0:03

Probably more than any other field that

0:05

poses an existential risk. The

0:07

dangers of the biotech field are the easiest

0:09

to understand. The field deals

0:12

with bugs, viruses, bacteria,

0:14

pathogens that can kill us

0:16

if we're infected by them. And

0:19

every one of us has experienced infectious

0:21

disease firsthand, like the preschooler

0:24

catching the flu and bringing it home and making

0:26

the whole family sick, or having

0:28

to cancel your vacation because the place

0:30

you were going has become a zeke a hot

0:32

spot. It's pretty basic stuff,

0:35

and it's relatable to us. But

0:38

when you dig deeper into the biotech

0:40

field, it becomes clear that

0:42

the risks it poses are maybe

0:44

the most immediate of all the existential

0:47

risks. The pathogens

0:49

the field studies in the hopes of creating

0:51

vaccines that can save lives pose

0:54

a pretty severe threat as they are

0:57

not too long ago. Wild viruses

0:59

like small pox and influenza killed

1:02

a lot of people, as we'll

1:04

see in this episode, and bugs

1:06

like that can still kill a lot of people,

1:09

and that's threat enough. But

1:11

the existential threat from biotech

1:14

comes from the type of research that began

1:16

to proliferate in the early twenty

1:18

one century. When high containment

1:21

labs begin to mushroom around the world,

1:24

and a type of research called gain of function

1:26

really took off. No

1:28

longer were researchers dealing with wild

1:31

viruses and bacteria. They were

1:33

forcing evolution in them by

1:35

speeding up mutations and altering

1:37

them genetically to be deadlier and

1:40

more contagious.

1:42

This kind of research is extremely

1:44

dangerous. If a genetically

1:46

altered bug escapes from a lab, it

1:48

could kill a potentially staggering

1:50

amount of people before it is contained.

1:53

If it is contained, but

1:56

if done right, the risks from these

1:58

experiments can be minimized. The

2:00

trouble is they're frequently

2:03

not done right. As you'll see,

2:05

the biotech field has a shocking track record

2:07

of accidents and a willingness to take

2:09

huge, possibly unnecessary

2:12

risks. And what's most unsettling

2:14

is that there is precious little oversight

2:17

on the risky experiments being carried out around

2:19

the world. Even seemingly

2:21

innocuous experiments have the potential

2:24

to produce catastrophic results. And

2:26

I can show you now if you'll follow me to Canberra,

2:29

the capital of Australia. We're

2:31

back in two thousand. A pair of researchers

2:34

named Ron Jackson and Ian Ramshaw

2:36

are unpleasantly surprised with the

2:38

results of an experiment they've just conducted.

2:43

Australia has a significant mouse

2:45

problem. Mice were probably

2:47

introduced to the country as stowaways

2:50

among the ships of the British settlers

2:52

in the eighteenth century, and when

2:54

they arrived, they began to spread and

2:56

grow to unusually large numbers.

2:59

Especial slee in the southeast, where Australia

3:02

grows its grain. During

3:04

what the country calls its mouse plagues,

3:07

farms are overrun with mice that streamed

3:10

from seemingly everywhere. The ground

3:12

ripples with them. The mice

3:14

are so abundant and aggressive that

3:17

they can chew through the tires of farm equipment,

3:20

and they attack pigs and poultry.

3:22

On mouse plague

3:25

caused nearly one hundred million dollars

3:27

worth of damage to crops and farms.

3:30

What Ramshaw and Jackson were looking for

3:33

was a way to sterilize female mice by

3:35

training their immune systems to attack

3:37

their own eggs. To do that,

3:40

the two biologists created a vaccine

3:42

that contained a gene which codes

3:44

for the production of something called inter luken

3:47

four, which is a naturally occurring

3:49

protein i L four

3:51

stimulates mammals to produce antibodies

3:55

to deliver the genes to the mice's DNA.

3:57

The researchers used a virus because

4:01

of a virus's unique ability to insert

4:04

its own genetic information into

4:06

a cell's DNA and hijack a

4:08

cells normal processes. They

4:10

make ideal vehicles to deliver the

4:12

main ingredient in a vaccine. The

4:15

virus adds it into the cells genetic

4:17

code along with its own genetic material.

4:20

The cell produces whatever it finds in its

4:23

genetic code, whether it was added there by a

4:25

virus or by a human. It's

4:27

pretty impressive researchers hijack

4:30

a virus's ability to hijack a cell.

4:33

Jackson and Ramshaw chose the virus that causes

4:36

mousepox ectromelia

4:38

as the vehicle for their vaccine. Normally,

4:41

mousepox would kill a lot of the mice

4:43

that were exposed to it in the study, but

4:46

the researchers were using mice that had been

4:48

previously vaccinated against mousepox,

4:51

along with other mice that had been genetically

4:53

altered to be totally immune to the disease.

4:57

Few, if any, of the mice used in the study

4:59

works to die from exposure

5:01

to the mousepox, but

5:03

within nine days of receiving the

5:06

vaccine, every single

5:08

mouse in the study was dead. The

5:11

mousepox had a one hundred percent

5:13

mortality rate. It killed every

5:16

mouse that had been exposed to it. The

5:19

researchers found that the i L for gene

5:22

had indeed increased anybody production

5:24

in the mice as intended, but the

5:26

increased inner lucan had another unanticipated

5:29

effect. It also suppressed

5:31

the mice's cell mediated response,

5:34

a function of the immune system which

5:36

wards off infections by viruses.

5:40

By adding the i L four gene to the mouse

5:42

pox virus, the surge of inter

5:44

luken told the mice's immune system to

5:46

lay down its arms, which paved

5:48

the way for total annihilation by

5:50

the mousepox virus, even

5:52

among mice that had been genetically

5:55

designed to be immune to the disease. Jackson

5:58

and Ramshaw had x dently created

6:01

a perfect killer of mice. Mousepox

6:05

bears a resemblance to smallpox and humans.

6:08

The two viruses are distantly related,

6:11

and it was not lost on Ramshaw and Jackson

6:13

what would happen if their technique was used

6:15

with smallpox instead of mousepox.

6:18

Jackson told new scientists, it would

6:21

be safe to assume that if some idiot

6:23

did put human ill four into

6:25

human smallpox, they'd increase the

6:27

lethality quite dramatically. Something

6:30

like that would be monumentally

6:33

bad. Smallpox

6:35

is caused by the very ola virus.

