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Restless Souls/Technology: Difference between revisions
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more details on the bio horror ...
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Humans' use of nuclear material contaminated whole countrysides. - At least [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjAqR1zICA0 nuclear weapons] aren’t fired or tested these days but their remnants are still there. - To date, nuclear power plants continue to produce radioactive waste while suitable locations for repositories are still the subject of controversial debates. Due to that, radioactive waste was [[wikipedia:Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_waste|officially]] and [[wikipedia:Radioactive_waste#Illegal_dumping|unofficially]] dumped in the oceans. It was just a matter of time until the barrels would leak due to rust. Besides the catastrophic accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima, there was also a creeping contamination of agriculture by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertilizer#Radioactive_element_accumulation phosphate fertilizers]. In Germany alone it's 160 metric tons of uranium each year<ref name="dangerous drinking water">The documentation "Gefährliches Trinkwasser" ("Dangerous drinking water") aired on German (public broadcasting) TV channel "NDR": https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/139715/OniGalore/Gefaehrliches_Trinkwasser.flv<br>Textual summary on the website of the German (public broadcasting) TV channel "3sat": http://www.3sat.de/page/?source=/ard/165954/index.html ([https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/139715/OniGalore/RS_T_Sources/Gefaehrliches_Trinkwasser.zip mirror])</ref>. | Humans' use of nuclear material contaminated whole countrysides. - At least [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjAqR1zICA0 nuclear weapons] aren’t fired or tested these days but their remnants are still there. - To date, nuclear power plants continue to produce radioactive waste while suitable locations for repositories are still the subject of controversial debates. Due to that, radioactive waste was [[wikipedia:Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_waste|officially]] and [[wikipedia:Radioactive_waste#Illegal_dumping|unofficially]] dumped in the oceans. It was just a matter of time until the barrels would leak due to rust. Besides the catastrophic accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima, there was also a creeping contamination of agriculture by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertilizer#Radioactive_element_accumulation phosphate fertilizers]. In Germany alone it's 160 metric tons of uranium each year<ref name="dangerous drinking water">The documentation "Gefährliches Trinkwasser" ("Dangerous drinking water") aired on German (public broadcasting) TV channel "NDR": https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/139715/OniGalore/Gefaehrliches_Trinkwasser.flv<br>Textual summary on the website of the German (public broadcasting) TV channel "3sat": http://www.3sat.de/page/?source=/ard/165954/index.html ([https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/139715/OniGalore/RS_T_Sources/Gefaehrliches_Trinkwasser.zip mirror])</ref>. | ||
When the World Coalition Government took over, they had undoubtedly a PR problem. So in the same year they came up with a distraction for the media. Laboratories under WCG authority developed plans to undo nuclear contamination and present it to the public with the slogan "Together we can go everywhere". Their solution was an artificially-created [[wikipedia:Mycorrhiza|mycorrhiza]]. This symbiosis of plants and fungi was supposed to absorb radioactive isotopes and store them in a kind of nut. Drones were going to collect them. The shell had a bitter taste, so that animals wouldn't feed on it. The mycorrhiza organisms would be unable to propagate naturally because their cells, including DNA and its mutations, would dissolve when the required fertilizer wasn't used anymore. This kind of control was necessary because the mycorrhiza would not only clean the soil but also devour whole forests to collect the radionuclides inside non-animal organisms. To accelerate development, all these mechanisms were tested [[wikipedia:In_silico|in silico]] against critical mutations. In the lab it seemed stable enough, so the officials pushed for field tests. | When the World Coalition Government took over, they had undoubtedly a PR problem. So in the same year they came up with a distraction for the media. Laboratories under WCG authority developed plans to undo nuclear contamination and present it to the public with the slogan "Together we can go everywhere". Their solution was an artificially-created [[wikipedia:Mycorrhiza|mycorrhiza]]. This symbiosis of plants and fungi was supposed to absorb radioactive isotopes and store them in a kind of nut. Drones were going to collect them. The shell had a bitter taste, so that animals wouldn't feed on it. The mycorrhiza organisms would be unable to propagate naturally because their cells, including DNA and its mutations, would dissolve when the required fertilizer wasn't used anymore. This kind of control was necessary because the mycorrhiza would not only clean the soil but also devour whole forests to collect the radionuclides inside non-animal organisms. Growth is inhibited in presence of collagen. To accelerate development, all these mechanisms were tested [[wikipedia:In_silico|in silico]] against critical mutations. In the lab it seemed stable enough, so the officials pushed for field tests. | ||
In nature, the mycorrhiza accumulated mutations in an unpredicted way. Defeating their fail-safe measures, the mycorrhiza was able to spread uncontrollably. Over the following years, it influenced other organisms. This marked the beginning of the BioCrisis. Since then, reclamation teams have been fighting back the wilderness and the WCG is trying to hide their fatal errors from the public. Nobody wanted to take the blame. | In nature, the mycorrhiza accumulated mutations in an unpredicted way. Defeating their fail-safe measures, the mycorrhiza was able to spread uncontrollably. Over the following years, it influenced other organisms. This marked the beginning of the BioCrisis. Since then, reclamation teams have been fighting back the wilderness and the WCG is trying to hide their fatal errors from the public. Nobody wanted to take the blame. | ||
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Eventually the new fungi escaped containment. Some organisms that survived an attack gained defense mechanisms (making them on par with the original mutant) and gained the ability to easily exchange genes via HGT. If the WCG hadn't employed bio-decontamination teams, our city's flora and crop plants would have already been overrun by this green hell. | Eventually the new fungi escaped containment. Some organisms that survived an attack gained defense mechanisms (making them on par with the original mutant) and gained the ability to easily exchange genes via HGT. If the WCG hadn't employed bio-decontamination teams, our city's flora and crop plants would have already been overrun by this green hell. | ||
The high rate HGT comes from the fungus' way of propagating through foreign cells. It induces lysis by typically mass-producing enzymes that aren't dangerous to its own cell and to those of the plant. In fact it is a slime fungus, its unicellular nature allows for rapid growth and provides an almost barrier-free environment for the plant to collect the liquefied nutrients. While the fungus destroys the cell membranes of its targeted cells, all kind of genetic material begins flow freely through that one big soup. | |||
====ACCs==== | ====ACCs==== | ||