Get the latest tech news
Leading Scientists Urge Ban On Developing 'Mirror-Image' Bacteria
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Science Magazine: It would be a nightmare lab leak: Synthetic bacteria escape the petri dish and unleash a global plague that life on Earth is incapable of defending itself against. That's the concern raised by a group of eminent researchers in a Policy Forum...
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Science Magazine: It would be a nightmare lab leak: Synthetic bacteria escape the petri dish and unleash a global plague that life on Earth is incapable of defending itself against. The commentary's 38 authors, from a broad range of disciplines, argue that governments worldwide should prohibit research and funding aimed at creating so-called mirror-image bacteria whose chemical makeup differs in a fundamental way from that of naturally existing organisms. Jack Szostak, a co-author and a 2019 Nobel Prize-winning chemist at the University of Chicago, adds: "The result could be catastrophic irreversible damage, perhaps far worse than any challenge we've previously encountered."
Or read this on Slashdot
