Home Bio Labs: Tinkering or Trouble?

The automobile industry was rooted in the old blacksmith shops where innovators were hacking all manner of equipment- and regulators insisted that these new-fangled contraptions be led by a pedestrian carrying a warning flag. The airline industry has its roots in a bicycle shop where a couple of crazy kids hacked a flying machine. The computer industry would not exist were it not for the hobbyists, amateur radio operators and other hackers that could see ways to use this weird technology in new ways. With the exception of perhaps the space program, there isn't a single example of a really new concept growing out of a formally controlled laboratory environment. Bell Labs never produced a transistor radio...

Any field is fraught with potential dangers. The basement chemistry lab generated a lot of nasty (and in some cases, dangerous) results. The computer industry has turned "hacker" in to a dirty word. But innovation continues. Trying to regulate the DIY biologists is going to result in discouraging those with normal curiosity, but have no real effect on those with sinister motives. The hackers will be the ones that give us the really important technologies...

The hackers in the blacksmith shop or the bike shop or the computer shop or the chemistry lab weren't hacking with self-replicating, living material. "Jurassic Park" was just a movie, but we've already seen some of what can happen when even supposedly expert hackers make mistakes with living matter, such as the hybrid killer bees. They're are no longer in the news but are still making their way ever further into America from the South American lab where they were bred and lost due to, surprise surprise, human error. The Wright brothers' planes and the blacksmith's proto-cars weren't capable of reproducing outside the shop if they were accidentally released or they "escaped". Life will find a way; that is possibly the single most observably true statement ever made. The incredible bio-diversity of our planet attests to the infinite adaptability of Life. Bio-hacking is one of the three most dangerous areas of exploration modern science has opened to us. Think of children with matches. In the relative sense, our knowledge isn't so very much greater than theirs.

Even the space program had it's roots in a cabbage patch!

http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/goddard.html

Shadetree biologists are probably not susceptible to regulation in any practical way. The physical requirements for culturing cells and tissues might be a limiting factor, but most of the things needed are readily available, some even in nature for the picking (so to speak). How would anyone really be able to stop a sinister scientist from achieving a nefarious goal in biology? And would you really want to live in a society so closely regulated that it could be possible?

I've looked into culturing my own yeast for wine production. As I was looking for yeasts from certain repositories I saw that any particular yeast that could be pathogenic required special credentials to obtain. I would imagine it's the same for bacteria and what not.

Tinkerers and Hacks are responsible for a great deal of technology, but most of that technology had no potential for wiping out all of humanity. As far as I can tell, none of us can get a hold of any high grade nuclear stuff for the same reason. I think it's probably Ok to regulate the commerce of any pathogenic material.

Insofar as home experimenting, I'm sure we'll find the tinkerers, much like myself, developing new yeast for their wine or wart, micropropagating plants for their gardens and growing some cool stuff in a petri dish... Nothing that could start a pandemic.

There are plenty of pathogenic microorganisms to be found in nature. A dedicated search could come up with enough to cause problems, and a talented technician could modify them in a laboratory to heighten the adverse effects. Which is why I don't think it would be all that easy to detect and halt such activities. "Danger, Will Robinson!"

Ahhh...good point.

Sometimes it's scary to come to the realization that we are just that close to such a disaster.

From that perspective, I totally agree with not wanting to live in a society that is that regulated. I would rather be wiped out by someone's science project than be under totalitarian scrutiny.

I guess it's like explosives...when I was a kid, you didn't have to worry about going to jail for the rest of your life if you built a super duper fire cracker...now days it's a different story.

Yepper! I have a cousin who spends his winters clearing tracts of timber for firewood. He uses ANFO to blow stumps. Used to get fertilizer and fuel oil from the local farmer's co-op, but now needs a license to look at the stuff. Sad situation.

Sad and scarey. What's really scarey is that the same people whose short sightedness and greed (or extreme craftiness and insanity) got us into this mess are the ones who are now methodically stripping us of our rights in order to "protect" us.

Myopia, greed, slyness, and madness - what a lot of good qualifications to hold public office, eh? If George Washington were alive to see this, he'd be turning over in his grave.

You guys think you got it bad..........In the last twenty years I periodically blow a huge beaver dam that takes about 60 sticks of 40%. I always bought them from the hardware store with the caps.

Last time I tried to buy I was told I needed a temporary blasting licence.

Ok, coolcats thought I and signed the requisite request forms.

Then the spooks in the aviator sunglasses and search warrants showed up and the questions began.....and continued ad infinitum until I relented to let our game warden do the honours (the spooks didn't believe beaver dams pose a serious risk).

He hit the same wall.

Three years ago the dam burst taking out two sections of road and a bridge. It does that every three to four years.

Just goes to prove we should trust the goverment...Right?

(Total sarcasm for those who don't have their detectors on this morning!)

don't get me started on that one.......now there's a law in Ontario that any harvestable tree on one's private property can be cut down without permission.

Granted there are those property owners who have little or no idea of silviculture but if the day comes when some contractor tries to cut my virgin pines ......... they'd better have the army backing them.

We have GOT to wake up, people. It's the same story all over the world; "you Joe public own nothing, control nothing, mean nothing, and We the secret families who control your governments have, control and mean everything! Submit, slaves, and be grateful We allow you to continue to live at all. Now that We think of it, perhaps you shouldn't. First we need to confiscate all your guns..."

We techies are notorious for not being students of literature and history, but the Western world is sure starting to look a lot like Germany just before the Nazis openly took control. Just a couple more major acts of terrorism and we'll be willing to accept complete totalitarian government to "protect" us from...surprise surprise: them.

"...taking out two sections of road and a bridge..."

Seems to me that at this point the local DoT equivalent would have an interest in speaking with the MIBs with the shades and search warrants. After all, somebody has to rebuild all that stuff, and presumably the beavers can't be relied upon.

Been there, done that. Not my problem anymore. Don't care. Beavers quite happy being beavers and most welcome to keep my bush lot trimmed.

It has to go through channels man. I guarantee that in Canada the process will take a century to resolve itself and force the resignation of at least three ministers.

nature has enough toxic and mind altering stuff to play with without trying to regulate experimentation.
Afterall its the 'uneducated natives' who have given us some of our anaesthetics.

Are you feeling tired and listless? Thry some of KrisDel^TMs wonderful foxglove pickme up.

(Obviously guys this is a joke...please note I expect you all to know digitalis is bad stuff...don't on any account mess with foxgloves.... squirrel gloves ok...but NOT foxgloves)

Oh dear I wish I hadn't started ...maybe admin will remove this silliness.

Now look what trouble you've got me into....
Kris made me do it.

Must go into the garden and admire the Laburnum and Yew, I wonder if the Toads have hibernated yet? There is some really pretty fungi too!


Del

Moi ? Like you say, the average garden contains plenty of nasties, but a diet of nuts can lead to some pretty shocking results. I'd best not elaborate .