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Hacking The President's DNA By Andrew Hessel

473 Words2 Pages

In Andrew Hessel, Marc Goodman, and Steven Kotler’s article Hacking the President’s DNA, the authors use sensational journalism to inform the reader about the possibility of bioterrorism utilizing personal genetic information to infect specific individuals with mentally debilitating or even deadly viruses. Such a feat could be accomplished by synthesizing a person’s DNA, collected during a handshake, from a pillowcase or even from old clothing, and then commissioning one of the many synthetic biology websites for the creation of a designer virus that would only affect a person with the exact genetic sequence you captured. The main conflict throughout the text lies in concerns on how to protect ourselves and our world leaders from technology that cannot be seen, tasted or smelt but can so efficiently take lives without leaving a trace of evidence. …show more content…

The fictional yet extremely plausible story effectively supports the argument by including well known places, playing on stereotypes, detailing every step taken by the terrorist and maintaining a timeline throughout the story. Such a convincing narrative told in the present tense allows the reader to imagine him or herself in such a situation and thus accept its plausibility.
In an effort to further make the issue of bioterrorism more personal for the reader, the authors utilize the third person throughout the text. By personally involving the reader in the issues of biosciences and rapidly advancing technology as well as directing a difficult question of safety at the reader, we can see that the argument relies heavily on emotions of panic and

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