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Bio-Weapons That Eat Ammunition and Fuel
1gor writes: "This article in The Observer mentions Pentagon's plans to use genetically modified bugs that 'eat' the enemy's fuel and ammunition supplies without harming humans (they also want to to pacify the enemy by spraying Valium). Imagine an escaped virus destroying the Earth's oil reserves and its whole industrial potential? Curiously, the military may implement the environmentalists' ultimate dream!"
this is what is commonly known as a "bad idea"
Where can I buy this valium spray?
since they can't live outside another organism, but still a fascinating idea.
That requires that someone have a good idea every once in awhile. With nothing to compare it to, it's simply an idea.
Succesful use of genengineered bugs have been used "in the field" with oil spills. Naturally while the USA will have this initially, as time goes on others will get it. The USA will just have to stay 1 step ahead in order to continue to use this stuff.
"Sarge, I gotta immunize my ammo first before I hit the front lines."
As in biology, there may be infection, immunization, reinfection with altered strain, re-immunization and so-forth. Might be kinda fun
..........FULL STOP.
how exactly the enemy is targeted? ....great!
couldnt the germs run amok/ transfer genes to other germs somehow. what if the lab vessel breaks before deployment.
combine with nanomachines, mini nuclearexplosions (or mini cold fusion)
those finchuks hiding under stones will take over the earth, just like we did till the strutting dinos huffed for the last time
2nd p
If they're going to all the effort, why not just spray them with some ganja? :-)
They had this virus that eats oil for a long time, originially they wanted to use it to clean up oil spills, but they were afraid it would get into the oil supply back then too. So it did not get used.
Now that it is the in national interests(AKA: someone can make serious dough) it can be used by the military. I wonder what the chances of it being used if there is another major oil spill if the military has it. God knows that the US military bases are among the worst polluters in the world.
"A supertanker has crashed off the shores of San Francisco, producing the largest oil spill in history. Desperate to avert an ecological--and public relations--disaster, a multinational oil company releases an untested virus designed to break up the spill. A virus that spreads like wildfire on the wind, destroying anything made of petroleum-destroying gasoline in automobile tanks, plastic, nylon, the very fabric of modern civilization itself."
-Summary of Ill Wind, by Kevin J Anderson.
One of my favorite post apocalyptic science fiction novels. Awesome read. Coolest part is that most guns can now fire exactly once, if they were already loaded, because the lubricant inside has turned to glue.
Austin is more fun than Dallas.
And when they've proved their calmatives work on rioters and crowds of terrorists (a strange concept, but one which the article suggests is possible) what's the betting they'll get all generous and start handing them out to the rest of us
As far as ammo is concerned, only a fool would imagine that a microbe could get into the shell casings. The same methods that keep the powder dry will prevent this, besides you would still need water to grow the microbes. This might work if your dealing with Muskets.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Is a chemical that tranquilize enemy still a weapon? Or, the bug that does not harm humans still a weapon? Is there a definition of weapon? These things are not only non-lethal, but not harmful in the sense that they don't even cause pain (well, for the case of the bug, it might cause a head-ache). I find this an interesting question. Does anything used by military against enemy become a weapon?
I wonder how long it would take to come up with a viable alternate energy resource? Maybe it's a catastrophe like that that would force us to discover the ultimate energy source? :) ;)
Dare we try? I think not!
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
"Imagine an escaped virus destroying the Earth's oil reserves and its whole industrial potential? Curiously, the military may implement the environmentalists' ultimate dream!"
Not a problem. We'll adapt.
Brazil has used alcohol as fuel for the last 20 years. At one point, 50% of the cars in Brazil ran on alcohol. It's more expensive than oil, but works fine, it's totally renewable, and generates less polution. Alcohol + electric cars. I should patent that.
As ashamed as I am to admit it, I remember reading in a Clive Cussler book ("Dragon") about the idea of a fuel eating organism.6 -37.pdf supposedly concerns it, according to google
Also, http://www.logsa.army.mil/WEB-PAGE/2000/568/568-3
to at least not research it. All research is good, all knowledge and information is good; the application may be bad, but I have major contempt for people who say "we shouldn't look into this at all". Personally, once the internal combustion engine is a thing of the past the earth will be a much better place.
And still can't decide which is the bigger mindfuck of a pacifier, broadcast TV or this Valium spray.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."
Cheesy SF novel by Leo Frankowski about genetically-engineered treehouses, food trees, Labor and Defense Units (gengineered "police," as it were.) He also has mosquitoes that eat steel and aluminum, thus making most weapons and vehicles cease functioning.
Read it quite some time ago, after I'd finished "Conrad's Quest for Rubber," the last of the "Cross-Time Engineer" series, also by Frankowski.
I like his writing and humor, but he got a lot of things *wrong*, like distilling in brass. Bad idea.
Specialization is for insects. - R.A.H.
Valium is pretty expensive to produce let alone spray over large areas ..
.. they are easily and cheaply produced .. since it is a weed it spreads very quickly - grows well in tropical climates .. and has muliple uses ..
..
I would suggest dropping massive amounts of Cannabis sativa seeds
In fact there is a very real possibility that this approach could turn the enemy into a bunch of friendly peaceful pot smoking farmers
that when the US army starts using valium as a weapon, friendly fire incidents will rise
never mind the wartime uses . environmentalists WOULD be interested in organisms ( evenb genetically modified-prodded) which eat up crude oil spills, or plastic domestic waste. ever been to a landfill?
right, plastics become extremely degradable if the method works. bad news for those with plastic implants in their hips or other places. good for the oil/ plastics industry.
maybe this is part of the coming revolution in biotechnology, which is the next leet thing. suddenly computers seem old-style, heh.
