The world needs a biolevel 4 lab complex to work in.

The entire world needs to cooperate in making a Bio-IV lab for work on the most dangerous and most lethal contagious diseases. There are plenty of labs around now, but that is the problem. There are plenty of places for the worst man has discovered to become a household name before it becomes a household illness.

What I believe the world needs is a new kind of laboratory. One based on a simple concept people can trust. I'll call it "Zero Exposure".

In that I mean a lab where human incompetence, natural disaster or attack in war cannot and will not create exposure to the outside world. Zero Exposure. That could be a deliberate attempt to smuggle something out or it could be a 500lb bomb right in the middle of a complex. There should still be 0 chance for exposure outside the lab environment. We should accept and settle for nothing less.

That is a very tall order, I admit. In fact, it is near on impossible. It has to be a design where people can get in and people can get out for work. It must be capable of taking delivery of agents and pathogens while allowing 0 chance they can escape or survive in the off chance they do. In short, the very air around the complex must be as lethal to pathogens by nature as the sterilization methods used inside would be.

What I propose are labs in three places which fit the criteria above. I suggest more than one for redundancy of effort in crisis, security in losing one by accident or incident as well as being half way convenient for science to travel to during their assignments to a facility. I say assignments, because the idea people can be in a BL-4 lab in the morning and cooking dinner for their family that evening is reliance on a complex system of fail safes which can and will someday fail. They need fail only one time. Just once.

I propose the first one be located just inland from the most stable overhanging Ice Sheet they can find in Antarctica. Ice sheets would allow subsurface access by submarine for emergency or an adapted resupply schedule during the brutal winter months.

The second one I propose be designed within the deep central pacific, as deep as a facility can be designed to function without being destroyed by the environment itself.

The third one I would propose be created in the geographic center of the world's largest true desert. The Sahara? Saudi Arabia's empty quarter? The Gobi desert? Located in but deep under. Many hundreds of feet under, with a method of total cut off and permenant seal applied from a single access point on the surface. This would allow a scorched lab policy for last ditch containment. Everything dies. Nothing remains. Nothing gets out.

One thing each of these places have in common is also extreme remote access. This makes work there an assignment, like a tour of service and not a 9-5 to be around non-lab people in the same day. In fact, I propose a 2 week rotation pause in every person for a quarantine as a routine security procedure. Scheduled in automatically, I wouldn't think it would be too harsh.

What does everyone think? This is my first big idea to share and I know it has holes. Big ones, I'll bet. Where are they? Why couldn't a Zero Exposure lab work and is there anything else to give the same protections from incompetence as sure as deliberate attack?

a reply to: MrCynic

Maybe that is what planet Earth is-A Biolevel 4(in human language) and beyond test lab for the most crazy diseases and species that anyone in the galaxy and beyond can dream of or create.A place for the study of such horrors.

"Hmmm"says alien lab technician:
"These Earth worms are evolving...they have achieved the atom splitting really quite fast after gaining their two legs."

"Good grief,those two leg weirdos are getting out of control"

Alien Planet Control Comms:

"Abort the Planet Earth Mission-Repeat:abort the mission.Its gone FUBAR,remove all assets back to base."

classi++ed Eart+ L+nkUp: "Copy that control-lab earth is FUBAR,we are pulling out---see you all back at Sirius base,out....mmmwwhhugggrrrhhhh,urpppp p .."

Maybe a base on the moon or on a space station to play with the deadly stuff.

No accidentally released bio hazard could hurt the population.

a reply to: MrCynic

The entire world needs to cooperate in making a Bio-IV lab for work on the most dangerous and most lethal contagious diseases.

They already exist in a number of locations around the world.

I'm not going to link you can do that just as well.

The problem with one big lab is the time and dangers associated with shipping stuff around the planet. It is preferable to have a lab near the outbreaks to speed up analysis and effect quarantine measures on suspected hosts.

Quick results are slowed down by one centralized lab location. Did you say Antarctica?

Well it would not be zero chance if workers can get in and out.
It can't be in remote locations where suppliers can't get in. The logistics involved in that would be nearly impossible. Weather in these places are brutal. Too hot or too cold. Dust storms and snowstorms.

Some diseases thrive in hot climates whereas others can be eliminated by freezing. I wonder how ebola would do in freezing temps?

The only way is to stop air travel. Stop imports coming from there. Stop transporting these virus' to other countries to test.

Scientists are the ones who take chances bringing stuff here that multiplies. Think African killer bees.

How about we just drop a big dome onto Africa instead? Like that tv show under the dome. I'm kidding.

" Any one at Sirius base-do y+o copy?
Its been 2000 Earth years now,and we are still stuck in the test tube,and the specimens are growing weirder and more violent by the day++

If anyone is alive at Sirius Base,For F++ks s+kEEE evacuate us now!
Only 7 of us remain.

