Biologists urged to prevent misuse of their work by terrorists
Physicists learned their lesson with the atomic bomb, but biologists are only now beginning to realise that their work could be immensely destructive in the wrong hands. A Geneva conference this month is urging scientists to censor their work with a voluntary code of conduct. Several recent papers have contained material which could have been used by terrorists. In 2001, for instance, an Australian team accidentally created a deadly variety of mousepox by removing a single gene and reported its work in a journal. In 2002 the journal Science published a paper showing how to synthesis the polio virus from scratch. A US expert commission has recently recommended that universities and research institutions set up committees to police researchers.
Latest posts by Mumbai (see all)
- Prescribe morning-after pills to young teenagers, say US pediatric group - November 30, 2012
- Bahrain sentences protest docs to prison - November 28, 2012
- Terry Pratchett assisted suicide documentary wins International Emmy - November 27, 2012
More Stories
China is desperate to raise its birthrate
China’s fertility rate has sunk to 1.18 children per woman and its population has begun to decline. Deaths outnumbered births...
American man says that he is both father and mother for his kids
This must be one of the most bizarre custody cases ever decided by an American court. The Superior Court of...
Are we already living in a transhumanist reality?
Last year an Oxford expert in transhumanism published “Future Superhuman: Our transhuman lives in a make-or-break century”. Elise Bohan, an...
95% of Irish women who know that their unborn child is Down syndrome have abortions
Abortion was only legalized in Ireland in 2018. One of the consequences is that the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin, a...
Massachusetts politicians propose prisoners as organ donors
Massachusetts is a state where conservatism goes to die, so it was astonishing to read a bill in its legislature...
Peru’s forced sterilization tragedy drags on in the courts
For at least 25 years, indigenous Peruvian women have been fighting for justice after they were forcibly sterilized by doctors...