I don't think this will help when your enemy has weapons like box cutters and explosive shoes.
We all get along together like tornadoes and trailer parks.
A little late but still a fp.
This is, of course, how Michael Crichton's original bestseller The Andromeda Strain ended when it was written almost a quarter century ago. As this review so aptly notes, TAS is still ahead of its time. Perhaps it's worth a quick (re)read?
How so? All this means is that people to switch to electricity and nuclear power.
"they also want to to pacify the enemy by spraying Valium"
..And everyone says the government is no good and no fun.
Clearly oil serves a great many needs, fueling your car being just one of those needs. To claim without basis that a group of people dream of the worlds oil stocks becoming unusable is to reveal your own bias against this group.
Ahh, my favourite rhetorical recipe, the tautological soffle.
Once again Timothy couldn't let something by without stupid editorializing.
Very few environmentalists want us to drop off a petroleum-based economy precipitously. It will take a few years for the excess 5 billion people to die off as the population returns to what's supportable in a pre-mechanical society, and they won't go quietly. You'll find few trees and few wild animals outside of the remote Canada and Siberia.
What we want is wise use, not no use. E.g., it's better to have 30% of the car fleet using hybrid gas/electric motors with 80 MPG, not 30% of the fleet monster SUVs with <15 MPG while the idealistic zero emissions cars are <1% of the fleet because few people are willing to buy cars that can never go more than a few hundred miles.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
However, given a fictional situation in which there is a total planetary collapse of petrol energy sources, the environmental dream would fall even farther away. Why? Because humans panic. And in a crisis such as this, the last thing on most people's minds would be to sit down and sing Kumbaya. What reserves were there would be violently fought for (much more than now if you are wording any smart ass remark to that... in other words don't be a smart ass (or a dumb bunny)) Even 'cleaner' energy sources in large quantities by themselves will cause direct damage. imagine entire forests cleared to make room for solar and wind generators. That is what people do when they don't think rationally, and that is what panic brings about. Perhaps that means that liberals are in a constant state of panic, with their violent ramblings turning away many that normally would agree with what they claim is their underlying cause. It is much like grenades being used for person to person combat... you have a very high likelihood of blowing your own intestines out your rear while you eliminate your enemy.
Metabolizing oil is probably no better that burning it as far as CO2 released into the air, and global warming seems to be the issue on the minds of most environmentalists, thus it would be far from an environmentalists dream for all the oil reserves of the world to be eaten, uselessly, without the product benefit of the energy stored in the oil.
If bugs like this DO get into the wild, the oil and ammunition will develop a natural imminity to them. Seriously though, usually these bugs arent made to reproduce, they just process the materials and die after a point. But the danger comes from mutations, when they might infect an unintended target. Will the military ever learn?
ok. worse case scenario this stuff becomes uncontainable and renders all the world's oil resources useless. Great idea. wrong. I can't say how wrong and awful and catastrophic this would be. I'm as big an environmentalist as the next guy but, this is just ludicrous. oh no problem we'll jsut switch to renewable or nuclear resources. wrong. its not that easy. if you think it is you live in a dream land. I have no problem with nuclear but, there is one or two little problems with the idea of just switching over. Commerce would end for one. for two, in case you weren't aware of this but there are no nuclear engineers anymore. nuclear science has taken a significant hit in recent years. there are very few people studying to be nuclear scientists/engineers. so if all the gas was gone there would be no one to just switch us over. I can't say enough how bad an idea it would be for something like this to happen and get loose. In some utopian fantasy it might be a great thing for the earth but for those of us who live here it would be a disaster of biblical proportions. I won't even get into the social unrest you would have to deal with. Oh and if you're thinking Wind power? well the best windmills come from Europe. How would you get them here without diesel engined ships? Put them on nuclear carriers? how do you get them to the dock? horsecart? how do you get them to North Dakota? mushers? big picture folks thats all I'm saying.
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The Puppetters released a "Superconductor plague" which destroyed civilization on Ringworld. Of course, a plague that ate all the oil in the world *would* solve the oil, global warming and smog problems we have ...
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Such a bug, were it possible to develop, would be a boon to mankind and the West in particular. Destroying the earth's oil wouldn't destroy our industrial potential, just force us to switch to the many other available energy sources a few decades sooner than we otherwise might (since the oil supply will be used up eventually in any case).
Obviously the transition would be wrenching, but the benefits would be great. Global warming and air pollution would be greatly reduced, and, equally critically, the vast revenues that currently accrue to countries that are net exporters of oil would end. Since most of these revenues go to countries that are strategic competitors of the west and supporters of terrorism (Iraq, Saudi Arabia), ending them would be a good thing for us.
Of course, I browse without javascript. Maybe next time - chump ;)
Spray prozac !
The stock market crashed today after a military bio-weapon whiped out the entire United States fuel supply, giving Middle Eastern OPEC nations their dream come true. Gas prices are currently at $50 a gallon and climbing, with OPEC saying it will, once again, raises prices. Tonight, the President plans to turn control of the country over to Sadam.
/me gets the feeling this will be modded offtopic ;-) though it was meant to be funny
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http://nemilar.net - Not your grandmother's soup kitchen
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Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
...when the first atomic bombs were tested, there was a serious question as to whether they could ignite a self-sustaining reaction in the earth's atmosphere, destroying it. The scientists literally took a calculated risk--their calculations showed the probability was low, so they went ahead. But they didn't know the answer for sure, until they went ahead and exploded a bomb, and the atmosphere didn't ignite.
