How about we make mirror prions that affect/infect mirror bacteria, but are inert to us? It becomes a targeted therapy.
Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn
71–80 of 253 posts
Re: Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn
#72Searching HN for "mirror cells", I see at least 1 article warning of the dangers from more than 10 years ago. So, this has been a thing for a while. Any biologists here that can chime in on just how big of a risk they do pose? Is there a general consensus throughout the community that this research should end? Is this something that could be developed for bio-terrorism? Should work be started on developing mirror imm…
A completely "mirrored" organism is not that dangerous.
- It would still have antigenic properties, just not the ones we are familiar with, because antigens are proteins or proteins bound to sugars. Both have "left" vs "right" variants.
- It can't eat any ordinary food, except simple fats. Common proteins and sugars won't fit it's enzymes. That means it can't digest sugars, proteins or any combination that contains them. It also means it can't attack and decompose our tissues, so it would have no way to enter our bodies.
- With only simple lipids as food, it would need to take all Nitrogen from the atmosphere or inorganic compounds, which means it can't really be a pathogen for humans (or any animals) even if it could somehow enter our organisms. However, it could live on the soil and possibly be a plant pathogen.
- It's "mirrored" toxins won't have any effect on us. (But compounds that are normally benign possibly could be toxic if "mirrored" - I can't say for sure if it's possible.)
Re: Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn
#73This reminds me of the different foods in Anathem; the different people (Trying to keep this spoiler-free.) are unable to digest the the foods the others eat.
Re: Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not that I recall — closest I can think of would either be TOS evil twin made from antimatter, the mirror universe in general, or Nelix' coffee. But I have seen it as a short story about how the world ends, some synthetic bacteria that was meant to be reversed chirality for safety, but eventually it went wild and could eat everything without itself being eaten by anything.
If this was ‘Starfish’ it was longer than a short story
I don't think so; I've looked up the story, and what I remember doesn't match the setting of the summary I've seen of that novel — assuming it was the Peter Watts novel, because while I kinda assumed you wouldn't have meant the Lisa Fipps novel of the same name, there may be others with that name which I just don't know about.
Re: Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you can't get funding for your research, or publish under your real name if you do, it's certainly going curtail research at least. It could still happen if some nations refuse to endorse the ban, but there will at least be less of it, which means less risk.
That is to say, our enemies will master it first and we will be caught with our pants down.
We're not talking about a targeted weapon, we're talking about accidentally unleashing an unstoppable global pandemic. If only China is risking that, the odds are better for everyone.
Re: Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn
#76How does a research ban even work? It seems to me that at some point someone is going to research it; at which point everyone is left flat footed by having not researched it.
We don’t research what happens when a child falls out of a plane and nobody feels like we’re falling behind for it.
There is no potential profit in researching that, this isn’t the case with mirror chirality organisms.
Re: Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn
#77I don’t understand why the innate immune response wouldn’t default to attacking an organism made of chiral molecules, since it attacks anything it doesn’t recognise. And while the adaptive immune response might not immediately recognise a novel organism, is there something that would prevent it ever adapting?
Stuff binds to other stuff because the magnetic domains and shape match up well enough.
There is no way to effect something that attacks everything it doesn't recognize because a) there is no ooeration that represents not matching and b) if there was such a cell would be a short lived bomb that would blow up your body.
You adaptive immune system learns to and antigen when a short lived immune cell is semi randomly generated that binds to it and becomes a longer lived cell.
Presumably this could still happen but this normally takes days to happen. In between your inate immune system relies on being able to recognize a lot of existing antigens that are out there and common in attackers.
Having the entire library of malicious life become magically unknown means that you are relying on only your adaptive immune system is available to contain the damage.
Re: Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn
#78How does a research ban even work? It seems to me that at some point someone is going to research it; at which point everyone is left flat footed by having not researched it.
> How does a research ban even work? It seems to me that at some point someone is going to research it; This is a function of how easy it is to do the banned thing, how easy it is to detect when it is being researched and what are the benefits of researching it. Imagine as an example that we live in a world where there are no firearms, and we decide to ban their research and development. All three factors would be ag…
There is no benefit to disease as a weapon they aren't containable nor faster than nukes.
You unleash green too ensuring your targets liquidation in 6 weeks they inform you to share your own defense against it or get nuked tomorrow. You share it but it adapts and everyone dies.
Re: Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you can't get funding for your research, or publish under your real name if you do, it's certainly going curtail research at least. It could still happen if some nations refuse to endorse the ban, but there will at least be less of it, which means less risk.
That is to say, our enemies will master it first and we will be caught with our pants down.
By something liable to end human life when it inevitably adapts?
It actually makes sense to just go ahead and go to war with anyone who works on such weapons.
Re: Mirror bacteria research poses significant risks, scientists warn
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is to say, our enemies will master it first and we will be caught with our pants down.
We're not talking about a targeted weapon, we're talking about accidentally unleashing an unstoppable global pandemic. If only China is risking that, the odds are better for everyone.
Why wouldn't they make it into a targeted weapon? Us humans turn everything else into a weapon.