6:37

It's an ancient virus that has plagued humans

6:40

for possibly as long as ten thousand years,

6:43

and it's believed to have made the jump from either

6:45

camels or gerbils, or

6:47

possibly some extinct animal we don't know

6:49

about, over to humans and

6:51

spread along trade routes that crossed

6:53

the Middle East to Asia and then

6:55

eventually west over to Europe.

6:59

Our earliest defend native evidence of smallpox

7:01

dates back at least three thousand years, found

7:04

on mummies of people who lived millennia

7:06

ago, including the Egyptian

7:08

pharaoh Ramsey's the fifth Ramsey's

7:11

appears to bear the sign of the virus,

7:13

the pox marks that are left behind when

7:16

the pustules that cover the body scab and

7:18

fall off. Those

7:20

pustules come at the final stage

7:23

of a very difficult disease. Within

7:26

a couple of days of being exposed to smallpox

7:28

for the first time, you will be leveled

7:31

by a fever and flu like symptoms

7:33

that incapacitate you for days.

7:36

Sores develop in your mouth and

7:38

they fill with fluid, and

7:40

just as you overcome the fever and begin

7:43

to feel better, the mouth sores erupt,

7:46

which releases the virus filled fluid

7:48

into the rest of your body, where

7:50

it reappears as those pustules

7:53

masses of tiny bumps that cover

7:55

the skin and concentrate around your

7:57

extremities. The

8:00

uestull scab over and eventually

8:02

they fall off, and when the last one

8:04

falls, you are no longer contagious.

8:07

If you survived the disease that is,

8:11

smallpox kills by overwhelming your

8:13

immune system with the protein that

8:15

counteracts anybodies that would normally

8:17

prevent infected cells from replicating

8:19

the virus. To catch

8:21

smallpox, it takes close

8:23

contact with a person who is actively suffering

8:26

from it, which meant that people who

8:28

cared for the ill were usually the ones who came

8:30

down with it. Once

8:33

a person comes down with smallpox and survives,

8:35

they are conferred a lifelong immunity

8:37

to the disease, and even though they may

8:40

still carry the virus, they aren't contagious

8:42

to others. Even people who have never had

8:44

smallpox before. By

8:47

the Middle Ages, smallpox had settled

8:50

into Europe, becoming endemic, which

8:52

means it settled into the human population

8:55

kind of made itself comfortable. It

8:57

went into hiding and made the rounds

8:59

when new comers who had never been exposed to

9:01

the virus entered the towns of people

9:03

who are already immune to it. So

9:06

in Europe smallpox became mostly

9:08

a disease of children and immigrants.

9:12

The local adults had all either died from

9:14

it or survived it and become

9:16

immune. Once it became

9:18

endemic, the mortality rate for smallpox

9:20

hovered around It killed

9:23

about three out of every ten people who came

9:25

in contact with it. But

9:27

in the fifteenth century, Europe

9:29

began to spill over its banks, and

9:32

it brought the disease to places that had

9:34

never encountered it before. West

9:37

Africa was first visited

9:39

by slave traders from Portugal and Spain,

9:42

who brought pandemics with them.

9:44

Many of the villages that were rated had

9:46

never been exposed to the disease, and so

9:49

it spread quickly. The people

9:51

suffering those outbreaks were stolen from their

9:53

homes and they were taken to holding

9:55

camps along the coast, where

9:57

the disease spread even more quickly. Those

10:00

people were forced onto ships while they

10:02

were actively ill, making the horrific

10:04

experience of being enslaved even

10:06

more brutal. Each

10:09

time a ship set sail from Africa

10:11

to the America's over stuffed with

10:13

people ill from smallpox, it

10:15

was like tossing a lit match onto

10:18

a powder cake. At first,

10:20

the ships were too slow to make it to the New

10:22

World before the smallpox burned itself out.

10:25

The human cargo aboard were either

10:27

no longer contagious what We're dead from

10:29

it by the time they made land. But

10:32

as ocean going technology improved,

10:35

those ships got faster, and

10:37

eventually one of those matches stayed lit

10:40

and it set off the powder keg of

10:42

the America's It

10:46

is difficult to overstate the effect

10:48

that European disease had on North

10:50

and South America. Not just

10:52

smallpox, but a number of contagious

10:54

disease began to rage at once, forming

10:58

overlapping epidemics called sindemics.

11:01

The Native Americans had never been exposed

11:04

to these kinds of pathogens, and

11:06

so they had no natural defenses against

11:08

them, which allowed the diseases to

11:10

spread at unimaginable rates.

11:13

And kill untold numbers of people.

11:22

It appears to have all started in

11:24

what is now Mexico City. The

11:26

Aztecs suffered losses of up to

11:28

half of their population when

11:30

the Spanish brought smallpox. A short An

11:33

African slave whose name is lost to history,

11:36

was suffering from smallpox when he landed

11:38

with an expedition led by the conquistador

11:41

Panfello de Navarrees. In writing

11:45

five years after the outbreak began, a

11:48

Spanish fire who traveled to Mexico wrote

11:50

of the devastation the

11:53

diet inhapes like bed box. Many

11:55

all theirs died of a starvation, because

11:58

I said, we're all taken secret of more. And they

12:00

could not care for each other, nor

12:03

was there anyone to give them bread or anything

12:05

else. In many places

12:07

it happened that everyone in the house died, and

12:10

as it was impossible to vary the great

12:12

number of dead, they pulled down

12:14

their houses over them in order to check

12:16

the stinch that rushed from the dead bodies,

12:19

so that their homes became their tombs.

12:25

The disease spread like wildfire into

12:27

the interior of the American continent.

12:30

In the America's smallpox found

12:32

what's called Virgin Territory a

12:34

population that had no immunity, so

12:37

everyone who came in contact with it fell

12:39

ill. This left no one

12:41

to care for people suffering from the disease,

12:43

which increased the mortality right even further.

12:47

As the sick fled their dead villages to

12:49

look for helping others nearby, they

12:52

brought the infection with them, and

12:54

the cycle of disease began again and

12:56

again. This happened over

12:58

and over for centuries, leaving the

13:00

Great Native American cultures in rubble.

13:04

Explorers who came in later waves found

13:06

destroyed, abandoned settlements

13:08

filled with the dead. In

13:20

places the virus appeared, the population

13:22

fell by half two thirds.

13:26

In some places, nine out

13:28

of every ten members of the Native

13:30

American groups in contact with the Massachusetts

13:33

Bay settlers died from

13:35

sixteen seventeen to sixteen nineteen.

