

Synthetic biology weaponized virus, 0day exploit infects your brain? - aidanclash
http://blogs.computerworld.com/19409/dna_hackers_synthetic_biology_weaponized_virus_0day_exploit_to_infect_your_brain

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frisco
There are certainly dangers associated with synthetic biology and the spread
of low-cost at-home biology tools, but this is a ridiculous fluff piece devoid
of any real scientific content. Even if a low-cost "DNA printer" could be used
by individuals to simply synthesize a protein (it doesn't work like that, by
the way), the idea that you'd proceed to download an unknown sequence off the
internet, express it, and eat it is ridiculous.

I'm not sure what a "weaponized virus" means in this regard. "Reformatting
your brain"? "Booting DNA" maliciously in a specific person? We're probably
going to see whole new worlds of possibilities involving bioterrorism in the
next hundred years, but this article is singularitard nonsense.

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beagle3
> the idea that you'd proceed to download an unknown sequence off the
> internet, express it, and eat it is ridiculous.

While I find it just as ridiculous as you do, I am also looking in disbelief
as people trust for-profit corporations with everything from their complete
financial data (Mint), correspondence (Gmail) social life (Facebook) -- and
furthermore, often publicly give enough info through e.g. Facebook to every
burglar so that they know when it is a good time to come burgle.

So we might both wake up in ten years to people downloading sequences off the
net, printing and eating them.

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jarin
This idea is almost identical to the ideas in Life Artificial:
<http://lifeartificial.com/>