One of the early hydrogen-bomb tests, Bravo in 1954, turned out to have a yield 2-1/2 times higher than expected. Observers watched the fireball grow and grow. Some of them thought it wasn't going to stop and thought that perhaps the atmosphere had been ignited after all. But it hadn't; it didn't destroy the world ( it just contaminated the Marshall Islands and poisoned some Japanese fisherman).
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
If there isn't there should be.
Score 1-- Troll, you say. Oh well. If they want to live in mud huts and ride donkeys, fine, but give me my comforts of modern civilization-- running water, cheap transportation, life expectancy in the 70s, heating and cooling for my home, and all that.
am I the only one who thought of insecticons as soon as I saw "fuel-eating bugs"?
replace 'berserkeley' with 'berkeley' to respond via email.
Having watched Crocidile Hunter a number of times and seeing how the host rails on about all the introduced species and how they are destroying the ecology of OZ, my thoughts about this idea are that it is primarily goofy. What is it, the law of unintended consequences. Another example is the russian tank busting dogs that served only to kill ruskie tanks...
Internet Explorer isn't fooled by the corrupt link.
Let's use gasoline as an example. Dump some into a oil refinery tank farm and watch the infection chain spread via tanker into our service stations and from there, to our autos. What shape is our economy in when large chunks of our petroleum distribution chain has to be sterilized before reuse?
Worse, the most probable enemies of the industrialized world are in the best position to absorb this kind of infrastructure attack, i.e. the US is funding a type of attack that endangers us more than the opposition.
Tech Public Policy stuff
fdsdfdsfsd
"Imagine an escaped virus destroying the Earth's oil reserves and its whole industrial potential?"
More likely, the Pentagon probably has mechanisms or methods available to control the bug. These methods may be immunizations or even built-in self-descruct genetic codes (similar to p53 genes in human cells). What's more concerning is the possibility of the bug mutating and becoming uncontrollable.
Check out this article from 1977. Bacteria, with a little help, will eat oil/blacktop.
Bacteria is now used to clean up oil spills.
Now for the correction. The Observer article simply says 'bugs'. Given the above info, they almost certainly mean bacteria, not a virus, as the story submitter assumes.
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
Mozilla is. Opera isn't. Netscape 4 isn't.
New weapons will not make us safer. War is not the answer.
And you can get yours here!
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"PDM-7 Microbial Cultures contain a blend of live, synergetic, all natural ATCC (American Type Culture Collection) Class I Bacteria. These bacteria were specifically chosen for their accelerated ability to metabolize Petroleum Based Products, Greases, Fats, Food Particles, Hair, Cellulose, and Detergents, converting them into carbon dioxide and water."
Don't rub them on your head.
Or here!
Or here!
Or here!
And I was afraid we would be wiped out by robots which were made a little bit too smart for us to cope with.
That will teach me for being too pessemistic.
bash$
These new weapons just keep sounding scarier and scarier.
I'm not saying let's eliminate war altogether in favor of peace (that's just not realistic) but what about doing something like this:
Have a global convention (we'll see if Geneva is booked) where we 're-initalize warfare'. Something like "So do we all agree that from now on we'll only use bow-and-arrows?. Is that okay with everyone?"
I'm sure that'd work.
:)
The US lost a fair number of aircraft to this kind of bacterial mischief back then before they learned to put antibacterials in the fuel. I'd hardly be surprised to find that the bioengineers have found ways to make bugs that like the antibacterials.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I read it. It was cool. The story's idea was a bio-degradable soda bottle. You would drink the soda then pull open a plastice zipper to introduce the bacteria into the bottle.
Of course the story begins with a commercial jet crashing due to some unknown problem. I read it when I was a kid but loved it.
Although I'm sure I'll get flamed for this. There have been quite a few proposed solutions to problems like the power problem that may not have gotten quite the attention they deserved due to reasons quite different from their viability. Some of these have included Viktor Schauberger (web resources on him aren't nearly as good as the print books available, check amazon.com), and although a bit cliche, Nicola Tesla.
Anyway, empires have crashed before, sudden catastrophic change has much historical president. I'm not worried about the power going out. We'll survive.
Cheers, Joshua
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!
The closest I can think of in science fiction is in Larry Niven's Ringworld series (a branch off of the known space stories) where a type of fungus/mold eats a certain kind of superconductor. It's been too many years, though - was the fungus a bioweapon, or just a natural occurence?
... and destroy our ability to manifacture petrolium based products, yeah I'm sure that'd be heaps good.
Reading through the story, I couldn't help but be reminded of all the reports about how the Pentagon had disabled Iraq's air defense during the '91 Gulf War network by installing a virus-launching chip in a printer that was being shipped to Iraq. Got a lot of serious play from the mainstream media back then, and still pops up from time to time.
right. and they probably have things that can keep nuclear tests from affecting the areas around the tests.
the government gets way too much of our trust.
sig - .
And I bet Bush is signing a document right now that grants the Pentagon millions of dollars to invent a gene modified strain of bacteria that selectively degrades terrorists.
If I remember correctly, the high tech race brought to rapid extinction in Larry Nivens book "Ringworld" is a case to point. When discovered many aons after their passing it is determined that their technology came to a grinding halt when a bug that ate copper got loose. Of course it's only a story but people need to be extremely of how fragile a high level of technology is to sustain, and once it takes a big fall there is no guarantee it gets back up.
Imagine an escaped virus destroying the Earth's oil reserves and its whole industrial potential? Curiously, the military may implement the environmentalists' ultimate dream!
