How possible would it be for a crazy virologist to create and spread a superbug/epidemic like the Zika virus...

I'll read a book or two.

I am surprised it would be hard to spread. Is it because it would be hard to test on humans and know how it would affect a large population?

For your information the anthrax craze in america was caused by an American species of anthrax in very fine power form mixed with siliocn to negate static electricity and spread better which was a signature of the American bioweapos division.
So sadam didnt do shit to you guys you somehow fuck up yourself and tried to blame him because hey he used mustard gas once on his own people.
So whatever

What basically happens is that its very very hard especially for a virus to be stable in an open environment.
Spreading from one person to the next only goes so far and can be contained quite easily.
Thats why bioweapos dont use viruses and use toughen up bacteria that is resistant to almost every conditions and all agents against it.
Testing on humans is not so hard,look into British weapons program basically volunteered to go under sarin gas in order to test things out.
Also Brits heavily tested american weapon in africa like tons of it so that we see the state is africa is at present times.

>silicon*
>bioweapons*
Sorry guys i had hard day of physical labor and I am exhausted..

Hmmm, and bacteria is harder to engineer than viruses right?

I wonder if we'd even be alerted if a bio-terror attack was foiled.
No worries. That's pretty much America's modus operandi. Use random bad shit that happens or you caused to justify something else they want to do.

I doubt it's very possible at all. Sars was supposed to be super scary but literally nobody died at all.

What about modifying something that already has a large % of people infected? Like toxoplasmosis or whatever it's called. I don't know if you can make something that would work together with another virus/parasite/bacteria but it would probably work a lot better than just hoping a new one infects a lot of people

>and he was a genius.

A mentally crippled one due to years of terrible psychological torture by his government. Just imagine what he'd have been able to accomplish had that never happened to him.

>Hmmm, and bacteria is harder to engineer than viruses right?
Actually it is not,you don't work on nano levels(it was hard back them no idea now since we dont know anything) and is very easy to manufacture on a large scale.With viruses you need cells,extracting can be a pain in the ass also a large amount of eggs,supplys dont last,it can be a lot of hard work for small result.
For bacteria put them in a big enough pot and watch them grow.
Look into Fort Detrick's or One-Million-Liter Test Sphere,pic related.
Its very interesting read

>zika virus

I take it this is the lastest fear mongering thing I need to be afraid of? I'm so glad I don't watch TV or listen tot he radio anymore. What was the last one, swine flue or something? Didn't it like wipe out 80% of the world's population?

No, only people who are going to breed need to be afraid of it. So you're fine.
So they just let the bacteria grow and mutate on its own after giving it some pushes in the right direction? That's pretty cool. I'll definitely read that shit. I wish university didn't cost so much and teach so little until masters/phd level. I'd definitely go back and learn some stuff.

Its very easy to make shit go wild trust me on this.
There was a study of the Americans army (let me google a little bit,it was some kid of sub committee or some shit) where they set up industrial scale antrax manufacturing facility in a fucking shed right under the noses of the authorities form regular items on sale on ebay.
From fermentation pots used in the milk industry to shit you can buy in a hardware store.

Wow that's neat. If you can't find the article do you know WHY they did it?

I googled around and I am finding all sorts of stuff about anthrax from 2015. Guess people are still trying

cant remember but they were testing the dangers of such attack and how to protect themselves.

Also dropping great shit if you guys want to read.
This is truly best off goes into depth of what happens in the world considering bioweapons.

Found the /k/ thread i made a wile back posting best from it

This one is highly recommended.You wont see paper like this about this topic ever again.
I also suggest you google names mentioned in the article.
>FORMER SOVIET BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS FACILITIES IN KAZAKHSTAN: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
>cns.miis.edu/opapers/op1/op1.htm

Books
>Demon in the Freezer
>The Hot Zone
>Biohazard by ken alibek
>Hard cover military tome. Psychological Warfare in Urbanized Terrain Vol. II includes chemical warfare but not biological.

Movie about Unit 731
>youtube.com/watch?v=bqnftyYWW4E

Thanks dude saving this post I appreciate it.

Interesting about unit 731 though, never realized it had bio-testing. I just kind of filed it under "super fucked up experiments"

They actually contributed a lot to modern medicine and the bio weapons race in the cold war while stockpiling WMDs resulted in developing nice antibiotics that are in use to this day and that somehow puts a smile on my face knowing something good came out of all that madness.

Idk some nerd could get botulism and compromise a bunch of baby formula or something

>that somehow puts a smile on my face knowing something good came out of all that madness.
How do you feel when you see the typical absurd hypothetical question - "should we have destroyed all information resulting from these inhuman experiments"? Do you want to punch these people in the face for thinking with their gut-feels instead of realizing that preventing future suffering is more important than where the fuck the information came from, considering it wasn't our choice in the first place?

Destroying the research could help stop future rogue scientists from taking up immoral experiments for the common good.

If they really wanted to help people but the research would be destroyed you could potentially stop it from happening

>Do you want to punch these people in the face
I prescribe it to ignorance on the subject but I am very naive person and always think the best of people which is obviously very wrong but i cant help it.