13:38

The English Puritans, who arrived the following

13:40

year took it that God had cleared

13:42

the land for them. During

13:45

the sixteen thirties, half of

13:47

the Iroquois Confederation and the

13:49

Huron around the Great Lakes died half

13:52

in a decade. A single

13:54

seventeen thirty eight outbreak killed

13:56

half of the Cherokee tribe in the Carolinas

13:59

and george Ja. In real numbers,

14:02

these epidemics killed hundreds of thousands

14:04

to millions of people at a time. Imagine

14:08

a disease that can kill off of

14:10

the people in your town. It's

14:14

no wonder, then, that smallpox is considered

14:16

one of the deadliest viruses in the

14:19

history of humanity.

14:21

It is credited with killing half a billion

14:23

people in the twentieth century alone,

14:26

the first eight tenths of the twentieth century,

14:28

I should say. Back in nineteen

14:31

sixty six, the World Health Organization

14:34

of the u N led a global vaccination

14:36

campaign and by

14:39

it declared smallpox eradicated

14:41

from planet Earth. This

14:43

is a pretty big deal. Along

14:46

with a cattle disease called render pest that's

14:48

related to the virus that causes measles

14:50

and humans, smallpox is the

14:52

only contagious disease humanity

14:55

has ever managed to eradicate. Right

14:58

now, there is no living person earth

15:00

who has a case of smallpox. But

15:03

that's not to say that the very ola virus isn't

15:05

still alive and well after

15:09

the eradication campaign, the

15:11

u N persuaded the global scientific

15:13

community to give up its stocks of smallpox,

15:16

and they were almost entirely successful,

15:19

save for two nations which

15:21

just happened to be the two most powerful on the planet,

15:24

the nuclear superpowers the Soviet Union

15:26

in the United States. Those

15:28

two nations decided that it would be

15:31

better for them to keep their stocks

15:33

rather than destroy them. Ostensibly

15:36

this was for scientific research, but

15:38

both nations have been known to run illegal

15:41

biological warfare programs, and

15:43

the idea of them maintaining stocks

15:45

of smallpox made the rest of the world

15:48

uneasy. But this being the

15:50

height of the Cold War, no other nation

15:52

was in much of a position to argue, so

15:55

all smallpox samples on Earth would

15:57

be stored under secure conditions in two

16:00

occasions. In Russia,

16:02

they are stored at the State Center for Research

16:04

on Virology and Biotechnology

16:07

in Siberia. In the US,

16:09

they are held at the Centers for Disease Control

16:11

and Prevention in Atlanta.

16:14

Those two stockpiles still exist

16:16

today. On

16:19

a number of occasions, the U n again

16:21

called for those stockpiles to be destroyed

16:23

in two thousand seven

16:26

and most recently in two thousand eleven,

16:29

and it also tried to create a global

16:31

agreement that once those final

16:33

stocks were destroyed, any nation

16:35

caught with smallpox could be charged with

16:37

the crime against humanity. Unfortunately,

16:41

in all cases, the un failed and

16:43

the smallpox stocks remained intact.

16:47

Contagious disease researchers are divided

16:50

on the wisdom of keeping these stocks.

16:52

The US and Russia continue to argue

16:55

that we need to study Bariola so

16:57

we can understand how the virus coevolved

16:59

with our immune system.

17:01

Hopefully we can use that knowledge

17:04

to cure and prevent other diseases.

17:07

The logic goes that if nature

17:09

made smallpox from say, camel pox,

17:11

it could create another pox on humanity.

17:14

Studying smallpox could help us prepare

17:17

for that. To plenty of

17:19

other researchers, though, eradicating

17:21

the very ola virus from the wild only

17:23

to keep hundreds of samples of it in

17:25

laboratories is madness.

17:28

But regardless of where contagious disease

17:31

researchers fall on the matter, most

17:33

dismissed the idea of a small pox

17:35

epidemic as being a genuine

17:37

threat to humanity. It could

17:39

be utterly catastrophic for any

17:42

community where the virus showed up, true,

17:44

and that is bad enough. But because

17:47

smallpox requires close contact

17:49

for transmission, it would be relatively

17:51

easy to contain an outbreak and

17:53

cut off the possibility of a pandemic. It

17:56

almost certainly does not pose an existential

17:59

threat to humanity. One

18:01

that does, the one that keeps researchers

18:03

awake at night, is the flu.

18:17

Influenza is a common virus among

18:19

humans. It also infects a lot

18:21

of other animals too, like pigs,

18:24

birds, seals, bats, horses,

18:26

rodents, among others. The

18:29

different types of flu are described

18:31

and classified based on the two

18:33

types of proteins found on the viruses

18:35

outer envelope he magluten in

18:38

and neuraminides. It's

18:40

called the h X n Y

18:43

naming convention, so you end up

18:45

with flu names like H five and

18:47

two. The flu typically

18:50

has one of two traits when it comes

18:52

to infecting us. It's either

18:54

extremely deadly or it's

18:57

extremely contagious. But

18:59

once in a while, those two traits

19:01

co evolved within a single virus,

19:04

and the results can be catastrophic.

19:10

November eleventh, nineteen eighteen,

19:12

was a chilly, drizzly day in Compiegne,

19:15

a town in the north of France, where

19:17

representatives of the Allied Nations

19:20

met with the leaders of Germany to sign

19:22

the armistice that ended the First World

19:24

War from nineteen

19:26

fourteen and nineteen eighteen, what was

19:28

then called the Great War, claimed the lives

19:30

of more than eighteen million people,

19:33

soldiers and civilians. But

19:36

as the armistice was being signed, another

19:39

even deadlier killer than warfare

19:42

was making short work of human lives

19:44

around the globe. Type A H

19:47

one and one influenza, the

19:49

Spanish flu. In

19:52

the span of just four months

19:55

from September through December eighteen,

19:59

fifty million people perhaps

20:02

more died around the world

20:04

from this new and deadly strain of

20:06

flu. It killed like

20:09

a bird flu and spread like a seasonal

20:11

flu, and those two qualities combined

20:14

made it an extraordinarily dangerous

20:16

virus. As much as one

20:19

third of the entire population

20:21

of the world was infected by it that

20:23

season. It took its

20:25

heaviest toll on the young people

20:28

under twenty five, whose immune systems

20:30

had never been exposed to an H one

20:32

and one strain before. Many

20:34

young people who had been the picture of

20:36

health just days before died

20:39

suffocating on a bloody froth that

20:41

they were too weak to cough from their airways.

