Community frets over loss of chem weapons jobs

Who’s sorry to say goodbye to a thousand tons of old slime? The people who make their livings by babysitting it, of course.  But all good things come to an end, like the extremely hot villain in Hellboy II.  Damn it all. Er…but I digress.

By the end of this month, the last of 1,269 tons of VX will be eliminated, and dismantling of the Newport Chemical Depot will begin. About 130 jobs will be gone permanently by September, according to the Kentucky-based operating contractor Mason & Hanger. After that, depending on the time it takes to dismantle the facility, jobs will be lost in waves. The total closure process could take until 2012, according to officials.

Since the Depot opened in 1941, it has been the largest employer in Vermillion County, employing about 1,000 workers in recent years.

…“We’ve always looked at that facility as about a thousand jobs.”

I’m not sure how many jobs will be lost across the country as a result of CW destruction. It’s a little weird to think that getting rid of these weapons would actually harm someone, if only temporarily. When I worked on nuclear warheads, I spent no small amount of time wrangling with the ethics of my job. Often I’d tell myself that if I wasn’t taking care of these babies, someone else would—so quitting would not make any difference.  Which was a flawed argument, because if I was uncomfortable with anything about the weapons, then I should have quit just for myself, and I eventually did.

The nice Midwesterners babysitting our vats of poison might not spend too much time on that internal conversation, but then again they don’t really need to. The U.S. is not going to use CW in a war, period. Nukes, well, we might think about it someday if we’re in just the right pinch. Again.

Despite impending financial insecurity, I hope the folks at Newport and elsewhere still in some small way feel happy for the country to be getting rid of these agents; meanwhile, some affected communities will no doubt offer business incentives to bring in new opportunities in the future.  Communities like Newport, with less than 1,000 people, might see a mass exodus and essentially the end of the town.  That hurts, but at the risk of sounding glib, in this case change is good.

Click the image for current info about CW destruction.

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

Just good clean fun.

Nature says social scientists + DoD = win-win

Thanks to the tip from the Zero Intelligence Agents blog, I followed Drew Conway’s emphatic instruction to “Go read this right now!“  And was surprised to see Nature editors encouraging social scientists to embrace the military’s human terrain teams. The Nature editors have concluded that despite the obvious potential for abuse,

Social scientists…should embrace the opportunities that the AAA pointed out last November in a report on engagement with the military. These include studying military and intelligence organizations from the inside and educating the military about other cultures and societies.

I agree. Having been almost swayed by the softer science of cultural anthropology years ago in college, and remaining an amateur student of human behavior (often my own), I have to say: Hey social scientists, what’s the downside (uh, besides a somewhat greater chance of being shot than living in D.C.) of having this incredible opportunity for field study of not Iraqis or Afghanis, but the U.S. military.  The military is full of cultural oddities, and it’s a regular smorgasbord of social pathologies.  Many of them necessary, some not so much.

The whole idea is entirely progressive for the military (did I just use that word on my blog?).  Of course, Nature didn’t pass up the opportunity to backhand the Bush administration for its crappy record on science. But it gave the military a break on this, which seems like a decent olive branch to me.  It’s time for those social scientists who have been criticizing the program to take another look at reality.  It is what it is, not what you wish it was.  Do your jobs and study it.

Healthmap redux

See, folks, if you stick around and read my blather you’ll hear what’s in the news like a year and a half ahead of everybody else. For instance, here’s my post from November 4, 2006…

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Who’s catching what, and where? Here’s a handy tool at www.healthmap.org.

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Kind of chaps my %@#. But I guess this tool hit the news big recently because it’s had some nice feature updates.  Check it out, it’s much better these days.

BTW, did you hear about the recent Marburg case in the Netherlands? Tourist brought it back in her from Uganda, after having contact with cuddly bats.  She died a liquefacted hemorrhagic death on July 11.  You tell people not to play with the African bats, and you tell them over and over, but they just won’t listen.

And hey, don’t play with the SE Asian bats, either.

