Re:A new end-the-world scenario: Photosynthetic Mirror Cells
by cstross on Sunday December 12, 2010 @05:34PM
(#1998303)
This should be trivially fixable. Nobody wants such an eventuality to occur, so the smart money is on wiring in a dependency on some externally supplied, scarce element; for example, ensure that one or more of the enzymes involved in mitosis require a supply of a rare earth element or a purely synthetic (non-biosynthetic, non-natural) organic molecule as a cofactor.
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Re:A new end-the-world scenario: Photosynthetic Mirror Cells
by stcredzero on Sunday December 12, 2010 @05:45PM
(#1998339)
How about this as a scenario: Such safety mechanisms are engineered at first. A rare earth element is used as the cofactor. After a number of years, an organic cofactor is introduced and becomes widely adopted by industry as it reduces costs. Since this works so well, industry becomes cavalier about the release of such organisms, as they all soon die anyways.
A rogue bioengineer creates an artificial organism that can produce the cofactor. Hilarity ensues.