What is the Agent Orange of today?
September 27, 2012 1:41 PM Subscribe
Anyone heard anything about scary-powerful chemicals/biological warfare/nanotech designed to wipe out not just people, but flora and fauna as well?
I know about Agent Orange or course, but I'm curious about what freaky experimental agents have been recently developed or are in current development, primarily for weaponized use.
(I'm less interested in viruses, unless there's something that's been engineered to wipe out plants and animals as well as people.)
This is for a story idea, but I'd like it to have as much scientific precedent as possible. Thanks!
I know about Agent Orange or course, but I'm curious about what freaky experimental agents have been recently developed or are in current development, primarily for weaponized use.
(I'm less interested in viruses, unless there's something that's been engineered to wipe out plants and animals as well as people.)
This is for a story idea, but I'd like it to have as much scientific precedent as possible. Thanks!
Neutron bombs are designed to release a high volume of radiation as opposed to explosive force, the idea being that you kill everyone/everything but preserve the infrastructure.
posted by mkultra at 1:54 PM on September 27, 2012
posted by mkultra at 1:54 PM on September 27, 2012
If you're interested in neutron bombs it would also be worth looking at salted bombs, which are designed to produce large amounts of radioactive fallout. Fallout is dangerous for both humans and plants (and anything else with fragile DNA molecules).
posted by alby at 1:58 PM on September 27, 2012
posted by alby at 1:58 PM on September 27, 2012
Bill Joy's "grey goo" comes to mind.
posted by dfriedman at 2:00 PM on September 27, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by dfriedman at 2:00 PM on September 27, 2012 [1 favorite]
One thing worth mentioning is that the research and use of these kinds of weapons has been banned in most of the world for decades under the Biological Weapons Convention and Chemical Weapons Convention. Even though it's technically possible for countries to have secret programs to produce these sorts of weapons in violation of the treaties, it still is a big factor in why significantly less money and resources are being put into developing these kinds of weapons than before they were banned.
posted by burnmp3s at 2:14 PM on September 27, 2012
posted by burnmp3s at 2:14 PM on September 27, 2012
It wasn't actually designed for military usage, but Monsanto's Roundup sort of comes to mind.
I know this was kind of an off-the-cuff glib answer--and I probably feel the same way about Monsanto that you do--but Roundup/glysophate isn't even objectively all that toxic relative to other herbicides. This comparison of acute herbicide toxicity rates it at "5/almost nontoxic" in that the lethal dose for an adult is somewhere between a pint and a quart.
Furthermore, Roundup is only moderately persistent in the environment, with a soil half-life measured in weeks. I understand that the concerns about it have more to do with its ubiquity and the possibility of bioaccumulation and insidious longer-term effects, but, as a potential weapon of war, it isn't even in the same ballpark as actual military herbicides/defoliants like dioxins (e.g. Agent Orange).
posted by pullayup at 4:55 PM on September 27, 2012 [3 favorites]
I know this was kind of an off-the-cuff glib answer--and I probably feel the same way about Monsanto that you do--but Roundup/glysophate isn't even objectively all that toxic relative to other herbicides. This comparison of acute herbicide toxicity rates it at "5/almost nontoxic" in that the lethal dose for an adult is somewhere between a pint and a quart.
Furthermore, Roundup is only moderately persistent in the environment, with a soil half-life measured in weeks. I understand that the concerns about it have more to do with its ubiquity and the possibility of bioaccumulation and insidious longer-term effects, but, as a potential weapon of war, it isn't even in the same ballpark as actual military herbicides/defoliants like dioxins (e.g. Agent Orange).
posted by pullayup at 4:55 PM on September 27, 2012 [3 favorites]
Almost all weapons will kill animals as readily as humans—think knives, guns, bombs and the like. Those kinds of weapons will also readily damage plant tissues.
