WMD Race Bomb

I have heard a roumor that either the USA or the Chinase has devloped a WMD that can target a Race of people, does anyone else know anything about this WMD?

In order to do that, you would need to identify a genetic marker for race.

Since race is a political rather than a biological concept, you'd have a lot of difficulty. Most of the ways we identify race are qualitative; i.e, how much melatonin, how frizzy the red hair, how big is the nose. Many of those traits are actually a whole constellation of interelated phenotypes. You couldn't create a disease that measures a set of qualities, and then only kills on one side of the threshold, since every "race" contains individuals with phenotypes of other races.

Many swedes have thick, sensuous lips that many europeans associate with africans. Many Scotch-Irish Americans have hair that creates a natural 'fro. Many italians have the strong ethmoid that give a distinctive "roman" nose, but then many kiowa and chickashaw indians have the exact same nose. Slanted eyes? Many Austrians and Hungarians have very wide, deep set eyes. Enough so that their eyes look 'oriental' to many western Europeans (take a look at V.I. Lenin, sometime.)

I think most governments would have neither the funds nor the inclination to wipe out a random segment of world population. That is no way to exploit people. Teach a man to fish and you can tax him forever.

The Russians were way ahead of everyone eles in this field. It has nothing to do with your traits its all about your DNA. The same way a Crime scene DNA analyist can tell that a Black or white person left this blood stain. It does not care if you have thick, sensuous lips or if you have a natural 'fro. If you have that DNA marker its looking for it attacks you. If you dont have the trigger you can still be a carrier of the weapon.

American DNA work helped them out quite a bit in this.

[edit on 9-8-2004 by ShadowXIX]

Thank you for making my point.


Crime scene investigators CAN'T determine race from DNA alone. There is no 'white' gene. Sorry.

Even with hair, you get probably white, or probably asian/native american. Probably African, etc. Again. There's enough variation you cannot really say much that will help you draw a sketch, unless it's hair coarseness and length. But none of that is DNA. It's hair type. And hair doesn't contain a full DNA strand; it's only partial.

Most of the genetic tags are diseases inside of breeding populations: Tay-sachs disease, Kuru, Sickle cell. But these don't work well either. Europeans from malariac environs often have the sickle-cell trait. Kuru has spread globally as brain surgery and organ donation have become common.

But there is no racial genotype, just phenotypes. But that's not what you want to hear.

There is more genetic variation within a racial group than between racial groups so a weapon that targets only certain racial groups is really impossible.

Besides, developing, let alone using them would be considered genocide.

These genetic markers may not have been mapped yet that the public knows about . Many Phenotypic traits have been identifed and seem to be linked to certain families or populations with common ancestors. The genes for most of these traits have yet to be identifed or mapped at a DNA level but they are there.

You always get a probably outcome with DNA testing. Even in the case of a DNA fingerprint you get a probably outcome but must of they time the percentage of a possible match are so high that they are pretty much taken as proof.

Your genes determine everything about you. If your tall or your short if your going to go bald whatever. Genes play a huge role in who we are. Be it from the color of our eyes to the seasonal allergies that make us sneeze. So theres no gene that makes one persons skin white and another persons black?


How does it happen then?

Scientist have cracked the human genome and know basically what gene is responsible for what. To make a WMD that targets specific genes would take a lot of advanced tech and money . I’m guessing the US ahs the ability to do this don't know about the Chinese.

There is too much variation of any single trait to guage race from DNA. Take melanin as an example. The day to day rate of production is controlled by the pituitary, depending upon the amount of sun the body gets. Yes, there is a genetically controlled zone, but the limits are so wide as to be meaningless across populations. Compare the skintone of an ethiopian highlander to that of an american indian, or even some European types.

The only way to guage race from the skeleton is the bones of the face, and even this only tells you Caucasian/Asian/Negroid. The answers are given in terms of body proportion. So they are not very accurate, and body proportion is subject to a whole host of other factors, as I pointed out earlier.

Most Americans have such a combined heritage that most such labels are more political than cultural. Which is my point in the first place.

Enronoutrunhomerun and I had a discussion along these lines here:

Subject: Enviromental and Cultural Adaptations Post Number: 635508

(not sure I made a working link.)

I stand by my argument that race is a political and not a biological concept. I wish byrd or Enron would chime in on this one. . . .

I think this could be a possible tech but like West Point said it would require large amounts of research and money. Just my opinion

I think the real Key would be finding a marker gene in what ever type of person you wanted to kill. I could see a future were weapons could be designed to attack just one single person. A Designer virus

dr_strangecraft may have a valid point, but I dont think we know enough about DNA and Genes yet to say it can not be done.

There are only about 30000 genes in the human genome which means there isn't a single marker gene for a single person or a race. Even if you find a pattern of genes that may be exclusive to a single race, how would you determine if that pattern isn't found elsewhere, or conversly if the pattern was found in a small section of the race. In addition how would said virus know what it is looking for? Would the virus enter the body, destroy a cell to get at the proteins, somehow examine the DNA while comparing it to a copy that they trying to find, and then actually doing something to the person in case of a match.

This race WMD in my mind is pointless it will be a waste of money and tech. If you want to kill people you will not care for their race (except for Hitler), the gases that we have now work just fine at killing humans. Why do we need another type of Gas that may get into the hands of Al-Qaeda and that is just what we want Osama with a gas that only kills Caucasians(white people).

There's only one race - the human race

And lawyers (sp?)

Although the completion of the Human Genome Project was celebrated in April 2003 and sequencing of the human chromosomes (1–22, X, and Y) is essentially "finished," the exact number of genes encoded by the genome is still unknown

Estimated only about 30,000 to 40,000 protein-coding genes. 35,000 you be a better estimate.

You only need one marker gene for something like this to theoreticaly work. I could take say the Gene that gives a person Blue eyes or green eyes if I wanted to kill large amount of white people and leave black people pretty much untouched. How many black people have you seen with blue and green eyes naturally? People all dont look the same thats because of genes you would just need to find a marker or a pattern of markers.


BERKELEY, California -- It took Adam Arkin and David Schaffer just $200,000 and a grad student to develop a potential treatment for AIDS. And that scares them.

That's because the therapy itself is a virus. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory assistant professors created a virus altered to latch onto HIV and mute its ability to become AIDS. They've tested the theory in a computer model, and in cells in a dish. The results have been promising, and if they continue in that vein, the researchers could begin animal testing by the end of this year.

Arkin said this week at the International Biotech Summit at the University of California at Berkeley that it was almost too easy for him and his colleagues (Schaffer and then-grad student Leor Weinberger) to build the anti-HIV virus.

Well, maybe not anyone. After all, Arkin, Schaffer and Weinberger, who was lead author on their Journal of Virology paper (reg. required) outlining a mathematic model of the system, are not your run-of-the-mill lab jockeys.

Still, bad guys can be brilliant, too, which is even more reason for the good guys to understand new biotechnologies as thoroughly as possible.

"The genie is out of the bottle, so we might as well study these things in earnest," Arkin said in an interview.

Thats what people could do with $200,000 and a grad student. Designer virus are indeed real.

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