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BU researchers finally get those Ebola and Marburg virus samples they've been wanting

The Boston Business Journal reports that BU's National Emerging Diseases Laboratory on Albany Street - the BU biolab - took delivery of samples of two of the world's deadliest diseases this week, after city health officials gave them the final approval they needed for their research.


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Comments

We’re doomed I say. We’re all dooooooooomed.

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Can the general public pick up a bag of this stuff in the gift shop?

Would you like some ebola with your tea sir?

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Given all the common things which can accidentally kill me in the news recently, I'm having a hard time getting worked up about something highly controlled.

Budget cuts to NSF, NIH, etc and loosening EPA & USDA restrictions pose a much greater threat to the general public then some highly controlled, well guarded viruses in a university lab.

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BostonDog -- wrote "Budget cuts to NSF, NIH, etc and loosening EPA & USDA restrictions pose a much greater threat to the general public then some highly controlled, well guarded viruses in a university lab."

Do you bother to read your posts before you hit SEND

I'll grant you that if there were "meat axe" budget cuts to the USDA and the CDC that I might be concerned. Somewhat less so with respect to trimming the NIH budget and loosening of EPA and USDA regulations.

BUT:--NSF come-on
NSF is vital to the future of real science and ultimately our economy.
It can indeed can help fund things that a decade from now might revolutionize things.
e.g. in computer science and engineering:

COSMOS: Cloud Enhanced Open Software Defined Mobile Wireless Testbed for City-Scale Deployment, Rutgers University, Columbia University, and New York University.

COSMOS is partnering with New York City, Silicon Harlem, City College of New York, University of Arizona and IBM, to bring this advanced wireless test bed to life in New York City. The test bed will cover 1 square mile in a vibrant, densely-populated neighborhood in West Harlem. The technical focus of the COSMOS platform is on ultra-high-bandwidth and low-latency wireless communications, with tightly coupled edge computing, a type of cloud computing enabling data processing at the edge of the network. COSMOS will pursue millimeter-wave radio communications and dynamic optical switching technologies. This new wireless research platform will allow for experimentation at a scale that could not be achieved previously, thereby enabling new services and applications to benefit the entire community.

However, It is hard to imagine how cutting even the biggest of NSF's major initiatives such as the LIGO [gravitational wave astronomy], BICEP [searching for the signature of cosmic inflation in the Cosmic Microwave Background polarization] and ICECUBE [galactic and extra-galactic neutrino astronomy] can "pose a much greater threat to the general public then some highly controlled, well guarded viruses in a university lab"

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See you all in Boulder

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than try to survive in Boulder.

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He can start taking down his grandstand.

The poor lad was very concerned about imbecile UPS drivers delivering samples to the wrong location.

The all grown ups took care of things. You can go back to railing against people trying to build market rate housing on Warren Street now.

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Sometimes I think we're the same person.

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.

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I worked for BU from 2005 to 2011 in the building next door to this lab. It was built and ready to go in 2005. 13 years to get up and running. Yup, that's about the right pace of things in Boston. Can't be too hasty and upset the folk. Boston is not one of those reckless Western cities that rush into things. Getting an apartment building built takes only a shade less time in Beantown.

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So the zombie apocalypse started in Boston....

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