Let me clue you in on what it is that the fuel eaten by these bacteria (not viruses) eventually breaks down into - water and carbon dioxide. This is a more controlled form of a process better known as FIRE.
Flame of yet another kind: Timothy, you are an idiot. Even as a joke that was a grade A stupid thing to say. It reflects poorly on you as an editor and as a human being. If you don't know the difference between a virus and a bacterium shut your cornhole.
We, Environmentalists, object to gasoline being burned (turned into Carbon Dioxide) faster than it is deposited in peat marshes and such. I don't want to rehash the global warming argument here, so don't y'all even start.
The fact that the gasoline, while burned, does useful work, instead of, say, fueling the growth of a manmade organism, does not bother anyone.
You can find out more about Hydrocarbon Utilizing Microbes (HUMs) here. The document is fully accessible to a non-scientist. The people at Brooks Air Force base, who are/would be (?) developing these fuel eating microbes for offensive use have already made use of them in a peaceful context. Again, the press release is non technical. Personally, I find this to be admirable work - they're using them to clean up petrochemical contamination of soil and groundwater, which is an underappreciated ecological problem. I'm not terribly worried about these organisms going out of control and eating the world's petrochemical reserves. They exist in nature already in various forms and have not done that.
The New Scientist has an older article about the fuel eating bugs, or, more specifically, about the circumstances surrounding the release of documents discussing the bugs; I think this may have come up on slashdot before but I searched just now and didn't find it. The sunshine project also has an article about there efforts to get the documents released.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
The unfortunate problem is that there is no current alternative to oil. If you look at the raw number of BTUs being consumed, there is nothing that will even come close. This is going to be a big issue for people to deal with. The alternative to oil currently isn't clean. It's coal. There's lots, and lots, and LOTS of coal. Coal, unfortunately, is nasty stuff, containing trace elements of just about everything.
Take a look around sometime, and just try an imagine the sheer volume of oil and the amount of energy it represents. The processing of energy drives our entire civilization, and in it's current form, that means the processing of oil.
The only other (currently) possible alternatives are nuclear technologies, be they fission, hot, or cold fusion. This is possibly the saviour of the planet, but the environmentalists are hell-bent to stop nuclear research and testing at all costs. Solar, wind, and wave power can make contributions but the infrastructure and maintenance required make these unrealistic alternatives.
Thermodynamics is harsh stuff.
..don't panic
yerricde has replied to your comment in a discussion where it is more on-topic. Read the answer here.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I majored in chemistry, way back in the dark ages before most Slashdotters were born... One of my professors was very involved in petrochemical research, specifically wrt development of new medicines. His big fear was that by using up oil reserves as an energy resource, we were also using up the future of drug research.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
They are part of the italicized text, and so, part of the original submitter's comments.
Nearly all military vehicles, with the exception of aircraft, use diesel as fuel, but kerosene is not that different anyway. Anyone who is around large amounts of it knows that it's a constant struggle to keep "bugs" out of it so they don't consume it or clog fuel filters, you have to put additives in to kill them. What fantastic high-tech bio-weapon is needed when it's already happening?
In response to the alarmist statement on the front page article: I'd just like to point out that a virus could never escape and eat our world's oil supply because viruses are incapable of performing any biological activities because they lack the necessary 'machinery'. Viruses hijack cellular machinery to propagate. Viruses don't even have a need for energy because they have no metabolism. It would have to be bacteria.
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play that funky music, parroting rhetoric man! lets spout out more bullshit and ironically blame others of squelching ideas simply because we get angered by a different view. he didn't say no one thought of it, but was giving advice that thinking would be good. Also, after decades of liberal rhetoric and knee-jerk animalistic emotionalism, it is easy to understand why thinking people shy away from bullshit
the all new nuclear powered Pinto!
Can somebody please ask the government to stop making so many 'possibly radically destructive' things? Modified gas-eating bugs, Anti-personnel Nanobots. It's getting a little tired. I never thought I'd long for the day when the most destructive device in the hands of a single person would be a bazooka.
This is in violation of the Biological and Chemical Weapons Treaty which bans the reasearch of such weapons.
The same thing that Bush is accusing Cuba, Iraq, N.Korea, Iran etc. of,
The same treaty the US refuses to ratify because it might slow down their own research into weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The US which has always been the worlds No.1 researcher in WMD (USSR was No. 2).
Curious how the same rules they want to apply to others they don't want applied to themselves.
I guess the rules don't apply because the US is not amongst Bush's "most dangerous nations wielding the most dangerous weapons". That is as long as you're not one of the US's targets. Because then, the US has publicly reported it is considering abolishing the "no first strike" doctrine, instead saying it might use WMD preemptively. I guess that might change your perspective of who is wielding the dangerous weapons.
We are riding on a small ball, cruising through space... about to collectively blow ourselves up.
Again the Government is reinventing warfare as we know it.. the atomic bomb did that once didn't it?
We used it and we had the power.
Look what it led to... missile proliferations... A long cold war... the brink of nuclear war... how could we have known then that today third World countries like India and Pakistan would one day also be able to wield the same power.
These new fangled war tactics/toys that the military have spent our squillions on will bite us on to butt. Could you imagine terrorists or like-minded groups using it against the united states?
Ok why is everybody freaking out about these things going beserk and destroying our life as we know it. I mean if they were going to, or are, enginering these bugs wouldn't it make sense to not allow them any form of reproduction? Kinda like KD, just make what you need if you don't eat the rest don't worry cause the pot from last night won't have overrun your kitchen when you wake up.
