[IN THE NEWS] Biologists Napping While Work Militarized

Scientists are often portrayed as the dupes of the military, or government conspiracies. Now a new editorial by Bioethicist Malcolm Dando states that biologists don't understand how their research is being weaponized. Read the full article to understand the very real ramifications.

Biologists napping while work militarized [Nature.com]

As researchers discover more agents that alter mental states, the Chemical Weapons Convention needs modification to help ensure that the life sciences are not used for hostile purposes, says Malcolm Dando.

At the 4th European Symposium on Non-Lethal Weapons in 2007, researchers from the Institute of Experimental Medicine and Charles University in Prague described the effects on macaque monkeys of combinations of drugs that produce a rapid loss of aggressive behaviour. They argued that the drugs could be "used to pacify aggressive people during ... terrorist attacks". The same researchers have also investigated methods of aerosol delivery to human volunteers.

Those who support the development of incapacitating agents often argue that using them in conflict situations stops people being killed. Historical evidence suggests otherwise. At the Nord-Ost siege, for instance, terrorists exposed to the fentanyl mixture were shot dead rather than arrested. Likewise, in Vietnam, the US military used vast quantities of CS gas — a 'non-lethal' riot-control agent — to increase the effectiveness of conventional weapons by flushing the Viet Cong out of their hiding places.

It's worth reading the entire editorial - full of facts of how life sciences has been perverted into blueprints for bioweaponry and just how some scientists either turn a blind eye to, or are complicit in the weaponization of their scientific discoveries.

However, in relation to the After the Bomb game setting, it offers a gold mine of possibilities. Whether it be mad scientists wanting to test their latest experiment on some rural locals, a war lord using the scientific discoveries of a duped scientist, or the Empire discovering some lost biological weapon from before the Crash, the possibilities are nearly limitless. As horrible, troublesome, or disturbing as they may be...