20:44

In some cases, people died within

20:47

hours of their symptoms first appearing,

20:51

then just as fast as it began. The

20:53

epidemic ended by the summer

20:55

of nineteen the flu had burned

20:57

itself through the global population, and

21:00

it disappeared. It almost

21:02

certainly evolved into a new strain of

21:04

flu that was far less deadly, and

21:06

for all intents and purposes, the Spanish

21:08

flu that had been such a killer of

21:11

people went extinct. Where

21:14

the Spanish flu came from remains a mystery.

21:17

Initially, it was thought to have originated

21:20

in Spain, hence the name. Other

21:22

research that came later implicated

21:25

China. China and Southeast

21:27

Asia are commonly the source of bird flues

21:30

the type that includes the Spanish flu. But

21:33

one theory traces the eighteen

21:35

flu back to Haskell County, Missouri,

21:38

to one of the area's plentiful chicken farms,

21:41

where it disappeared to is equally

21:43

mysterious. For decades,

21:46

researchers pined for a sample of the

21:48

eighteen strain to study in search

21:51

of answers to questions about it. The

21:53

Spanish flu was the one that got away, a

21:56

vicious killer that the epidemiological

21:58

and medical communities were helpless

22:00

to defend against, leaving no trace

22:03

of itself aside from the dead

22:05

in its wake. And then

22:07

in nine microbiologist

22:10

Johann Holton recovered a sample

22:13

of the nineteen eighteen Spanish flu

22:15

from where it was entombed in the Alaskan

22:17

tundra. The

22:20

tiny town of Brevig Mission, Alaska,

22:23

had just eighty residents when the Spanish

22:25

flu came to town in nineteen eighteen, mostly

22:28

Native and up at Eskimos. In

22:30

just a couple of months, seventy

22:32

two of the eighty died. A

22:35

group of gold miners were hired by the survivors

22:38

to come dig a mass grave for the bodies

22:41

and enter them in the perma frost. They

22:44

lay undisturbed until nineteen

22:46

fifty one. That year,

22:48

Johan Holton arrived and asked

22:50

the tribe's permission to break the grave

22:52

open. In their frozen

22:55

tomb, the victims were preserved mummified

22:57

in a way, and Holton reasoned

23:00

that the flu virus that killed them maybe as

23:02

well. Through a slow

23:04

process. In nineteen fifty one and

23:06

then again in Holton

23:09

opened the grave twice. He

23:11

built a fire to thaw the permafrost below,

23:14

Then he excavated the thawed soil. When

23:17

he reached frozen ground again, he built

23:19

another fire. Finally, on

23:21

his second attempt, in he

23:24

managed to call a living sample of

23:26

the H one and one virus

23:29

from the lung tissue of one of its

23:31

preserved victims. In

23:33

a few years, researchers

23:35

cobbled together the genome of the virus.

23:38

They synthesized it, and inserted

23:40

the genetic material into a

23:42

living cell. The

23:45

Spanish flu lived once more.

23:48

That researcher thought that was a useful

23:50

line of inquiry, and there were other researchers

23:54

who vehemently disagreed

23:56

and thought it was a um

24:00

an extraordinarily reckless thing

24:02

to do. That is Beth Willis.

24:05

She founded an organization that agitated

24:07

for increased transparency from

24:09

the government's biological labs

24:11

in Frederick, Maryland, her community.

24:15

The biotech field is not like other

24:17

fields that pose existential risks.

24:20

Like other fields, the research is

24:22

dual use. It can be used to help

24:25

or harm humanity. But unlike

24:27

research in other fields like AI,

24:30

which has yet to become clear to most people

24:32

that it poses an existential risk,

24:35

working with deadly pathogens is

24:37

understood as dangerous work by

24:39

people inside the biotech field and

24:41

out. There's no ambiguity.

24:45

But despite the inherent danger of working

24:48

with deadly pathogens. The field

24:50

has shown that it's willing to take potentially

24:53

catastrophic risks in the name of

24:55

research, and it's frequently

24:57

divided over what risks are acceptable

25:00

and which are not. One

25:02

area that divides the field is gain

25:05

of function research. Wherever

25:08

the Spanish flu came from, it almost

25:10

certainly evolved from an avian variety

25:12

of flu that mixed with one more common

25:15

to humans through a process

25:17

called reassortment. That's

25:19

the ability of viruses to swap genetic

25:21

material with other viruses that are also

25:24

living in the same host. What

25:26

comes out can be a virus that is a genetic

25:28

failure, which may be unable

25:30

to survive or copy itself, or

25:33

it could produce a deadly inefficient killer

25:35

of humans. It's a genetic crap

25:37

shoot. When a virus

25:39

mutates or adapts in some way that

25:41

makes it more efficient at infecting

25:43

hosts, it is said to have gained

25:45

function. Studying these

25:48

mutations, how they take place, what

25:50

mutations lead to which characteristics.

25:53

That's gain of function research. By

25:56

studying how influenza evolves, epidemiologists

25:59

can get better at predicting what

26:01

flu viruses have pandemic potential

26:04

before they reach that level of deadliness,

26:07

and there are two ways to do this. The

26:10

most common method is to capture

26:12

wild flu viruses in store them

26:14

in a state of suspended animation, which

26:17

usually involves freezing them.

26:19

Later on, when new viruses are caught that

26:21

have evolved from that same genetic line,

26:24

researchers can compare the genomes of

26:26

the older strain to the current strain

26:28

and see how the virus has mutated. This

26:31

is slow and laborious work

26:34

and frustrating lee it relies

26:36

on the rate of nature for evolutionary

26:38

changes to take place, so

26:41

some researchers are increasingly using

26:43

another method where they hasten

26:45

evolution and they forced the mutation

26:48

of new and novel flu strains to study

26:51

gain a function. Research itself is

26:54

uh effort by researchers to increase

26:58

the virulence or the

27:01

infectiousness of a panthogen

27:04

and potentially to decrease

27:06

its ability to

27:08

respond to countermeasures

27:11

to treatment. That

27:13

second, riskier method has become a

27:15

hot button issue in microbiology

27:18

lately. In two thousand eleven,

27:20

two separate research groups working

27:22

independently, one Dutch and one

27:25

American, stunned the world

27:27

when they announced that each had forced

27:29

the mutation of an extremely

27:31

deadly strain of flu, the H

27:33

five and one avian flu, and

27:36

created an entirely new version

27:39

that is easily transmitted from mammal

27:41

to mammal. In nature,

27:44

the H five N one virus mainly

27:46

infects birds. It has rarely

27:48

made the jump to humans, and even then

27:50

only to those who have spent prolonged periods

27:53

in close contact with sick birds,

27:55

like poultry workers when

27:57

it has made the jump. Though the virus

28:00

has been astoundingly lethal, H

28:02

five and one has a mortality rate

28:05

among humans of between sixty

28:07

eight. The only

28:09

upside to H five and one is

28:11

that it doesn't easily spread among people.

