From: frantz@netcom.com (Bill Frantz)
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 15:05:21 +0800
To: Black Unicorn <unicorn@schloss.li>
Subject: Re: Fear of Flying -- from HotWired
Message-ID: <199609190446.VAA04571@netcom8.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At  2:51 PM 9/18/96 -0400, Black Unicorn wrote:
>On Wed, 18 Sep 1996, Bill Frantz wrote:
>
>> At  1:21 AM 9/18/96 -0400, Black Unicorn wrote:
>> >> On Thu, 12 Sep 1996 12:03:18 -0700, Bill Frantz wrote:
>> >> >Gee, biotech has come a long way.  Now I can download the Anthrax DNA
>> >> >sequence from the net and insert it in some carrier bacteria and start
>> >> >making Anthrax bacteria.  Neat!
>> >
>> >Culturing and growing anthrax is painfully simple.  No DNA required.
>> 
>> Sorry Unicorn, you missed my point.  (1) You need DNA to grow bacteria. 
>> You can get the DNA two ways.  (A) You get a sample of the beast, or (B)
>> You get a DNA sequence and then regenerate the DNA.  (I don't think B is
>> technically feasable yet.)  (2) You can't send samples of the beast thru
>> the net.
>
>I think your point was that the net was not responsible for the
>proliferation of Anthrax development data.  (Am I wrong?)

My point was that you need more than just information (but see below).  You
also need some materials that may be hard to get.  Being totally ignorant
in the anthrax growing area, I have no idea where I would get my starter
bacteria.  (Presumably any net-info would tell me.  I haven't looked.)

At 12:34 PM 9/18/96 -0800, Jim McCoy wrote:
>Yes, B is possible.  At the moment the devices only work for relatively
>small sequences but this is improving and the current generation should be
>able to handle a constructing a bacteria sequence pretty well...  Ergo
>you _can_ send samples of the beast through the net (or at least genetic
>clones.)

Oh well, if not this year, then next people will be able to down load any
virus/bacteria they want.  Come the millennium, it will be plants, with
mice and rats to follow.


Black Unicorn wrote:
>My point was that in the eyes of the "leaders" all that is required to
>make the net responsible for the proliferation is for the process to be
>describeable in a simple one or two page set of instructions (such as
>Anthrax is).

I have no problem with your point.  Mine was intended as sarcasm.


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