The two legs are makin+++ ..+ +to-destroy++the ent+re~+~+~+~
they +++blarggh-the fusion+++eacto--+
arrrrgggHHH...__+_+

Alien Planet Control Comms:

"Sterrilize that distant solar system,put it down to another failure."

I'm going to guess the military has such a place. We just don't know about it.

SECRECY is fun isn't it? Central banking worked out so well, let's try it with death too.

They exist. We just don't know about them. And some pretty horrific things are probably happening there too.

In fact, along the same lines but not at nearly so high a level of containment, entire villages in China are guinea pigs for that lovely place. When they get their fill of information on how a bioweapon affected the village, they burn it. Why do you think so many horrors blip on the radar there?

This was a recent news story, but my nephew witnessed this firsthand, twice, in China over ten years ago and was horrified.

I wasn't thinking about replacement of the working labs which handle outbreaks for identification as they happen. That can't be farmed out and trying actually creates bigger problems as some said here in transporting. Why move things every time an outbreak happens, when transport is the most dangerous phase anyway. Add unique bugs at the end of an outbreak and destroy anything else from the working labs when it's over.

The labs I am thinking of are in the category of the high security Ag lab in Kansas meant to replace the Montauk, NY facility.

U.S. Moves Ahead on Plan to Sell Plum Island, Home of a Research Laboratory

Also the high level labs in Atlanta and Fort Detrick. Either of those locations, as the victim of large scale terrorism or god forbid actual war in the US some day, and nothing more will be needed. What comes out will do the rest.

That is what would seem hard to find and rare in the world. A place for the storing of these bugs and long term research our labs and other nations do where even everything going wrong, in every way possible, leaves nothing living to thrive outside.

The people working there should show symptoms of most things within a couple weeks, wouldn't they? Make the transition or quarantine between periods assigned to the place whatever the incubation period is for the longest bug in the bunch.

Isolation isn't just about the bugs not surviving but also to prevent the scenario from the movie "The Stand". There is nowhere to panic and run to in the abyssal deep of the ocean or Antarctica.

a reply to: Silcone Synapse

Which is scarier? That we are a current experiment they could pull the plug on or that we are a failed experiment they abandoned thousands of years ago?

Either way, some of the mistakes which have happened over the years and very recently suggest a need for concern in how the nightmares of mankind are handled.

a reply to: MrCynic

The Plum Island operation was moved to KANSAS where screw ups can't wash up on beaches.
It's called a national bio and agro DEFENSE facility so theres NO pretense now.
In the middle of the country what could go wrong?

a reply to: violet

The problem with arguing the logistics of a real secure and viable place is the downside of not making one. The World Seed Bank is located in the middle of nowhere and somewhere near the edge of the world for a reason. No offense Norway. Even by your standards of isolated, they did one for that place. Isolation is it's own defense from contamination.

The recent accidental shipping of live anthrax could have been outright catastrophic. There is a reason Anthrax is feared and it is not about the bug infection itself. Web sites show world disease rates and there is always Anthrax hitting somewhere in a small way. A routine issue in natural exposure. Live spores spread around looks like something else though.

Anthrax at Sverdlovsk, 1979

It gets into everything, and a spore keeps giving for a very very long time. Nature seems to take care of the bugs it makes with balance. When man's variations get around is when it gets messy. Weapons grade anthrax was still sent in the mail after 2001, as another example. However it plays to people in conspiracy for who did it. Something which never should have left a lab, did. It only has to happen once in a big way. Isolation should be absolute.

a reply to: MrCynic

Hate to break it to ya - but the world IS a level 4 BioLab.

Sucks but true. Makes most sense to confine everyone who doesn't like dirt and bugs. Oh yeah, it's already happening.

originally posted by: soficrow
a reply to: MrCynic

Hate to break it to ya - but the world IS a level 4 BioLab.

Sucks but true. Makes most sense to confine everyone who doesn't like dirt and bugs. Oh yeah, it's already happening.

What is your educational background? You seem to know a lot about this. Or have you just read a lot?

a reply to: Restricted

I have PhD's in microbiology, internal medicine and biochemistry - and also have my doctorate in PBC (which I seldom use).

I study, read, stay on top of certain things and shoot my mouth off about injustices - because I have the time and nothing to lose at this point in my life.

a reply to: soficrow

Just curious. I appreciate the info here. Thanks.

a reply to: Restricted

You're welcome. And cool. Hope you realize PBC stands for Pure Bull Crap. ....I'm old enough that I still adhere to early internet warnings to stay completely anonymous, and still value my privacy. I also know anyone can say virtually anything about themselves and no one has any way to verify the information - so I don't ever hype my "qualifications" and not incidentally, distrust everyone who does so. It's absolutely true that "I study, read, stay on top of certain things and shoot my mouth off about injustices - because I have the time and nothing to lose at this point in my life."