User talk:Flox

From 22C3

1 Open Source and Pandemic Influenza

Open Source and Pandemic Influenza

Abstract

Code-sharing as a universal strategy to optimize code in both, cyberspace and meatspace. I would like to spotlight what Open-Source software, pandemic influenza and multi-resistant superbugs have in common. All three use a heavy amount of code sharing to achieve their goals: global domination of cyberspace in case of Open-Source ;-) and creating as many copies of ones genes as possible, inadvertedly killing lots of humans during this process.

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Influenza

Different Influenza A strains infect birds and mammals. All strains have their genome segmented in a similar way and can, in addition to normal genetic drift within one group, share and exchange whole sets of genes between groups, thus quantum leaping evolution. Unfortunately, this is most likely to result in a superbug that would make SARS (mortality about 10%) look like a funny joke.

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Multi resistant Superbugs

Small, mobile DNA plasmids can facilitate code sharing between bacteria, setting up a sort of P2P network for "pirated" antibiotic resistance genes that were originally taken from all kinds of sources, e.g. gut bacteria of animal livestock fed with antibiotics. With constant environmental pressure on bacteria in the form of antibiotics in e.g. a hospital, new genes for antibiotic resistances accumulate on these plasmids. The result is a superbug-transforming Über-Plasmid.

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