>Destroying the research could help stop future rogue scientists
see this post wand watch the wole thing.
You dont know what you are talking about,they are real people with conciseness not edgy teenagers.>If they really wanted to help people but the research would be destroyed
They literally had no other option but to say.
That kind of gear and fund they will never get to see again in their life.
You cant imagine how many thing were developed in those few years on the 80s.
From protection gear to modern drugs.

>Destroying the research could help stop future rogue scientists from taking up immoral experiments for the common good.
Yes, without existing precedent no one would ever do something immoral again. After all, that's why immoral experiments never happened in the first place, right?

>If they really wanted to help people but the research would be destroyed you could potentially stop it from happening
It did happen. You can't change that. Make the best of it you can to help people.

it's doable

more importantly, it's even more doable if you want to target a specific ethnicity.

Human immune system haplotypes, responsible for generation of MHC-I antigens are well-charted at this point. There's huge diversity in this class of genes, and that's why population has people with different susceptibility to viruses - one kind of virus will be detected by immune systems of two different people with different strength.

However with bioinformatics it is possible to redesign viral proteins in a way that their affinity to HLA antigens of absolute majority of population will be very low. Then viruses can go under the radar of immune system, possibly even evading it completely in some cases, or leading to a more severe disease in other case. Of course you can't restrict infection to one ethnicity, nor can you ensure that 100% of people in group will get sick even if infected - but you sure can sway the ratios.

You'll have to use an existing virus though, we're not yet at the point of freely designing new viruses from scratch - maybe in a decade or two we'll be there. Not to mention that this process is impossible to control once you let loose the virus, and it may easily mutate and turn on you too.

So it's not a viable mean of warfare, nor it is a meaningful terrorism tactic. It's just pure evil.

>They literally had no other option but to say yes to the program.*
That kind of gear and funds*
Sorry for that

It is also possible to create a virus that will specifically kill a person and maybe his/her relatives - if you can obtain samples of victim's DNA. It's a huge project though, but it will appear as a natural illness. But not "natural".

From my understanding of biodefense (albeit I'm still an undergrad) it's certainly possible to weaponize a pathogen and it's getting easier by the day. I still am willing to bet anthrax will be an ideal bioterrorism weapon since it's easy to incubate and has hardy spores (the Soviets stored over 200 tons of them on Vozrozhdeniya Island). I'm not too concerned with most nations weaponizing viruses since I have faith they realize controlling a bioweapon is nearly impossible as of right now (admittedly I'm a bit concerned by North Korea and Israel's offensive bioweapon programs), but I'm much less concerned by a lone wolf or terrorist group since any BSL4 labs have strict security procedures (youtu.be/tqAjkjGq8Ug).

Now, 10 to 20 years down the line I think CRISPR and genetic engineering in general can really fuck us over and allow someone to take a pathogen and make it more virulent/specific but I at least am not too concerned about this happening during the 2010's

And scientists can just walk out with a dangerous as fuck virus that's been mutated? Or is there serious security in place?

>youtube.com/watch?v=qw_ztToPg10
Not him but you tell me.
>one guard
>a fucking house hold fridge
wew

youtube.com/watch?v=tMSU6k5-WXg

I think this is better quality.
>youtube.com/watch?v=uip1PM8dEIc

I am sorry but im knida getting tired of philosophical bs.
We were on the verge of extinction multiple times and yet here we are.
War is failed politics nothing more.People come to their senses eventually.

>We were on the verge of extinction multiple times and yet here we are.
you can't be aware of all the times your species goes extinct.

so of course here we are. there is no other place for us to be. We cannot be where we aren't.

Wow that's crazy stupid lmao

>No, only people who are going to breed need to be afraid of it. So you're fine.

LOL So they are threatening that you will be rendered sterile with this feat bait. I guess death wasn't enough.

Well the virus affects infants not adults

watch Channel 4's Utopia

Last one was Ebola breh

Zika isnt really that strong as the media propagates. Africa had zika around for decades and they did not seem to have an issue with babies having small brains.

>____ isnt really that strong as the media propagates.
Woah, what else is new?

>literally nobody died at all
Hong Kong basically saved us from a potential epidemic because they were used to dealing with H1N1 outbreaks earlier in the decade. Who knows what could've happened if SARS first originated in some less developed city?

>I seriously doubt there are people smart enough and dedicated enough to go through an entire field of science to cause a serious outbreak.
That is why radicalization is so dangerous, especially Muslim radicalization. If you pay attention, the highly educated are the people targeted for recruitment.

Anyone can fire an AK47. That Muslim at the CDC is a real target.

Brainlets (like you) playing the smart in this board. Let's be honest for once, this board has nothing but undergrads, and you are among them.

>they did not seem to have an issue with babies having small brains
that's b/c they all had small brains

>put Cas9 and a cassette targeting SRY in lentivirus or adenovirus
done

varicella is pretty advanced btw. it's ancient as fuck and it has a kind of stealth among viruses.

Literally everyone in this thread has varicella in their bodies at this very moment (unless it's a brown person)