GE as enabler of "winnable" nuclear war?
I just had an interesting/awful thought. Recently the sequence of the radiation resistant bacteria
Deinococcus radiodurans has become
publicly available.
The complete genetic code of the world’s most radiation resistant organism - the bacteria Deinococcus radiodurans - has been detailed by Department of Energy (DOE) funded researchers at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR). This strain of pink bacteria can survive 1.5 million rads of gamma irradiation - 3,000 times the amount that would kill a human. That dose of radiation shreds the bacteria’s genome into hundreds of pieces. T he organism’s ability to repair this DNA damage in a day and go on living offers researchers clues to the mechanisms of cellular repair. Advances in this area could improve the understanding of cancer, which can be caused by unrepaired DNA damage. Genetically engineering the microbe could lead to improved ways to clean up pollution and to new industrial processes.
Now, bacteria & humans are different enough that the chromosomal repair mechanisms of
Deinococcus probably won't be amenable to simple recombinant cut & paste of the relevant genetic material. But it's not at all out of the question that the study of
Deinococcus could tell us how to engineer partial radiation resistance for our enormously more complicated eukaryotic chromosomes. If the Chinese engineered radiation resistance into their GE children, they could conceivably gain the ability to launch a nuclear first strike without suffering too badly from the aftereffects of the inevitable reprisal.
In other words: they could use genetic engineering to wage a "winnable" nuclear war....