The typo in the first paragraph needs to be fixed.
The quoted word "awaken" would should read in the context "awoken". If the writer/editor for this news item took out the preceding words "scientists have" and reworked it, the present-tense form would work.
Interesting story but for the double take I did on the first sentence.
More to the point, science fiction seems closer than ever to science fact. I have no doubt that at some point in human history we will unleash either something very ancient or an escaped "hot zone" pathogen from a lab. It's statistically inevitable that we will goof up in some big way at some point because we are only human. What's unforgivable is that the very authorities who are charged with protecting the public health don't often factor in worst-case scenario "variables" when making decisions on how to handle these rare and dangerous microbes. Instead, we have boneheaded ideas about moving laboratories that are presently located on isolated islands to the mainland US where one mistake might decimate the entire country, if not continent, worth of livestock (hoof & mouth disease). It just goes to show that intelligence and "common sense" have nothing whatsoever to to with one another.
Arrogance may become our eventual undoing as a species, but until then stories like this are a fascinating read. Let's hope and pray they stay that way — interesting stories, no more, no less.
The quoted word "awaken" would should read in the context "awoken". If the writer/editor for this news item took out the preceding words "scientists have" and reworked it, the present-tense form would work.
Interesting story but for the double take I did on the first sentence.
More to the point, science fiction seems closer than ever to science fact. I have no doubt that at some point in human history we will unleash either something very ancient or an escaped "hot zone" pathogen from a lab. It's statistically inevitable that we will goof up in some big way at some point because we are only human. What's unforgivable is that the very authorities who are charged with protecting the public health don't often factor in worst-case scenario "variables" when making decisions on how to handle these rare and dangerous microbes. Instead, we have boneheaded ideas about moving laboratories that are presently located on isolated islands to the mainland US where one mistake might decimate the entire country, if not continent, worth of livestock (hoof & mouth disease). It just goes to show that intelligence and "common sense" have nothing whatsoever to to with one another.
Arrogance may become our eventual undoing as a species, but until then stories like this are a fascinating read. Let's hope and pray they stay that way — interesting stories, no more, no less.