Isaiah 28:18
For much of my adult life, I have argued that the scourge that we expect before the final times is not an STD like AIDS. AIDS does not kill quickly enough to desolate or overflow; it doesn't actually kill at all, opening the door for other pathogens to do that work for them. I have identified a new candidate for Isaiah's Scourge today which originated in the same place as many other scourges of man- the Plain of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The bacteria is called Acinetobacter baumannii, and it was first picked up en masse because of combat wounds in Iraq. According to researchers, as you can see in this movie from NOVA, it has several dozen antibacterial resistance genes located overlappingly at a single locus. The logistics and mathematical probability that so many genes can exist in the same place simply by virtue of frameshifts, transcription factor attachment variations, or reversal of transcription machinery beats the odds of the toughest of Vegas Casinos. It is almost as if A. baumannii were made to order to kill in a violent and ruthless fashion.
I find it almost laughable that Terrorists may manage to kill us because of where they live rather than because of what they manufacture. For a few major reasons, they have not yet been able to unleash bioterror onto the United States. Firstly, the people upon whom they rely for delivery are not educated with how to deliver, and it's unlikely that they will convince the educated to be vehicles of delivery. Secondly, it is very difficult to introduce a bacterial agent effectively against the US military. There are much easier ways to kill us, and the fear alone of a biological agent has created enough reactionary response in the U.S.A. to negate the need to actually use one. Often, fear of a thing is worse than the thing itself. We have splendid men and women in uniform and in lab coats working hard to prevent or mitigate anything they might actually deploy against us.
Meanwhile, we transport a bacteria all around the world which is capable of taking down people who are otherwise moral and healthy. Unlike AIDS, baumannii can infect people like me who do not engage in intercourse of any kind, simply if I touch a doorknob infected therewith. Considering the overall ill basal health of Americans, it can take us down without Al Qaeda having to fire a shot or stab a single citizen with a hypodermic.
The reason why I think baumannii might be the scourge or a harbinger thereof is how it's actually put together. Geneticists dream of being able to pack so much information into a single locus, because if that were really possible, large genomes such as in humans wouldn't actually be necessary. It would allow them to make a single insert and then manipulate the insert for any kind of gene therapy. It would make genetics cheap. It would give them a TON of power. The NOVA piece talks about only one donor, the strain of pneumoniae that causes Legionairres Disease, but that locus is a donor and not the locus we actually see. This is the most fascinatingly interesting and complex segment of DNA I have ever seen, and that is what makes it so brilliant and such a viable candidate for the scourge.
Heaven forbid it ever share that with another bacterial strain, especially with one we consider as yet innocuous.
And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
For much of my adult life, I have argued that the scourge that we expect before the final times is not an STD like AIDS. AIDS does not kill quickly enough to desolate or overflow; it doesn't actually kill at all, opening the door for other pathogens to do that work for them. I have identified a new candidate for Isaiah's Scourge today which originated in the same place as many other scourges of man- the Plain of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The bacteria is called Acinetobacter baumannii, and it was first picked up en masse because of combat wounds in Iraq. According to researchers, as you can see in this movie from NOVA, it has several dozen antibacterial resistance genes located overlappingly at a single locus. The logistics and mathematical probability that so many genes can exist in the same place simply by virtue of frameshifts, transcription factor attachment variations, or reversal of transcription machinery beats the odds of the toughest of Vegas Casinos. It is almost as if A. baumannii were made to order to kill in a violent and ruthless fashion.
I find it almost laughable that Terrorists may manage to kill us because of where they live rather than because of what they manufacture. For a few major reasons, they have not yet been able to unleash bioterror onto the United States. Firstly, the people upon whom they rely for delivery are not educated with how to deliver, and it's unlikely that they will convince the educated to be vehicles of delivery. Secondly, it is very difficult to introduce a bacterial agent effectively against the US military. There are much easier ways to kill us, and the fear alone of a biological agent has created enough reactionary response in the U.S.A. to negate the need to actually use one. Often, fear of a thing is worse than the thing itself. We have splendid men and women in uniform and in lab coats working hard to prevent or mitigate anything they might actually deploy against us.
Meanwhile, we transport a bacteria all around the world which is capable of taking down people who are otherwise moral and healthy. Unlike AIDS, baumannii can infect people like me who do not engage in intercourse of any kind, simply if I touch a doorknob infected therewith. Considering the overall ill basal health of Americans, it can take us down without Al Qaeda having to fire a shot or stab a single citizen with a hypodermic.
The reason why I think baumannii might be the scourge or a harbinger thereof is how it's actually put together. Geneticists dream of being able to pack so much information into a single locus, because if that were really possible, large genomes such as in humans wouldn't actually be necessary. It would allow them to make a single insert and then manipulate the insert for any kind of gene therapy. It would make genetics cheap. It would give them a TON of power. The NOVA piece talks about only one donor, the strain of pneumoniae that causes Legionairres Disease, but that locus is a donor and not the locus we actually see. This is the most fascinatingly interesting and complex segment of DNA I have ever seen, and that is what makes it so brilliant and such a viable candidate for the scourge.
Heaven forbid it ever share that with another bacterial strain, especially with one we consider as yet innocuous.
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