Jerome Groopman: “There are now a growing number of reports of cases of infections caused by gram-negative organisms for which no adequate therapeutic options exist,” Giske and his colleagues wrote. “This return to the preantibiotic era has become a reality in many parts of the world.” A recent assessment of progress in the field, from UCLA, concluded, “FDA approval of new antibacterial agents decreased by 56 per cent over the past 20 years (1998-2002 vs. 1983-1987),” noting that, in the researchers’ projection of future development only six of the five hundred and six drugs currently being developed were new antibacterial agents. Drug companies are looking for blockbuster therapies that must be taken daily for decades, drugs like Lipitor, for high cholesterol, or Zyprexa, for psychiatric disorders, used by millions of people and generating many billions of dollars each year. Antibiotics are used to treat infections, and are therefore prescribed only for days or weeks. (The exception is the use of antibiotics in livestock, which is both a profit-driver and a potential cause of antibiotic resistance.)
From the archive: What, at bottom, is a toilet?
Eating meat, something I have always enjoyed doing, has become problematic in recent years. Though beef consumption spiked upward during the flush 90's, the longer-term trend is down, and many people will tell you they no longer eat the stuff. Inevitably they'll bring up mad-cow disease (and the accompanying revelation that industrial agriculture has transformed these ruminants into carnivores -- indeed, into cannibals). They might mention their concerns about E. coli contamination or antibiotics in the feed. The urbanization of the world's livestock is a fairly recent historical development, so it makes a certain sense that cow towns like Poky Feeders would recall human cities several centuries ago. As in 14th-century London, the metropolitan digestion remains vividly on display: the foodstuffs coming in, the waste streaming out. Similarly, there is the crowding together of recent arrivals from who knows where, combined with a lack of modern sanitation. This combination has always been a recipe for disease; the only reason contemporary animal cities aren't as plague-ridden as their medieval counterparts is a single historical anomaly: the modern antibiotic. Forgetting, or willed ignorance, is the preferred strategy of many beef eaters, a strategy abetted by the industry.
In all his speeches, John McCain urges Americans to make sacrifices for a country that is both “an idea and a cause”. He is not asking them to suffer anything he would not suffer himself. But many voters would rather not suffer at all.
By reducing the molecular biology of the cell to a list of standard modules with predictable behavior, professional biodesigners could engineer molecular machines in much the same way that system-on-chip designers create silicon systems. Just as a circuit designer does not need to be an expert in silicon physics and manufacturing processes, the future biodesigner will not need a detailed knowledge of biochemistry to effectively create complex biochemical machines.
Harmit Malik grew up in Bombay and studied chemical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology there, one of the most prestigious technical institutions in a country obsessed with producing engineers. He gave no real thought to biology, but he was wholly uninspired by his other studies. "It was fair to say I had little interest in chemical engineering, and I happened to tell that to my faculty adviser," he recalled. "He asked me what I liked. Well, I was reading Richard Dawkins at the time, his book 'The Selfish Gene'” -- which asserts that a gene will operate in its own interest even if that means destroying an organism that it inhabits or helped create. The concept fascinated Malik. “I was thinking of becoming a philosopher," he said. "I thought I would study selfishness." Malik’s adviser had another idea.
"We are on the cusp of perfection of extreme evil -- an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond weapons of mass destruction."
Create a disease. Infect the world. Kill everyone.
Only you can prevent Gray Goo
Superbugs | 
