“HOW would you like your research paper to be found in a cave in Afghanistan with yellow highlighted sections?” That was the stark rhetorical question put by a security expert to leading life scientists last week at the US National Academy of Sciences.
The upper echelons of science haven’t had a debate quite like it since the 1970s. Then the issue was whether to halt recombinant DNA research involving microbes until more was known about the risks. Now it is whether basic scientists, especially biologists, should refrain from publishing findings that might help terrorists develop or deploy bioweapons.
There are…
