola
>Transhuman Mailing List
>
>In the August "Nature Medicine" is an article by Gary J Nabel, it
demonstrates
>that the extraordinary lethality of the Ebola virus is caused by a certain
>glycoprotein produced by the virus. The really interesting thing is the way
>he did it, he removed the Ebola gene for this glycoprotein and used genetic
>engineering to insert it into the virus that causes the common cold. Intact
>human blood vessels were then exposed to this modified cold virus. Within
>48 hours this former virus milquetoast caused the human tissue to turn into
>stinky gunkey sludge just like mighty Ebola itself.
>
>I haven't heard any protests from the anti genetics people, I guess they're
too
>busy protecting the world from killer tomatoes, but I got to tell you this
scares
>the hell out of me. I'm sure they took elaborate precautions to prevent
this thing from
>getting out, but holly shit! Imagine a virus that's airborn and as
contagious as the
>common cold, that has no vaccine or any other treatment, and kills 90% of
those
>infected in less than 48 hours in a manner gruesome enough for any horror
movie.
>I sure hope there is something about this experiment I don't understand.
>
> John K
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:35:41 MDT