How to Get a Nuclear Bomb (2006)
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
I'm a college senior, and last spring I and two class teammates were able to re-engineer virus Phi X 174 in only 10 weeks, starting from zero knowledge of genetic engineering. Then we payed DNA 2.0 (a DNA synthesis contractor) to build us the custom virus for only $2k.
Also: on the third day of class, the prof showed us the complete genome of Ebola, and that based on DNA 2.0's price per length, it would only cost $20k to make.
"You would need more than a garage; you would need a great
garage and a lot of money. And it's not trivial. You need
the oligonucleotides to stitch genes together, and as far
as I know, most companies will check the order if the
sequence represents that of a dangerous virus."
Hardly. There was some "let's drop a bomb and see what the effect roughly is" emulator online that I used about a year ago -- and I was shocked how tiny the effect of neuclear weapons was. A Chinese 15 Kiloton weapon dropped in the middle of the city I was in wouldn't even result in elevated radiation were I lived unless the wind was in the wrong direction.
The tiny suitcase bombs they are shitting themselves that the terroists might get their hands on?
Yeah, those do so little damage that you would be better of with a large van conventional explosives.
Do you prefer "uranium is almost twice as dense as lead" as I do, for that sentence? That transitions well enough to the idea next mentioned by the author, that a small volume of uranium can nonetheless explode with the force of tons of TNT (which would be much bulkier, besides much heavier, to carry to the target). Yes, it also bothers me when writers don't use the word "dense" when the physical concept of density is what they are writing about.
Of course, I had to look up a specific gravity table to check my recollection of the specific gravity of uranium, something I don't experience every day.
Nice use of subtle patriotism here. Wouldn't it have been a little more impartial to write it as below?
"Hiroshima was destroyed in a flash by the U.S. Army with a bomb which was dropped from a propeller-driven B-29, on the warm morning of Monday, August 6, 1945."
Talking of partiality (and the sentences use of passive voice)
"Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage (1994) recommends the passive voice when identifying the object (receiver) of the action is more important than the subject (agent), and when the agent is unknown, unimportant, or not worth mentioning"
Also, agree it might be nitpicking but for me the dropping of the A-bombs and associated killing of a crap load of civillians is one of last centuries most conveniently forgotten topics. So treatment of the subject has a tendency to get me riled up!
One last question though...Can inanimate objects really be responsible of anything?
The answer to your question is yes, inanimate objects can be responsible for outcomes. On a philosophical level, a rock that comes loose from a cliff face and kills someone driving on the road below is responsible for his death even though there was clearly no intention involved.
In terms of language, it's also common for an inanimate object to be the subject even if it was not the responsible party, i.e. 'the car hit the boy', 'the plane crashed into the tower', 'the house was destroyed by a bomb', etc. In none of those cases was the primary subject the entity which decided to cause the action.
i didn't notice when i read the text; now that it has been pointed out to me, i find it interesting. thanks, iftn.
With that said, there is no contention that the US did not bomb Hiroshima with a nuclear weapon. Would anybody reading any of these suggested phrases really be more or less likely to view the US as being responsible for it?