The Myth of Pandemic Preparedness

The Myth of Pandemic Preparedness

Under the guise of pandemic preparedness an industry was built out, fortunes were made, and new lethal viruses and other microorganisms were discovered or created. A panoply of pandemics and accompanying WHO pandemic declarations have rolled out, one after the other, one scarcely ending before the next appears: 2009 swine flu, 2014 Ebola, 2016 Zika…

How Artificial Intelligence Will Change Your Life

How Artificial Intelligence Will Change Your Life

Understanding the promise and perils of AI technology Artificial Intelligence (AI) has long captured the human imagination. We’ve all watched movies where humans interact with machine intelligence that mimics or surpasses human intelligence. In these movies, there is a split between utopian and dystopian visions of AI…

What is “Gain of Function’ research?

What is “Gain of Function’ research?

‘Gain of Function’ (GOF) research uses benign-sounding terminology to confuse people who are unfamiliar with the subject. It used to be called ‘biodefense,’ ‘biological warfare’ and ‘germ warfare’ research in past decades. The term refers to making existing microorganisms (viruses, fungi and bacteria) more dangerous, by giving them one or more new…

What is computer modeling?

What is computer modeling?

Physics can predict the behavior of simple systems very accurately. For a ball tossed in the air, you can solve an equation that reliably tells the trajectory.
But most things that happen in the world have many causes and many effects, and the causes and effects interact. In order to make predictions, computer programmers write…

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