Shure, it would cause a stock market crash the likes of which you can only imagine. Who cares? Oil has three functions: plastics, lubrication, and fuel. As long as the bacteria dose not screw up lubrication or plastics we are fine. some countries are currently running on ethenol and simmilar products for cars. the planes are a bit mre difficult, but we should eventually find a way to fly planes.
Its a debilitating weapon that dose not kill people. I applaud the pentagon to tring to develop ways to *not* kill people.
Nothing spreads all over the world in a matter of days. You are talking years for a weapon used in Afganistan to effect Europe, much less the U.S especially when the U.S. quarentiens its boarders and only accepts north and south American oil. We would have a good ten years of fully functional engines. Way more then enough time to switch. Plus, this thing will most likely only destroy the cumbustable properties of current gas. You could easily still refine oil into plastics and lubricants. Or even come up with less suseptable hybrid oil/ethonol mixtures which ran in current cars. Planes might have trouble I suppose (as their gas is very highly refined).
I say develope this thing and go ahead and use it. The risks are minimal and we should be done with oil as a power source anyway by the time those risks could possibly come to fruition.
Car would keep running on ewsistant ethonol/oil mixtures with minimal modifications. Boats can be ethenol or nuclear powered. The only thing which breaks down is the airplanes. Plus, everyone who is saying this suff would cause a disaster is an idiot. It would not spread that fast. Bugs just don't spread like they do in the movies. You would have years, not days, to prepar and even if the U.S. used this stuff on you, you could develope "treatments" to discurage/poision the bugs. This is mostly a tool for fucking up the millitary capacity of underdeveloped nations without causing too many casualities. The U.S. millitary spends insane amounts of money, but they are finally figuring out how to fight wars without killing excessive numbers of people. This should be applauded.
btw> The miullitary used a philisophically simillar device (carbon fillimant based) in somalia to shut down power plants without destroying the power planes. How is that for fucking humaine millitary activities! We did not even destroy their power generation, just screwed it up for a while.
I mean something called bio-diesel. Apparently, Mr Diesel (Rudolph?) who invented yon diesel engine originally planned for it to be used on vegetable oil, and it got sidetracked for petroleum. And bio-diesel is far less polluting, easy to produce (about as difficult as home brewing beer), and, depending on your country's excise etc, can be cheaper than petro-diesel.
But for me the truly funky thing is that it can be made from *used* cooking oil: how's that, just empty out the chip pan and brew a bit 'o' diesel. And it makes your car smell like chips instead of icky hydrocarbons. Any vegetable oil will do, so a variety of crops can do the trick on a large scale, which makes it renewable as well.
Oh, yeah, and most diesel engines can run it *without* modification, or with only very minor mods. I know of someone who's gone to bio-diesel on his farm: he goes to the local fish and chip shop and relieves them of their old oil (and they used to pay someone to take it away, so they're happy) and makes enough bio-diesel to keep all his farm equipment running. No engine mods, bugger all pollution, and that there oil kept out of the ocean. Truly funky.
But sometimes there are better ways of doing things: ways that impact the ecosystem far less than what we're doing now. And sometimes we might need to change our assumptions: sensible house design rather than installing huge aircon systems, for example. Or learning to live with *good* (not that what we've got now is good, at least where I live) public transport rather than using individual cars all the time (note I don't suggest getting rid of cars altogether, just doing without them more than we currently do). For me, I'd rather have pristine Amazonian rainforest than a bunch 'o' Macs (TM). Even if only because of the potential for super-medicines that some scientists exist within the rainforest.
And remember that we in the west use far more than our fair share of energy and resources anyway: if things were divided equally, we'd have quite a shock. Better we make a start voluntarily, than have it forced upon us by circumstance (which may already be imminent, but I'll say no more on that).
Maybe we could say that Wisdom is good, and with wisdom, knowledge is good. But that depends on defining wisdom, and we'd probably end up with a tautology when we did that (wisdom == whatever it takes to make knowledge good).
Knowledge is of the past, wisdom is of the future. This society is so overly concerned with the collecting and stockpiling of the first that it knows nothing of the latter.
They better test this one out better than they tested Agent Orange out. That stuff was safe for humans too... Just kidding. Here's the real link.
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Not to offend any oil reserves, but as I'm a HUMAN and not a hydrocarbon, maybe this isn't such a sin after all.
What's in a Sig?
Mutant 59: The Plastic-Eaters
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..if I can get an unlimited supply of free valium. Where do I sign up?
Just out of curiosity, what does a "nuclear engineer" do, exactly?
I'm in EE and I could start working on power plant design project tomorrow. There are some redudancy issues I'd need an extra course or two in.. However, once someone does know how to build a fission reactor, the rest becomes details.. Great many details.
"gentic blah blah that eats ammunition and fuel"
Known as "fire" to the lay person.
Most of US oil comes NOT from middle east but from CANADA and S. America
The smart enemy you would get a hold of these insects or whatever, reproduce them, and terrorize the American industry and infrastructure with it. This sounds as dumb of an idea as releasing the Ebola virus on your enemy.
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One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
Virus by definition is dead outside the organism carrying it. So, virus can infect any living
organizm, even bacteria, but cannot eat plastic
because it cannot function without a really
living form hosting it. So it must be an escaped
bacteria eating all out oil reserves, not a virus.
I don't know if this was already mentioned.
Most likely the organism that is eating petrol is a hot organism that will either max out on size constraints of the ecosystem and kill itself off (deer w/out wolf style). They can change the local ecosystem to limit spread (eating petrol produces CO2 which is toxic to the organism). Or the life span will be far to rapid and not allow the organisms to make the jump from one region to another. Remember not every living thing has the lifespan of a human being...