28:15

In the late nine nineties, the world

28:17

held its breath when several hundred

28:19

cases of H five and one avian flu

28:21

broke out among poultry workers in

28:23

Asia, but the global avian

28:26

flu pandemic never came, and

28:28

aside from the obvious that the virus

28:31

just simply lack the ability to transmit

28:33

from person to person, researchers

28:35

couldn't exactly say why the

28:37

pandemic never happened, So

28:40

microbiologists began to look for

28:42

answers by forcing a gain

28:44

of function in H five and one.

28:48

One of the two groups that did this was

28:50

from the University of Rotterdam in

28:52

the Netherlands. They forced

28:54

multiple mutations within the virus,

28:57

speeding up its evolution, and

28:59

then inserted the mutated virus

29:01

into the noses of ferrets. Ferrets

29:04

are commonly seen as one of the best animals

29:06

to model humans. Then

29:09

they transferred nasal fluid from those

29:11

infected ferrets to the noses of

29:13

other ferrets.

29:15

That second group of ferrets became sick

29:17

as expected, but alarmingly,

29:20

the second group passed the virus along

29:22

to others without the aid of researchers

29:25

through sneezes and costs, just

29:28

like humans would. That really

29:30

alarmed the virology community.

29:32

I would say that at least four to one people

29:35

are against doing that kind of research.

29:37

This is Dr Lynn Clots. He's a senior

29:39

Science Fellow for Biosecurity at

29:42

the Center for Arms Control and Non Proliferation.

29:45

Those two labs had brought to life a novel

29:48

lab created strain of one of the

29:50

deadliest flus known on Earth and

29:53

given it the entirely new ability

29:55

to pass easily from person to person,

29:58

and now it's sat in their freezers.

30:04

When the labs announced their experiments,

30:06

outrage erupted. In

30:09

reaction, the field of microbiology

30:11

issued a two year long ban on high

30:14

risk experiments with flu viruses,

30:17

and the fault line developed between scientists

30:19

who believed that force mutation gain of

30:22

function research was needed and necessary

30:24

to stave off potential pandemics and

30:27

those who considered the research unjustifiably

30:30

risky. The people who carried out

30:32

these experiments were cowboys,

30:34

in the words of one microbiologist. There

30:38

was also the issue of censorship. Both

30:41

of the experiments were expected to be published,

30:44

which would provide, in the opinion of some researchers,

30:47

essentially a how to guide to

30:50

creating the experimental extraordinarily

30:52

deadly virus. So there

30:54

were calls for the two major English

30:56

language scientific journals, Science

30:59

and Nature not to publish

31:01

the studies, and those calls

31:03

were heated for a time. But

31:06

scientists tend to bristle at the idea

31:08

of science being censored, and

31:11

understandably so, findings

31:13

are meant to be shared among everyone in

31:15

order to advance human understanding. That's

31:17

how science works. The trouble

31:20

is, once it's out there, the

31:22

information can be accessed by anyone,

31:24

including people who would use it to inflict

31:26

harm, and in the case of the

31:29

detailed description of exactly how

31:31

to transform H five and one virus

31:33

into one that is easily transmitted among

31:36

mammals, that harm could be profound.

31:39

The experiments were the very definition

31:42

of dual use research. But

31:46

repressed knowledge has a way of getting out, regardless

31:49

of our greatest efforts, a point

31:51

that was proven shortly after the moratorium

31:53

ended when a team of microbiologists

31:56

in China announced they had successfully

31:59

crossed the hive and one virus

32:01

with the less deadly but easily transmitted

32:04

H one and one virus, creating

32:06

a genetically altered superbug of

32:09

their own. If any

32:11

of the virus is created by the Chinese,

32:13

American or Dutch groups were

32:15

introduced into the general population, the

32:18

effects would be monumentally

32:20

bad, potentially on the order

32:23

of an extinction level event for humanity,

32:27

and so with the aim of preventing

32:29

just such a catastrophe, the field

32:31

of biosecurity has emerged to

32:34

consider how something like that could happen.

32:37

There is the obvious, the ever looming

32:39

specter of terrorism. A radicalized

32:42

lab employee or one who is desperate

32:44

for money, a disgruntled researcher

32:47

or someone looking to prove their abilities.

32:50

Any of these people could make an

32:52

excellent candidate for the release of what are

32:54

called potential pandemic pathogens,

32:57

which are exactly what they sound like. Some

33:00

biosecurity experts are also

33:02

concerned that some of the smallpox in

33:04

the Soviet Union stockpiles was

33:07

lost after the country dissolved. Really,

33:10

though, a bio terrorists doesn't need

33:12

to have access to a lab that stockpiles

33:14

pathogens. The main concern

33:17

over publishing that H five and one

33:19

how to Guide the journal Science

33:21

eventually published it in full, was

33:23

that the information would fall into the hands

33:25

of someone well versed in microbiology

33:29

with enough resources and few enough

33:31

scruples to create the virus

33:33

outside of any formal lab or

33:35

oversight and then release it.

33:39

That idea is rather unsettling,

33:42

but many microbiologists considered

33:44

it barely more than an urban legend,

33:47

something the media ran with to scare

33:49

the public into watching the news. That

33:52

is until two thousand and sixteen, when

33:55

scientists from the University of Alberta

33:57

announced that they had created the virus

33:59

that as his horse pox from

34:01

scratch, using only snippets

34:04

of genetic material called oglio

34:06

nucleotides that they ordered

34:08

retail over the internet. It

34:11

costs the team a hundred thousand dollars

34:13

and took six months to create a living,

34:16

infectious virus. The

34:19

University of Alberta experiment showed

34:22

that it was now possible for a d

34:24

I Y biologist to create viruses

34:26

in bacteria through the emerging

34:28

field of synthetic biology. Rather

34:32

than attempting expensive and time consuming

34:34

experiments to force mutations in a virus

34:37

over and over and hope that it evolves

34:39

in a way that you wanted to, synthetic

34:42

biology allows researchers to create

34:44

exactly the kind of organism they're looking

34:46

for by designing and building

34:48

it denovo, which essentially

34:50

means in Latin from scratch. Synthetic

34:54

biology emerged from genetic engineering,

34:57

which revolutionized the world by creating

34:59

the ability to cut and splice genes

35:01

between organisms. Synthetic

35:04

biology combines genetic engineering

35:07

with the goal of streamlining life

35:09

into a more predictable, reliable,

35:11

efficient version of what's found in nature.