Contribute to the discussion on synthetic biology

Last week I mentioned a newly published paper on the creation of artificial DNA. There are also lots of efforts out there working on synthetic lifeforms and the development of a mix & match catalog of parts for them. How far should synthetic biology go, and what kinds of benefits do you think humans will realize from it? Who should be overseeing and regulating the field? Advancements in synthetic biology may (arguably have) outpace the answers to these questions.

Dr. Gregor Wolbring at the University of Calgary is the convener of a team of four undergraduate students that looks into the ethical, legal, social issues of synthetic biology. The “Calgary iGEM Ethics Team” will present their finding at the International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition iGEM.

The Calgary iGEM Ethics team is the first undergraduate team allowed to look into the ethical, legal, social issues of synthetic biology. The students developed this survey and plan to use this survey as one output for its November presentation.

The purpose of this study is to better understand the level of knowledge you and others have about the emerging field of synthetic biology, what you feel the future of synthetic biology holds, what you feel the implications of advances in synthetic biology may be and what you think the framework of governance for synthetic biology should be.

One definition of synthetic biology is: the design and construction of new biological parts, devices, and systems: and the re-design of existing, natural biological systems for useful purposes.

You will be asked a series of questions regarding to the emerging scientific field of synthetic biology, its future, and its governance. You will have to answer 41 questions of the online survey.

You find the survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=u3DnQ2vRzuA2RF_2bMb8KYaw_3d_3d

The International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition is the premiere Synthetic Biology competition and currently the largest Synthetic Biology conference in the world. Working at their own schools over the summer, participants use standard biological parts to design, build, and operate biological systems in living cells. During the first weekend of November, they share their work at the iGEM Competition Jamboree at MIT and in competition for a variety of awards for excellence.

They add their new parts to the Registry of Standard Biological Parts for the students in the next year’s competition.

Please pass this information on through your networks so that the students get many responses to the synthetic biology survey they designed. They worked very hard on the survey.

Source: Dr. Wolbring

The survey is long and parts of it could be more clear in my opinion, but if you have an interest in synthetic biology I encourage you to take it.

(via NanoWerk)

Holy moly, where did all you people come from?

Due to a bizarre alignment of planets resulting in links from Danger Room, Armchair Generalist, and Little Green Footballs (I sure didn’t see that coming), this little blog has had more visitors today than any other day in its short history. Hi y’all. Stop back occasionally - you’re likely to find something weird, mildly interesting, or even entertaining here, if only in my blogroll & links.

Oh, and thanks, WordPress for breaking on this day, not some other day, but this one. Frakking losers. (Fixed!)

AFMIC rededicated as National Center for Medical Intelligence

It’s official. The new name takes into account how the agency’s role has expanded in recent years to support issues that affect homeland security as well as military forces. The potential for an H5N1 pandemic, emerging antibiotic resistant pathogens, and medical intelligence related to national disasters have been added to their portfolio out of necessity, so they’re getting the recognition of their major intelligence contribution beyond immediate military concerns.

AFMIC NCMI analysts do a super job. It’s good that they’re getting greater recognition for providing global coverage for medical intelligence issues. (Keep it up and you’ll get it down to three letters eventually.) 

A new kind of Frankenfood: the tomato vaccine

Korean scientists have performed some promising tests using GM tomatoes that grow their own edible vaccines. In this case, against Alzheimer’s disease. And why not - the idea’s not a new one (although this guy notes a rather important reason why edible vaccines would be “a disaster” - each tomato would produce a variable level of the vaccine).

We already eat specific foods precisely for their purported health benefits. We’ve created other foods that produce desired substances, for example, the golden rice that produces large quantities of beta-carotene.

Still, something about it makes me leery. Kind of like “meatri” - synthetic meat. I’d know it was real meat, grown by the same biochemical mechanisms that animals use to grow their own meat. But I’d feel kind of hesitant to eat it, at least the first time. There’s a yuck factor.

From my own perspective of course, I also wonder how might this be used as a threat. A vehicle for biowarfare? Well, I imagine there are all kinds of toxins and such that food could be engineered to express. But there would be no reason to go to all that trouble when there are far more productive, established methods to crank out and deliver weapons. So this will no doubt remain in the realm of sci-fi for the foreseeable future. Could make for a great short story, though.