This scenario was predicted exactly be Frank Herbert (I am pretty sure) in a short story of his (the name of which escapes me). The grunt who discovers the ability to "activate the free radicals" in propellants (and hence explosives) at a distance thinks of the end to all war (much like the king of england did when first spying the crossbow :-). But the military see the true implication; Nerve agents, bows and arrows, mechanical storage of energy etc, a change in the paradigm of combat that just makes things much nastier all round
It is quite possible that this kind of thing might make things worse rather than better. But I think I like the idea of no firearms since bullets are much less discriminating than arrows (or even compressed air guns' projectiles)
Admittedly the novella did the deed through some kind of "beam" weapon, but the prescience of the work is still remarkable.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
Televised on the BBC as part of the "Doomwatch" drama series.
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
I'm surprised not many of the normally astute /. readers have noticed but this is a an environmentalists nightmare!
The bacteria convert the oil to carbon dioxide and water... the same thing that happens when the oil is set on fire albeit in a more controlled reaction. If it's gonna be releasing the same CO2 pollutants anyway, I'd rather it be doing something useful in a power plant or moving cars about than just having it disappear
One which eats Microsoft Windows CDs.
How on earth do you expect a pot-smoking farmer to be able to support himself let alone anyone else?
After all, it was a pot-smoking lead guitarist that put an end to my band. 10 minutes into band practice : "just a minute while I skin up"
*puff* *puff* *puff*
"Oh, stuff it, I can't be arsed any more, let's go and listen to Pink Floyd."
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
Living in the UK, there was a slightly different take on this technology in the press. The problem is that these engineered microbes violate international weapons laws. However, this would probably be a moot issue should the US decide to use such bioweapons.
Well, virus is not bacteria, and its very important. I cannot stress it enough. Stating otherwise can upset people.
I used the word virus because "deadly-virus-escaping" is more a press cliche... Hope most people got the irony.
Now, apart from that, what has caused this fountain of emotions and fury towards the editor? Is anyone questions peaceful objectives of US military? Or that oil-spill-cleaning bacteria is not a news?
Still, it is mildly interesting to learn from this post+thread that:
- new class of weapons is being developed (hence scenarios to imagine: "virus escaping", falling into terrorist hands, industrialised nations under attack from 3d world etc);
- new germs are being genetically enginered (so they do not exist in nature );
- new germs will target metals and plastics as well as oil;
- "We, Environmentalists" are rude and might use some Valuim...:))
1gor
--
Much as I hate to say it, I think the US is probably right in its interpretation of the CWC with respect to riot-control and the placation of crowds. [I studied this a year or so ago, for an argument on usenet, so appologies if I'm rusty or wrong]. Riot-control agents certainly ARE covered by the CWC. Article II.7 defines RCAs as Any chemical not listed in a Schedule, which can produce rapidly in humans sensory irritation or disabling physical effects which disappear within a short time following termination of exposure. Article I.5, however, prohibits the use of RCAs as a means of conducting warfare: 5. Each State Party undertakes not to use riot control agents as a method of warfare. So the use of these agents in war would almost certainly contravene the CWC. However, domestic riot control is not covered at all by the CWC, not just with respect to RCAs, but with respect to anything at all. You could do whatever you like with chemicals of any kind for riot control, as far as I can tell, within the CWC as long as the 'weapons' could not be used in warfare. That is because of Article II.9(d) 9. "Purposes Not Prohibited Under this Convention" means: (d) Law enforcement including domestic riot control purposes.. So, the CWC does not protect any protesters at all from the use of anything for whatever paramilitary organisations want (including, but not exclusively the use of RCAs), but does protect military organisations from the use of RCAs as strongly as the use of other CWs. Personally, I find the USes position in persueing this resarch unprinciplled, though at least partially legal and, let's be honest, the US has enough power just to ignore the CWC if it wants (it is causing a number of obstructions to inspection bodies as it is). My main problem with the use of neuroactive RCAs is that I find assault which affects will/volition to be more violent than assault which affects the body because will/volition/intent is closer to my sense of self. The text for the convention is available online though it might be worth going to your local copyright library, and getting a copy of the text with commentary.
Diccionary: deffinition, Cannadian, buisnessman, aginst, Cannada, aginst, Cannadian, aginst, Cannadians and New Zelanders
My dictionary: definition, canadian, businessman, against, canada, against, canada, against, canadians and the New Zealanders.
- Voice of Ambience -
Riot-control agents certainly ARE covered by the CWC.
Article II.7 defines RCAs as Any chemical not listed in a Schedule, which can produce rapidly in humans sensory irritation or disabling physical effects which
disappear within a short time following termination of exposure.
Article I.5, however, prohibits the use of RCAs as a means of conducting warfare: 5. Each State Party undertakes not to use riot control agents as a method of warfare.
So the use of these agents in war would almost certainly contravene the CWC.
However, domestic riot control is not covered at all by the CWC, not just with respect to RCAs, but with respect to anything at all. You could do whatever you like with chemicals of any kind for riot control, as far as I can tell, within the CWC as long as the 'weapons' could not be used in warfare. That is because of Article II.9(d) 9. "Purposes Not Prohibited Under this Convention" means: (d) Law enforcement including domestic riot control purposes..
So, the CWC does not protect any protesters at all from the use of anything for whatever paramilitary organisations want (including, but not exclusively the use of RCAs), but does protect military organisations from the use of RCAs as strongly as the use of other CWs.