35:15

What synthetic biology does actually

35:17

is make literal use of the building

35:20

blocks of life. Eventually,

35:23

synthetic biology aims to create a

35:25

database of genomic codes that,

35:27

when inserted into an organism will

35:30

produce a predictable trait. So

35:32

this snippet is a gene that codes for

35:34

proteins that creates bioluminescence,

35:37

and when you insert it into E. Col I, it

35:39

will make the bacterium glow like a firefly,

35:42

which is pretty neat. The common

35:44

analogy is lego bricks. The

35:47

synthetic biology community calls their

35:49

genetic snippets bio bricks, but

35:52

instead of plastic blocks, synthetic

35:55

biologists use genes snapped

35:57

together, as it were, to radically

36:00

alter existing species, or

36:02

to even create entirely new ones

36:04

that have never existed before. Synthetic

36:08

biology will eventually democratize

36:10

biotechnology, making it

36:13

easier for people to enter the field, and

36:15

this effort is already underway.

36:18

M I T maintains a database of

36:20

bio bricks that anyone can access.

36:23

Find the gene that produces the trade you're looking

36:25

for, copy the genomic code

36:27

of that gene, and paste it into the

36:29

order form of an online genetic synthesis

36:32

lab. They will produce those

36:34

snippets of DNA or glio nucleotides

36:37

from simple sugars, which you can

36:39

then insert into a host organism,

36:42

transforming it into a creation utterly

36:45

outside of nature. This

36:47

ability to create organisms

36:49

from scratch at home basically

36:52

could be very beneficial for

36:54

humanity, but it also

36:56

poses huge new risks that

36:58

have yet to be explored. Still,

37:01

the idea of something like a

37:03

rogue biologist creating

37:06

a lethal virus DiNovo and

37:08

releasing it under the human population

37:11

occupies a very small place

37:13

among the worries of people in the bio

37:15

security field. An accidental

37:18

release, they say, is much

37:20

more likely. Imagine

37:32

that you're working in a bio safety

37:35

level for research lab that's

37:37

the highest level containment facilitians,

37:40

and you don't notice that the space

37:42

suit you're wearing in the lab has

37:44

a small terr in it. While

37:47

you're working with a genetically altered virus.

37:50

You don't notice that it comes in contact

37:52

with the bare skin of your hand. After

37:55

leaving the lab, you take off your suit

37:57

and you scratch an itch around your nostril

38:00

with your infected hand, and

38:02

the virus makes its toy into your

38:04

body. You are now

38:07

infected. This

38:09

particular virus has been altered

38:12

to have a short incubation period, the

38:14

time between when you're infected and

38:17

when you can infect other people. Inside

38:20

your lung tissue, the virus has

38:22

entered a respiratory cell and

38:24

injected its own genetic material. The

38:27

cell begins to replicate the virus.

38:30

In the matter of a second, a million or

38:32

more copies of the virus are produced. They

38:35

rupture the hijack cell and spread

38:37

out, infecting other nearby

38:40

respiratory cells, where the process

38:42

begins again. Now

38:44

you're contagious. With

38:47

each breath you expel respiratory

38:49

aerosols water vapor laced

38:51

with the virus from your body into

38:54

the air where others breathe. Your

38:57

saliva and your nasal fluid are both

38:59

infectious, but with this

39:01

particular virus. The time between

39:03

when you become infectious and the padrome,

39:06

the time when you first begin to feel symptoms,

39:09

is more than twenty four hours, And

39:11

during that time you live your life.

39:14

You take the subway to work and back.

39:17

You hold onto poles in the train cars.

39:20

You chat and laugh with your coworkers.

39:23

You spend time with friends in a crowded

39:25

bar. All the while you shake

39:28

hands, give hugs, touch

39:30

door handles, breathe, laugh,

39:33

You spread the virus to other people.

39:37

By the time the first signs of illness appear,

39:40

you have infected five of the people you've

39:42

come in contact with. Each

39:44

of those people spread out and infect

39:46

an average of three more people, and

39:49

so on and so on. Some

39:51

of those infected people have business overseas

39:54

in Europe, South America, Asia,

39:58

they leave the country, they cough

40:00

in airplanes, they shake hands

40:03

too, they drink from cups

40:05

that get cleared away. They

40:07

spread the virus to other people around

40:09

the world. Each

40:11

of the infected people creates a new

40:14

branch in an ever expanding

40:16

chain of infection that epidemiologists

40:19

have a very short time to contain.

40:23

If that genetically altered virus is

40:25

easily spread, the epidemiologists

40:28

may fail a pandemic

40:30

magnite, and if that virus

40:33

is also highly virulent with a

40:35

high mortality rate, the pandemic

40:38

could be an existential threat. What

40:43

makes this worst case scenario so unnerving

40:46

is the biotech field's real life

40:48

track record of accidental releases.

40:51

In addition to a willingness to take

40:54

huge risks in its research, the

40:56

field is also dangerously accident

40:58

prone. That very situation

41:01

I've just described happened in two

41:03

thousand four when a worker

41:05

handling the coronavirus at a c

41:07

DC lab in Beijing became

41:10

infective with Stars, a deadly

41:12

and contagious respiratory illness. Although

41:15

the virus killed only one person, it

41:17

managed to make it all the way to Hong Kong

41:20

and Canada before it was contained.

41:23

The two thousand four Stars outbreak resulted

41:26

from an incorrectly inactivated

41:29

virus in

41:31

a biosafety level three or four

41:33

lab. The suits that workers

41:35

have to wear and the safety equipment

41:37

they have to use is cumbersome to

41:40

say the least, but those

41:42

protocols are necessary for handling

41:44

the deadliest pathogens, both

41:47

to prevent the people working with those pathogens

41:49

from getting infected and to prevent

41:51

the pathogens from escaping the lab. So

41:55

to get around those highest level safety

41:57

protocols, labs sometimes kill

41:59

the path legions they're working with, say

42:02

by exposing them to dry heat or

42:04

changing their pH but

42:06

the virus or bacterium itself

42:09

remains intact, so

42:11

since it's now dead, it can be rendered

42:13

non infectious and studied in

42:15

a lower level containment lab, where

42:18

safety requirements are much less

42:20

stringent, making the pathogen

42:22

easier to work with. The

42:25

problem is inactivation isn't

42:27

always effective. Some

42:29

viruses simply don't die, and

42:32

the process is prone to human error.

