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Making Viruses the Natural Way

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Science journalist and author Carl Zimmer has a post on his blog The Loom that reflects on recent H5N1 (bird flu) research that has raised alarms in the science community over publishing results of experiments that explore dual use microorganisms (research that yields information or technologies with the potential to be misused to threaten public health or national security.)

Snippet:

"The idea that someone could intentionally design a super-lethal virus from scratch–as plausible as it may seem–is, for now, a delusion.
If you’ve been following the news this past week, you may think I’ve just been proven wrong. Reports have surfaced about two teams of scientists producing flu viruses that could potentially kill millions if they escaped from the labs. The scientists have the viruses locked up tight for now, and government officials are debating whether they can publish their results."

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