sidzepp wrote: (just look at the current campaign for Chief Entertainment Officer as an example of our stupidity)
Newfie wrote:Not so radical, you only need to sterilize women.
Reproduction maths are not PC.
Ibon wrote:A GMO virus combining DNA from a virulent strain of influenza, Ebola and Aids along with some anthrax and maybe a pinch of bubonic. Of course some genes of the common cold that enable airborn transmission. Invented by some disgruntled micro biologist pathologist working for the defense department on bio warfare who didn't get the promotion who was always a bit unstable to start with. When he was a boy his dad took him on fishing trips in the Chesapeake Bay to a place that a few years back was devastated by an algae bloom. On top of that his wife divorced. All of these factors combine to take him over the edge. He goes to Home Depot and buys some spray bottles. He gets one of those around the world airline tickets and starts in New York and then on to Mexico City, Sao Paolo, London, Dubai, New Delhi, Bejing, Manila, Bangkok, Melbourse, Sidney and finally Los Angelos.
Ibon wrote:A GMO virus ... He gets one of those around the world airline tickets and starts in New York and then on to Mexico City, Sao Paolo, London, Dubai, New Delhi, Bejing, Manila, Bangkok, Melbourse, Sidney and finally Los Angelos.
A scientist funded by the US government has deliberately created an extremely deadly form of mousepox, a relative of the smallpox virus, through genetic engineering. The new virus kills all mice even if they have been given antiviral drugs as well as a vaccine that would normally protect them.
The work has not stopped there. The cowpox virus, which infects a range of animals including humans, has been genetically altered in a similar way. The research brings closer the prospect of pox viruses that cause only mild infections in humans being turned into diseases lethal even to people who have been vaccinated.
Since then, Ramshaw told New Scientist, his team has also created more deadly forms of mousepox, and has used the same method to engineer a more deadly rabbitpox virus.
Ramshaw’s team made its initial discovery while developing contraceptive vaccines for sterilising mice and rabbits without killing them. The researchers modified the mousepox virus by adding a gene for a natural immunosuppressant called IL-4, expecting this would boost antibody production.
Instead, the modified mousepox virus was far more lethal, killing 60 per cent of vaccinated mice. The addition of IL-4 seems to switch off a key part of the immune system called the cell-mediated response.
Now Buller has engineered a mousepox strain that kills 100 per cent of vaccinated mice, even when they were also treated with the antiviral drug cidofovir. A monoclonal antibody that mops up IL-4 did save some, however.
His team “optimised” the virus by placing the IL-4 gene in a different part of the viral genome and adding a promoter sequence to maximise production of the IL-4 protein, he told a biosecurity conference in Geneva last week.
Buller has also constructed a cowpox virus containing the mouse IL-4 gene, which is about to be tested on mice at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Cowpox infects people, but Buller says the IL-4 protein is species-specific and would not affect the human immune system. The experiments are being done at the second-highest level of biological containment.
While viruses containing mouse IL-4 should not be lethal to humans, recombinant viruses can have unexpected effects, he says. “You’d hope the combination remains mouse-specific.”
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn ... w-viruses/
Cog wrote:Inside every doomer is a serial killer busting to get out.
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