Personally, I find the USes position in persueing this resarch unprinciplled, though at least partially legal and, let's be honest, the US has enough power just to ignore the CWC if it wants (it is causing a number of obstructions to inspection bodies as it is). My main problem with the use of neuroactive RCAs is that I find assault which affects will/volition to be more violent than assault which affects the body because will/volition/intent is closer to my sense of self.
The text for the convention is available online though it might be worth going to your local copyright library, and getting a copy of the text with commentary.
> You would drink the soda then pull open a plastice
> zipper to introduce the bacteria into the bottle.
Johnny Cochrane: Are you trying to tell this distinguished Jury that your corporation never tested the direct consumption of the bacteria pack? Are you aware that children like to "huff" the bacteria pack because of the high it gives them? You never even went so far as to smear some in the eyes of a rabbit!?!?!?
"Has [being a kidnapped teenage girl, raped repeatedly for months] changed you?" - Katie Couric to Elizabeth Smart
I remember some story I read about how they were used to help clean up a spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
"Has [being a kidnapped teenage girl, raped repeatedly for months] changed you?" - Katie Couric to Elizabeth Smart
Yeah another great idea from the bloody-fucking-yankees-at-war-dept. I hope those US army bastards will try their shit on their own fucking oil stock. And hope those who reach climax when reading such news will die during the test too, eaten by their bacteria.
In the Dune encyclopaedia, the author referrred to the "silicon plague" destroying almost all "thinking machines" and the general state of mankind as being repressed by those machines leading to the "Bulerian Jihad". This applies quite well to modern day contexts, albeit in a slightly diffeent way.
This germ would never work on ammunition.... because ammunition nowadays consists of metal cartridges that are completely airtight, waterproof, even soldier-proof (which probably was the most important and most difficult to achieve).
While it is feasible that a germ could "eat" explosives (which is already being done with TNT, mostly to get rid of TNT in the soil where explosives factories have once stood), it's completely impossible to use such germs against the ammunition once it leaves the factory.
No wonder we keep seeing Cheech and Chong at every global hotspot.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
that would be a bacteria, a virus can't replicate itself without living cells to infect
16,777,216 comments ought to be enough for any forum!
Given that oil became unavailable, our most realistic bet would be electricity generated by nuclear power.
Granted, we'd need very strict rationing of the oil on reserve. All cars off the roads, only buses and bikes. (Hey, we'd lose a few pounds in the process), and transportation of essentials.
Reroute all available oil reserves into transporting and manufacturing power plants (nuclear, wind, hydro). Making a wind power plant is not rocket science. Making an efficient wind power plant is trickier, but not technologically impossible. You have plenty of steel plants. Use them as much as possible.
Heating can also be provided by burning trees. Yes - I advocate burning trees when the going gets tough. Trees contain carbon that is already actively part of the carbon cycle, so burning trees is more environmentally friendly than burning coal or oil. Trees are also renewable. Plant one. Watch it grow.
Hot shower? You get black rubber hosing that you run across your roof. Sun-powered. Just take a shower when you get home from work, rather than the moment you wake up.
I think we can live without oil given that we prioritize the moment it disappears. If we're given advance warning, we might even do better.
On the other hand, if all oil was immediately destroyed, we would be in much greater trouble. Then again, we're already overpopulated. Biology class with population biology is an eye-opener, folks.
Stop the brainwash
Why don't we just GE future armies of marines to be aggressive and use the left over valium to control them Jem'Hadar like.
Valium... ketracel white.. what's the difference?
Bacteria which live in petroleum have been found in many oil fields. Things do grow down into rocks with cracks or porous rocks, so it's not surprising that things would get deep down. (Not that it's hard in situations where the oil was oozing to the surface before drilling began) It's even possible that these microbes actually came up this close to the surface from a deep hot biosphere.
Chemtrails
This is easily a distaster waiting to happen.
Of course, there are ample alternate energy resources available. Underground reserves are methane hydrate have more than double the amount of energy in all known fossil fuels on earth. But, that's another topic. Do your own research...
Then again, wouldn't that be the perfect defense to this biological weapon against fuel? Just make your armies have multiple fuel capabiliies. And, as with most military technologies, the public will eventually get the benefit of the technology and we can begin to wean ourselves off of the depleting oil reserves.
But what about the greenhouse effect? Look up fuel cells and their ability to convert carbon based fuels direcly into electricity, far more cleanly and more efficiently than burning those fules for mechanical power. If you haven't heard about this, that's just economics in action, powered by greed.
The point is this- Education is essential in our politicians, and more importantly in our public who hires the politicians. Otherwise we *could* make mistakes, as Vonnegut's book demonstrates, that are not recoverable.
Example- Just last night, I was at a party talking with someone who is trying to make toy guns illegal. He said that toy guns are just a bad idea. This man has the ear of several representatives and senators. I asked him what research he had done to demonstrate that toy guns are really a bad influence rather than an outlet to get agressive behavior out of a kid's system, or a learning toy that indirectly teaches about simple ballistic behavior- a cornerstone of understanding physics. Short answer- none. It was just his opinion.
Why is this relevant? Because I am in the business of selling toy guns, and I'm really tired of having to defend my business to people who've never had kids, don't want to have any kids, have no interest in or understanding of basic physics or engineering and have never used or played with guns- toy or real... Their opinions are just noise without the right education.
Kurt Vonnegut served in WWII and has an extraordinary understanding of human nature and the military system. His book "Cat's Cradle" should be required reading for all the politicians and scientists working on these "environment altering" military weapons.