A lot of chemicals will affect animals as readily as humans—for example, phosgene gas sounds like it would basically kill anything with lungs in about the same concentration. Since the harmful reaction is with water to form hydrochloric acid, it seems likely that it could be harmful to plants as well. That's backed up by this text (which I found on a random google search) which says that phosgene 'has a generally damaging effect on plant life'.
\It's when you get into things like live organisms as weapons that you really start running into things that will only affect a small number of species (because they can only live and reproduce within those host organisms); it's the exceptional influenza strain that passes from other species to humans, not the typical one. And I don't recall having heard of any diseases that are spread from human to plant…
posted by jepler at 5:02 PM on September 27, 2012
A lot of chemicals will affect animals as readily as humans—for example, phosgene gas sounds like it would basically kill anything with lungs in about the same concentration. Since the harmful reaction is with water to form hydrochloric acid, it seems likely that it could be harmful to plants as well. That's backed up by this text (which I found on a random google search) which says that phosgene 'has a generally damaging effect on plant life'.
\It's when you get into things like live organisms as weapons that you really start running into things that will only affect a small number of species (because they can only live and reproduce within those host organisms); it's the exceptional influenza strain that passes from other species to humans, not the typical one. And I don't recall having heard of any diseases that are spread from human to plant…
posted by jepler at 5:02 PM on September 27, 2012
"Salted bombs" are the basis for Neville Shute's On the beach (1957). A great book, but not exactly cutting edge.
posted by wilful at 5:44 PM on September 27, 2012
posted by wilful at 5:44 PM on September 27, 2012
You need to read "A Higher Form of Killing". A heartwarming tale of.... Who am I kidding, it's as scary as hell, but you'll also see why everybody kind of has a vested interest in keeping them mostly off the battle field. They're nobody's friend once they'e out of the can. (Hint: There's a reason why Hitler, et al didn't send down the order to deploy nerve gas (They had it, we didn't) until the very very end and it sure as hell wasn't their commitment to human decency.)
You'll be especially interested in the anthrax cakes designed to take out livestock and the rabbits on the island where this plan was tested.
There's some hypothesizing at the end of the book that someone might make a bio-weapon that only hit certain ethnicites, but the problem with that logic is that ethnicity is largely cultural and what you think of as a specific ethnic group is probably not that biologically different from your own forces. In the end you might get a virus that was 10% less likely to kill your troops than enemy troops, which is probably worse odds than waiting for the weather to be on your side, hosing the battlefield down with phosgene and hoping the wind stays at your back.
Grim stuff.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 8:15 PM on September 27, 2012 [1 favorite]
You'll be especially interested in the anthrax cakes designed to take out livestock and the rabbits on the island where this plan was tested.
There's some hypothesizing at the end of the book that someone might make a bio-weapon that only hit certain ethnicites, but the problem with that logic is that ethnicity is largely cultural and what you think of as a specific ethnic group is probably not that biologically different from your own forces. In the end you might get a virus that was 10% less likely to kill your troops than enemy troops, which is probably worse odds than waiting for the weather to be on your side, hosing the battlefield down with phosgene and hoping the wind stays at your back.
Grim stuff.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 8:15 PM on September 27, 2012 [1 favorite]
As has been suggested above, it's not surprising to me that a substance which causes immediate excruciating pain in humans and gruesome permanent damage would also be bad for plants and animals.
In that vein, white phosphorus. I've read about it mostly in terms of its misuse in attacking humans, but googling suggests that it's quite harmful to plants, as expected. Also, the parallels to agent orange are clear. I'm sure I've read or heard of explicit comparisons, but I can't recall where.
posted by stuart_s at 12:35 PM on September 28, 2012
In that vein, white phosphorus. I've read about it mostly in terms of its misuse in attacking humans, but googling suggests that it's quite harmful to plants, as expected. Also, the parallels to agent orange are clear. I'm sure I've read or heard of explicit comparisons, but I can't recall where.
posted by stuart_s at 12:35 PM on September 28, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by infinitywaltz at 1:50 PM on September 27, 2012