42:35

Accidental releases of incorrectly

42:38

inactivated viruses is disturbingly

42:41

common. In fact, labs

42:43

that work with potential pandemic pathogens

42:46

have a breathtakingly bad record

42:49

of accidental releases of all kinds.

42:53

Just to pick a few, in

42:57

the flu season featured a strain of H

42:59

one and one that was almost genetically

43:01

identical to a strain that had last

43:04

made the rounds about three decades

43:06

earlier. In evolutionary

43:09

terms for a virus, three decades

43:11

is an epoch to us, any

43:14

strain related to one from NIF

43:16

should have mutated so many times

43:19

that it was no longer even remotely possible

43:22

it could be genetically identical to the previous

43:25

one. For years, scientists

43:27

puzzled over this surprise reappearance,

43:30

considering and discarding theories, until

43:33

they finally came to an unsettling

43:35

conclusion. The

43:37

only reasonable way such a thing

43:39

could have happened as if the virus

43:41

had entered some form of suspended

43:44

animation and then made its

43:46

way back into nature, and

43:49

the most reasonable explanation for that

43:52

was that it had been frozen and kept

43:54

in a lab and then released.

43:58

Researchers eventually settled on the theory

44:00

that the strain had probably been released

44:03

in a vaccine that wasn't inactivated

44:05

properly. The result

44:07

created a pandemic. Fortunately

44:10

it was not a particularly deadly one.

44:13

Exactly what lab the virus came from

44:15

has never been fully proven. The

44:20

next year, a photographer working at

44:22

the University of Birmingham Medical School

44:24

in the UK caught smallpox

44:27

and her mother, who cared for her, died.

44:29

She had contracted it from a lab one

44:32

floor below. The smallpox

44:34

had traveled through the air duct into her

44:36

office. And in nine

44:39

in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk,

44:42

sixty four people died of anthrax

44:44

infections after an air filter

44:46

was removed and not immediately replaced

44:49

in a lab that was working on illegal

44:52

weaponized anthrax bacteria, which

44:55

was carried into a village down wind.

44:59

It was ex it's like these that led

45:01

to the creation of those high biosafety

45:04

level labs and the use of space

45:06

suits when conducting research with the

45:08

deadliest pathogens, which

45:10

makes sense in

45:13

the U s Department of Agriculture created

45:15

a list of the deadliest pathogens,

45:18

which the U S d A calls biological

45:20

and select agents, and the Centers

45:23

for Disease Control took responsibility

45:25

for monitoring the labs that work with them.

45:29

But it wasn't until two thousand one that

45:31

bs L three and bs L four labs

45:34

really began to spread. There weren't

45:36

very many of them until two thousand

45:38

and one and after the

45:41

anthrax letters, which came from

45:43

Frederick, where I live, which

45:45

is how I got engaged in this issue.

45:48

After that time we went from

45:51

just a few labs to a

45:54

large number, a very large number

45:56

of labs. It mushroomed tremendously

45:58

UM with the

46:01

assumption that um,

46:03

we had to do a lot of research because of the

46:05

threat of bioterrorism.

46:08

But of course the only incidents we've ever

46:10

experience came from one of our own labs.

46:13

In two thousand one, just a week

46:16

after the September eleventh attacks, members

46:19

of Congress and the media began

46:21

receiving strange letters with

46:24

a white powder. Inside the

46:26

powder was spores of Bacillus

46:28

and thracis, the bacterium

46:31

that causes anthrax. It

46:33

had been weaponized to make it more

46:35

easily inhaled and therefore infectious.

46:39

Twenty two people were infected by

46:41

the spores, and five of them died.

46:44

In in America already gripped by

46:46

panic. The anthrax letters

46:48

had a profound impact on the

46:50

country's psyche, and it turns

46:52

out that the source of the anthrax

46:55

was actually a a lab

46:57

at for Dietrich a scientists there

47:00

who really was somewhat mentally

47:02

unstable, and I think people should

47:04

have known it. Uh, he was responsible

47:06

for spreading that anthrax. I think that just

47:08

scared the hell out of everybody. The

47:11

problem is that even with the creation

47:13

of BSL three and four labs,

47:15

with their astounding array of precautionary

47:18

equipment and procedures, the twenty

47:20

one century has still seen a lot

47:22

of high profile accidents from these

47:25

labs. Between two thousand

47:27

four and two, there

47:29

were six hundred and thirty nine

47:32

reported accidental releases of

47:34

pathogens found on the U s

47:36

d A's list of Biological select

47:38

agents and toxins. Bacteria

47:42

and viruses like the Ebola virus

47:44

and the bacteria that causes the plague

47:47

the virus that causes stars are

47:49

all on the list. Those

47:51

six hundred and thirty nine accidents

47:53

represent just the ones that were reported,

47:56

and only then among those publicly

47:59

funded labs that are required

48:01

to report such accidents. Labs

48:04

that don't receive public funding like those run

48:06

by corporations or private groups, don't

48:09

have to report accidents like that at

48:11

all. Back

48:14

in two thousand fourteen, a National

48:17

Institutes of Health lab in Bethesda,

48:19

Maryland, discovered six fials

48:21

of live Bariola, the smallpox

48:24

virus, in an unsecured freezer.

48:27

The vials were labeled Bariola and

48:30

have been stored in the nineteen fifties in

48:32

a lab that had gone unused since

48:35

the nineteen seventies. The

48:37

f d A, which had taken custody

48:39

of the lab from the NAH way back in,

48:43

had lost track of the stocks with smallpox

48:46

and failed to destroy the Bariola or

48:48

submitted to the CDC as part

48:50

of that eradication campaign.

48:53

It had just sat forgotten in the freezer.

48:57

Also in two thousand fourteen, a

48:59

c DC workers ship live strains

49:02

of the bacteria that causes typhoid

49:04

fever to another lab in

49:06

a reused box that wasn't marked

49:08

for hazardous material. Not

49:11

to mention, the box was broken open

49:13

in the corner and it was sent using

49:15

regular ups delivery. Some

49:18

specimens broke during shipping, although

49:20

the Typhus vile remained intact

49:23

and sealed again.

