Bureaucracy versus Bioterrorism

Two things are certain—death and taxes! Or maybe just taxes. Scientists are attempting to cheat death with rapidly progressing technologies capable of constructing and manipulating life synthetically from basic chemical elements. While the advancing rates of capability in computing speed, genomics, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology have the potential to improve and lengthen life for all humans, they also enable biological weapons that can destroy wide swaths of humanity or attack specific groups of individuals. This confluence of technology is advancing at exponential rates and seems to have the advantage over the limited detection, protection, and treatment capabilities offered by a lumbering bureaucracy.