Slashdot Mirror
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!"
"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.
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
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?
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.
And you can get yours here!
PHase III PDM-7 Microbial Cultures. Visa and MasterCard accepted. Call for pricing.
"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!
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!
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.
Allow me to repair your ignorance. It is actually NOT possible.
A nuclear explosion requires a certain (high) concentration of fuel, as well as a certain ratio of volume to surface area - or it doesn't happen. This is why making a nuclear bomb is actually very difficult. In a fission reactor, the material isn't concentrated enough, and it isn't unstable enough. Further, the material isn't in one large chunk - it's separated into rods. And further, there's no mechanism for imploding the reaction material to reach critical mass. So no, actually, despite what you read in old sci-fi, it's not physically possible for a fission reactor to explode. Take the rods out, overheat the thing, whatever. The ABSOLUTE worst is that it gets really hot and melts - which is very bad, but very rare, much rarer than a coal or gas explosion (so the overall risk is lower).
The only major nuclear disaster in history is Chernobyl, which was not a nuclear reaction but a chemical reaction; the graphite coolant caught fire. The graphite reactor was a bad design, and all reactors today are water-cooled. Further, Chernobyl had no containment building to speak of, and was run by idiots.
People speak of Three Mile Island as if it was some kind of disaster, but it didn't hurt anybody or anything. The worst that happened from TMI was the destruction of the reactor itself (which is a bit of a disaster alone, since those things cost billions).
A complete meltdown is a disaster, but not the end of the world. It would be nothing like the destruction wreaked by even a small nuclear weapon.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.