49:26

These are just a few randomly selected

49:28

examples, like those

49:30

ships that carried smallpox between

49:32

Africa and the America's. Each

49:35

accident involving potential pandemic

49:37

pathogens is like tossing a

49:39

lit match on a powder keg. Each

49:42

one has a chance for an outbreak to

49:44

take hold. The problem

49:47

is as more BSL three

49:49

and four labs come online, more

49:51

of this risky research is being

49:53

conducted. More labs

49:56

conducting more of this risky research

49:59

compounds the probability of an accidental

50:01

release of a pathogen that

50:04

can cause a catastrophic pandemic.

50:07

Even worse, BSL three

50:09

and four labs have mushroomed to a

50:11

point where no one, not

50:14

the U. S. Government, not the Centers

50:16

for Disease Control, not the National

50:18

Institutes of Health, not the World

50:20

Health Organization, no one

50:23

can definitively say how many

50:25

high containment labs are operating

50:27

around the world. In the US,

50:29

even there's no certainty about how

50:31

many there are, it has become

50:34

something of a status symbol among

50:36

nations, universities, and

50:38

corporations to operate high

50:40

level containment labs. So

50:43

some people in the biotech and bio

50:45

security fields have called for

50:47

an end to gain a function research

50:50

of any kind. The trouble

50:53

is there's no regulatory

50:55

framework overseeing high containment

50:57

labs. In the US. The

50:59

National the Institutes for Health is

51:01

the agency that provides funding for this

51:04

type of work, and they have adopted

51:06

guidelines for best practices and safety,

51:09

but there's no penalty for

51:11

labs that don't follow those guidelines.

51:14

The most potent weapon the NIH

51:17

has to curtail reckless experiments

51:20

is to deny funding for further research,

51:23

and this only applies to labs that receive

51:25

public funding. Privately funded

51:27

labs, like again those found

51:29

inside corporations, as well as

51:31

labs overseas, operate

51:34

utterly outside of any jurisdiction.

51:37

But even if American labs had

51:39

a flawless safety record, which

51:41

they definitely do not, other countries

51:44

across the rest of the world operate with

51:46

a patchwork of regulations, if any

51:48

at all. There is no global

51:51

oversight of research with deadly pathogens,

51:54

and there's really no one to say what constitutes

51:57

a reckless experiment anyway, Aside

52:00

from the institution the researcher is affiliated

52:02

with. There's no one empowered to

52:05

decide which experiments are

52:07

simply too risky to carry out, and

52:10

in most cases, the institutions

52:12

that can make that decision air

52:14

on the side of their researchers, since

52:16

highly visible work that gets lots of

52:18

press brings their institutions

52:21

prestige. What's

52:23

probably most disturbing is the

52:25

tendency to downplay or even

52:28

totally fail to report lab

52:30

accidents. A culture

52:32

of silence and opaqueness

52:34

pervades the bio labs in the US.

52:37

For all of the existential risk involved,

52:40

there is almost no public scrutiny

52:42

of the field of biotechnology. If

52:46

science is never to be censored, doesn't

52:49

that also require it to be fully

52:51

transparent. There

52:55

are ways to make the system in place safer.

52:58

Some microbiology to argue that

53:00

the same results can be found by

53:03

using non infectious proteins to

53:05

study the functions of viruses, that

53:07

those live altered viruses that some

53:10

labs are creating are not only

53:12

reckless but also totally

53:14

unnecessary. Others

53:17

say that researchers could be required

53:19

to add genetic traits to their altered

53:21

specimens that make them

53:23

reliant on conditions in the lab to

53:25

survive, so that they cannot spread

53:27

in nature, kind of like the dinosaurs

53:30

in Jurassic Park. Perhaps

53:33

they could engineer a kill switch like

53:35

a self destruct mechanism that is triggered

53:38

once the cell divides a prescribed

53:40

number of times. In

53:42

other areas, labs that synthesize

53:45

DNA and RNA could

53:47

be required to compare the sequences

53:49

of orders that come in against

53:51

the database of known pathogens

53:54

and report any of those orders that set

53:56

off alarms to authorities, and

53:59

propose souls. For research that has

54:01

dual use imposes a low

54:03

probability, high consequence

54:06

threat to the public could undergo

54:08

review and approval based

54:10

on its relative benefit to science

54:13

as part of funding requests,

54:15

and labs both public and private

54:18

in the US and abroad could

54:21

be put under an international regulatory

54:23

body that both respects and

54:26

understand science, but also

54:28

equally value safety for

54:30

humankind. There

54:32

are holes in these safeguards, yes,

54:35

but even this handful of ideas

54:37

are still vastly better than what's

54:40

currently in place. When

54:42

you combine the increasing number of labs

54:44

around the world carrying out research on

54:47

potential pandemic pathogens with

54:50

the history of accidental releases

54:52

in human error in the biotech field,

54:55

it is extraordinarily difficult not

54:58

to conclude that the potential

55:00

for an existential threat posed

55:02

by the release of a deadly pathogen

55:05

is real. This is not a

55:07

far off field of existential risk. It

55:10

surrounds us right now. Dr

55:14

Lynn Clots, who you met earlier, calculated

55:17

the probability of a lab acquired

55:19

infection that followed that worst

55:21

case scenario I described based

55:24

on the current track record of accidental

55:26

releases over the course of

55:28

a ten year period. Considering

55:31

ten labs with an average safety

55:33

record, Dr Clots calculated

55:36

that there is a twenty seven percent chance

55:38

of an undetected lab acquired

55:41

infection creating a global

55:43

pandemic in the next decade.

55:46

That's better than a one in four

55:49

chance of an existential

55:51

catastrophe. And that's

55:53

just considering ten labs. No

55:56

one knows how many labs there actually

55:58

are. Risk is product

56:00

of two things, the likelihood of something

56:03

happening times consequence. The likelihood

56:05

of something happening is small, very

56:07

small per lab per year, but you do things

56:10

in enough labs for enough years, it gets

56:12

bigger. Uh. And the consequences,

56:14

potential consequences are huge

56:17

in the worst case scenario, perhaps

56:19

killing a large percentage of

56:22

the world's population. And we just don't

56:24

know. So I just don't

56:26

think it's worth taking the chance on

56:37

the next episode of the End of the World

56:39

with Josh Clark. Particle

56:41

physics works at the leading edge

56:44

of human knowledge, at the leading edge of theory.

56:46

That's the whole point of it. Particle

56:48

physics is where science touches the fabric

56:50

of the universe, and it puts us

56:53

in a dilemma to know if the experiments

56:55

that we're running inside of particle colliders

56:57

are safe. We have to run the experiments

57:00

in the first place, but hoping for

57:02

the best is not a good strategy for

57:04

an existential risk that could theoretically

57:06

end the universe as we know it. M