my god we're all going to die unless we go back to living in mud huts and being happy" piece. Scientists creating new technologies: no problem, trust the scientists. The same scientists saying they're worried that it might cause accidental deaths in batches of a million: ignore the scaremongers. Inconsistent standards, it seems, are not Ms. Bunting's sole prerogative. Given that no species of computer virus has ever been eradicated, given the problems and costs already incurred by the introduction of quite unmodified organisms in novel environments, and given that we are increasingly losing the evolutionary arms race against pathogens that looked beaten just a few decades ago, one might have expected a more systematic and quantitative approach to risk assessment than is being displayed here. We know that the accident which causes the demise of all society has not yet happened because we are here to ask the question, but by that very anthropocentric token we can infer nothing useful about whether such an accident might ever occur. We certainly cannot conclude that such an accident will therefore never take place - at least, not is we retain any sensitivity to logic. It seems more rational to assess the risks before embarking on such enterprises based on their actual magnitude, rather than on such patently false inferences or on a basis of "the person expecting to profit decides". alanpeart - "It's a shame that, usually, the first mainstream article one sees about an emerging new technology is an 'Oh