Ron Toms, Proprietor
http://www.BackyardArtillery.com
i mean... wtf?
do you think environmentalists want a bunch of
genetically engineered insects wandering
around the @#$@#4 planet? we cant even
keep the @#$@#$ fireants out of california
and texas.
let alone the GE corn out of our
organic heirloom varieites.
So, killing off the vast majority of the Earth's population (the inevitable result of such a deindustrialization) is "the environmentalists' ultimate dream"?
No fossil fuels, no modern agriculture. No food for most people who are not currently subsitence farmers.
I think you have to make a distinction between the survival of the human race, and the survival of our culture and along with it a very large chunk of the human race.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
A while back I worked with as a contractor to NOAA and the Coast Guard for 8 years on oil spills. It's pretty routine to use a spill to study different spill recovery techniques. Surface skimming, high-pressure hot-water wash, all kinds of things. In-situ burning works well (my friend Al Allen, Spiltec, has done a huge amount of work in this field and tells some really cool stories...dang, should've invited him to the BBQ). At the Exxon Valdez spill many dozens of contractor-wanna-be's came around hoping to sell "technology". The funniest I saw was a video tape from Body Glove (seriously) showing two employees attempting to use an absorbant pad and both ended up slipping and falling into the oily water (well, guess it's one of those "had to see it" to be funny). Anyways, some of the beach segments set aside to study BioRemediation (is what it's called) have shown impressive results; such as at Montague Island. The bacteria is NOT a virus. It is NOT customized. And it DOES NOT get out of control and destroy the planet's oil reserves. That is simply a STUPID thought. If you believe that something like that could happen, then why don't you also believe that the Army should not bomb a fuel depot? What if the fuel depot caught fire in the bombing (which it would) and then the fire spread around the world and burned up all the fuel?!?!?! OH NO!! BioRemediation used as a weapon is NOT a kind of Ice-9 expirement gone bad! Oh, if you don't know...Ice-9 is a myth where some general during WWI or II or something was supposedly tired of marching his mean through knee-deep mud. So, scientists invent a substance to poor into the mud, causing the water in it to freeze...but a change reaction would occur and the entire planet would freeze because of the water that is within basically everything. People that enjoy crop-circles and chupacabra might believe in Ice-9...or even BioRemediation weaponry gone awry.
In order for the bacteria to eat their fuel and ammo it has to get to it first, and its' growth can't be limited by other factors. The former would keep them from eating all those self-contained, sealed bullets, and the latter would keep them from eating fuel in the tank.
Degrading stuff out in the open is another matter. Coatings, lubricants, seals, etc. Asphalt roads would be a good target (In theory an environmentalist's dream too - except it probably means more gas-guzzling off-roaders) as would lubrication oils. But there are simple ways around this with synthetic lubricants and alternative fuels.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Female Prison Rape in NY
Its seems that we're always goign to war to defend and acquire more control over oil reserves. Why would they send in this first wave of bugs to eat the only thing we're fighting over. Are people really this dumb?
That's all it is.
Pacify anyone who doesn't agree with what's 'Right' or 'Just' rather than kill them. As a result there is less of an argument for a breach of human rights.
The chernobyl reactors were graphite MODERATED not graphite cooled. The coolant is the working fluid that transfers the heat energy out of the core. The coolant in Chernobyl was water flowing through tubes that penetrated the graphite.
The moderator is the mechanism by which the fast neutrons born from fission are slowed down to thermal equilibrium where they are much more likely to create a fission when they encounter the appropriate nucleus, say U238 or U235.
It seems that there were operating modes in which the alpha-T of the soviet reactors could be positive. (shudder) which means that the hotter the plant got the higher the reactor power went which made it hotter...positive feedback is a BAD thing in reactions that increase power exponentially.
Of course it appears that the operators had intentionally disabled reactor protection equipment before beginning the evolution that lead to the disaster.
This says some UGLY things about their views for maintaining reactor safety and makes clear that very detailed oversight is required to make sure that all power plant operators take the appropriate precautions.
grows well in tropical climates
Yet another war in tropical climate? Or is the word "war" associated with the image of a tropical jungle and really dangerous rice farmers?
If your computer can't stay up 12 hours, you have defective hardware. Windows may make it the longest, because it has less error checking, and it just runs while corrupt, ignorant of the errors. I know this to be the case with 95/98/ME lines. Often problems will show up when you install an NT based windows or Linux, that never showed up before, problems caused by bad hardware.
I bet it's not in print anymore, but:
"Mutant 59: The Plastic Eater"
was the best book I've read about a plastic eating virus/bacteria. It was written in the seventies, I think, and was meant to be didactic.
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
You know, to disagree is one thing. To disagree strongly is another.
To flame Timothy like our buddy Sam here is to bring human relations to a low we all should have outgrown long ago.
While this guy is out hugging trees, not a human will talk to him because he can't argue his points without "idiot", "schmuck", and a patronizing tone worthy of a man who puts his vegetables above his fellow human beings.
Come on, Sam. We all love the environment, and I've got kids who will grow up in this mess we've created. As long as their are flame-baiting extremists like yourself out there, the main stream will never take you seriously, and progress will never be made.
They'll just call you a "schmuck", or an "idiot". I prefer "pretentious ass-hole". If the Earth must be left with hateful people like yourself, why is it worth saving in the first place?
What a complete disgrace.
Mother Abigail says that we must make "The Stand" against this and the man in the West
Love this quote from the Amazon reveiw:
"If you like plastics and history, drama and chemistry, this book is for you!"