Designing DNA Specific Bio-Weapons

Sci-fi has been talking about this exact type of thing for at least 20 years, so it's not a new idea.
Second, and far more important, only a complete F-N moron would even try to release such a thing.
The reason is very simple, it's called MUTATION. Yes, viruses mutate, even the engineered ones. That targeting mechanism is either going to cease to function, get bypassed, or widen it's range of targets, and there is no way to predict which it will do or when it will happen.
Here's another thing to think about. Without including a massive amount of targeting info in the virus, you won't be able to discern between related targets or just random individuals with similar dna. Because of that, you will be unintentionally targeting unwanted subjects. If that's not bad enough, if you really do put in enough info for the virus to target 1 individual in the human populace, that huge amount of info is going to be a drain on the resources of the virus. You know what many microbes like to do with massive useless genes like that? They throw them away. Yes, that's right, it might not even take one replication in release before they chuck all your precious targeting info. And then what happens? Do they no longer have their deadly payload, or do they use it on everyone?

So leave this stuff to sci-fi writers, because reality is that viruses make HORRIBLE targeted weapons, though they aren't bad for indiscriminant killing and terror, even if they are a lot slower than bombs, guns, knives, poisons, and all other weapons in existence.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/28YwltW4QGM/designing-dna-specific-bio-weapons

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