Life Sciences Commons^™

Living Lethal Weapons, Rilyn Mckallip

Osmosis Magazine

Biological weapons, as defined by the Federation of American Scientists, are “toxins and microorganisms, such as viruses and bacteria, used to deliberately inflict disease among people, animals and agriculture.” Biological weapons have been used for hundreds of years on varying scales, from the catapulting of plague-infected corpses into enemy cities in the 14th century, to the testing of infectious diseases in China during WWII, to the 2001 anthrax attacks. These weapons act discreetly, as it is hard to trace an outbreak to a particular attacker and it takes several days for an infected individual to show signs of the disease. …

The Hot Zone And The Cold War, Peter Nichols

Colby Magazine

It was a time when, in the nation's schools, drills for nuclear war were as frequent as fire drills- when Americans and their Soviet counterparts lived with a constant fear of imminent worldwide destruction. "You had a cultural mindset that was apocalyptic," said Robert S. Weisbrot, Christian A. Johnson Distinguished Teaching Professor of History at Colby, "that believed you could not guarantee that your wonderful suburban home and family and community...would survive ten more seconds."

"It was not simply a matter of two countries that are adversaries building up weapons," said Weisbrot. "Each saw the other as the incarnation of …