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By Category: Policy & Initiatives

The Survival of Humanity

(ScientificAmerican) An existential catastrophe would obliterate or severely limit the existence of all future humanity. As defined by Nick Bostrom at Oxford University, an existential catastrophe is one which extinguishes Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently destroys a substantial part of its potential. As such it must be considered a harm of unfathomable magnitude, far beyond  Read More »

The US is building a bioweapons lab in Kazakhstan

(Salon) In 1992, Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov, a biologist from the Soviet Union, boarded a flight in Almaty, then Kazakhstan’s capital, for New York. When Dr. Alibekov—now known as Ken Alibek—sat down with the CIA, he had a terrifying secret to reveal: that bio weapons program the Soviet Union stopped in the 1980′s hadn’t actually stopped  Read More »

U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee approves bill for NBAF

(HighPlainsJournal) U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-KS, along with Sen. Jerry Moran, R-KS, a member of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, announced the fiscal year 2014 Homeland Security Appropriations Bill was approved with bipartisan support by the Senate Appropriations Committee. The bill includes $404 million for construction of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, an amount  Read More »

Cities Might Not Be as Prepared as They Think for a Bioterrorism Attack

(NationalJournal) Imagine that a small group of terrorists deliberately infect themselves with smallpox and then walk around London, spreading it to the populace. How much could the terrible disease proliferate before the world realized something was amiss? This unsettling question is at the heart of new computer model showing how a bioterrorism attack in one  Read More »

Staying Safe in a Biology Revolution

(CFR) CFR Senior Fellow for Global Health Laurie Garrett explains the conundrum of dual-use research of concern (DURC), in which the same experiments that allow scientists to understand pandemics can also create dangerous pathogens. Combined with advances in synthetic biology and increasingly affordable technologies, there is the possibility for a true biology revolution.

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