Scientists to Pause Research on Deadly Strain of Bird Flu | Hacker News Reader

Scientists to Pause Research on Deadly Strain of Bird Flu

nytimes.com

31 pointstokenadult8 comments

This is the worst possible outcome. If 10 passages through the lab animals was sufficient for the virus to become transmissible by air, then this will happen in nature. Not being able to share with other members of the world-wide flu monitoring network what they need to be watching for is irresponsible at best.

The fact that this variant of the virus was formed relatively easily, however, leads me to believe that there is a reason that it hasn't been found in the wild yet. It could be that transmission in ferrets is not exactly like transmission in humans. It could be that this variant is transmissible by air in a lab setting, but is critically vulnerable to environmental factors in the wild. Regardless of the explanation, there is something vital and important that can be learned through further research...

But OH NOES THE TERRERISTS!!!1!

You know, Caesar was just trying to protect Rome when the library in Alexandria burned. Those who have the most are willing to loose the least but, as they say, nothing ventured nothing gained...

The future of scientific progress no longer lies with the United States of America.

You know, Caesar was just trying to protect Rome when the library in Alexandria burned.

Sorry, but what? What does the accidental burning of a library have to do with this?

There is a real risk in putting national security above all else. Leaders often make the mistake of believing that those with the greatest military might succeed, when in fact it is those societies with the greatest technology that have always lead the world.

I'm sorry, but in a time when invading armies raped, pillaged, and killed at their own discretion, defending and thus staying alive is a much higher priority than saving your library. Especially when surrendering to the invaders would probably have gotten the library ransacked & burned anyway.

You cannot reap the rewards of technology fifty years from now if you are beheaded by a mercenary today.

If you need a simple analogy, think of the Civilizations series. (Or, hell, any game with a research/tech tree). Research wins games, but only if you survived the initial stages!

Name a period in history when the most powerful society was not also the most technologically advanced.

On the one hand, this constitutes a weapon of mass destruction and should never be created by civilians in a lab.

On the other... if it is this easy to do, so that two virology teams can do it... then it needs to be done, somewhere. Is open academia that place?

I would imagine that knowing what genes need to mutate, that we could test for them to early detect an outbreak. Also, we could target anti-virals or other treatments against those segments.

Scary stuff.

Those things would only get more frequent and easier as the science progresses. I think the best shot to avoid a major disaster is to progress the science far and fast enough so that the consequences are not that severe. For example getting to a point where an "universal" antiviral agent (with an easy to update/modify "database" of targets) is possible.

Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3279225

Reply on news.ycombinator.com