Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > rec.arts.sf.written > #422411

Re: scientists-waking-up-30000-year-old-giant-virus

Show all headers | View raw

Dorothy J Heydt <djheydt@kithrup.com> wrote:
> In article <f9728a68-9680-4e4d-baa6-fe0090d3ad25@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc  <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>On Wednesday, September 9, 2015 at 4:40:05 PM UTC-6, The Starmaker wrote:
>>> http://www.cnet.com/au/news/scientists-waking-up-30000-year-old-giant-virus/
>>
>>> I always thought it was their goal to get rid of viruses...
>>
>>> but maybe I got it backwards.
>>
>>Reading the article, the idea is:
>>
>>Viruses like this are going to be awakened anyways by oil companies exploring
>>the area. They won't take the precautions necessary to prevent the viruses
>>getting loose!
>>
>>So before they start, we had better wake up some of these viruses now, in a
>>sealed lab where they can't get out, to study them - so that we will understand
>>them well, so that if the oil exploration (which is hard to stop, the oil
>>companies have lots of money to bribe politicians) does let an ancient virus
>>loose... we will have a good enough understanding of that kind of virus to be
>>able to quickly make a vaccine for it!
>>
>>See - they are trying to stop disease, not make it!
>
> ObSF: _Doomsday Book._
>
> (I was working for a molecular biologist when that came out, so I
> asked him, Could a virus lie dormant in fourteenth-century ruins
> till the twenty-first century and still be infectious?  And he
> said, Probably.)

Great _Doomsday_ tie-in, Dorothy! And thank you for the pertinent
information about dormant viruses.

Starmaker, you sometimes mention the "Andromeda Strain" movie. There's
another movie about pathogens named "The Navigator." In the movie a
group of people time travel to the future to find a way to keep Black
Death out of their village in the distant past.

AFAIK Prince Philip wants to be reincarnated as a killer virus so that
he can depopulate the earth. God hating, misanthropic Atheists may be
tempted to say "Amen!" (Except they'd have to wash out their mouths 
with sulfur afterword.)

--
 ,-.                              There was a young lady named Bright
 \_/                              Whose speed was far faster than light;
{|||)<   Don Kuenz KB7RPU            She set out one day
 / \                                 In a relative way
 `-'                              And returned on the previous night.

What you do speaks so loud that I can not hear what you say. - Emerson.

Back to rec.arts.sf.written | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

scientists-waking-up-30000-year-old-giant-virus The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-09-09 15:40 -0700
  Re: scientists-waking-up-30000-year-old-giant-virus Hägar <hsahm@yahoo.com> - 2015-09-09 16:36 -0700
  Re: scientists-waking-up-30000-year-old-giant-virus Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-09-09 17:47 -0700
    Re: scientists-waking-up-30000-year-old-giant-virus djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2015-09-10 02:37 +0000
      Re: scientists-waking-up-30000-year-old-giant-virus The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-09-10 01:02 -0700
      Re: scientists-waking-up-30000-year-old-giant-virus Don Kuenz <garbage@crcomp.net> - 2015-09-10 17:53 +0000
        Re: scientists-waking-up-30000-year-old-giant-virus djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2015-09-10 19:50 +0000
          Re: scientists-waking-up-30000-year-old-giant-virus petertrei@gmail.com - 2015-09-10 13:16 -0700
          Re: scientists-waking-up-30000-year-old-giant-virus petertrei@gmail.com - 2015-09-10 13:28 -0700
  Re: scientists-waking-up-30000-year-old-giant-virus The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-09-10 00:43 -0700

csiph-web