Kitchen Sink Biologists

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Esfandiar Mazda asked:

À la Frank Herbert’s White Plague in which women are genetic targets, and a certain tome with black folk targeted. CRISPR makes such scenarios seem plausible. We can buy genetically manipulated plants that glow-in-the-dark from online kitchen sink biologists/gene splicers. How many generations of mosquitoes need to be bred before someone finds or creates one that can carry a pandemic-causing virus?

Carol Riddle answered:

Under a Graveyard Sky series by John Ringo. In Under a Graveyard Sky, an unknown person/group/agency cooks up a “zombie virus.” Included in the subsequent actions are a team that works to make a vaccine, plus there’s good stuff about how the science behind the virus was worked out by a former chemistry grad student in his mother’s basement, AND how the powers-that-be treat him.

Our Neural Chernobyl by Bruce Sterling features a plague that raises the intelligence of non-human mammals, which has great impact on humanity of course.