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Quantico By Greg Bear: Article Analysis

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Whenever the public hears about the use of bioengineering and its involvement in modern technological advances, it is portrayed in a beneficial manner that encourages progress in society. However, the wide variety of usages that it allows leaves an unfathomable amount of possibilities for people to bring harm to others. Biotechnology is most prominently used in the creation of bioweaponry, which has been the medium of many terroristic attacks worldwide. This idea is followed closely in Quantico by Greg Bear, a story in which we follow the lives of FBI agents at Quantico, an FBI research center, as they try to stop a bioterrorist from committing heinous acts in Saudi Arabia. The book mostly tracks the story of Rebecca, a bioterrorism specialist …show more content…

In attempts to affect the largest groups possible in public spaces, the usage of bioweapons is constantly pushing new uses of technology and extraneous substances to receive the most devastating effects. In Alexander Ioffe’s article “Biological and Chemical Weapons,” it can be seen that anthrax is typically mixed with silicon to help disperse the powder more in airborne attacks. Adding silicon helps to make the bioweapon more reactive and volatile. Anthrax is a bacterial endospore, making it very easy to spread into open areas with wide coverage. Moreover, once it has foreign substances increasing its effectiveness, it becomes far more enticing to terrorists considering the wide range of possibilities that permits (“Anthrax, terrorist use”). Quantico examines the experimental usage of materials to attack large masses through bioterrorism. Sam mixes aluminum and shellac into his bioweapons to increase their area of diffusion. This helps him increase the reactivity of the medium in which he is spreading anthrax, enabling his bioweapons to have greater effects (Bear 88-89). The application of shellac and rubber is not an exact parallel to the substances used to enhance anthrax in real life, but the concept of using extrinsic materials to boost the reactivity of bioweapons is a realistic process that Bear depicts the experimentality of perfectly. When executing his plan, Sam utilizes fireworks lined with anthrax to cover large areas and bring little attention to his machination. This usage is very experimental and requires a lot of attempts to perfect it due to its potential to backfire (Bear 213). Bear’s choice of making Sam employ fireworks as a means of spreading anthrax draws no parallels to any real acts of bioterrorism and is fully an act of experimentation. Bear examines this topic through a very experimental, yet scientifically backed lens that allows for the usage of bioweapons to

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After reading the Journals of both Robert Robe and Mary Stuart Bailey I have a better understanding of daily life, common struggles, and attitudes during the 1850’s while traveling westward. Robert Robe’s journal begins in May of 1851 and continues into June. Mary’s Journal starts April 13, 1852 with the last entry on November 8th. These journals clearly highlight the stresses that were developed during there travels. The traveler’s attitudes changed circumstantially as the uncertainty of their future unfolded, depending on the day they could be admiring god’s beauty, determined on surviving, or mourning the loss of their previous life, family, and home (Text 386, 387).

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When Jeannette was visiting her friend’s home in Battle Mountain, her friend “pointed toward a shiny gold contraption dangling from the ceiling, which she proudly identified as a Shell No-Pest Strip… I went home and told Mom we needed to get a No-Pest Strip like Carla’s family, but she refused. ‘If it kills the flies,’ she said ‘it can’t be very good for us”’ (64-65). Jeanette’s mother doesn’t want to buy the no pest strip because she wants to preserve nature which seems fine because the lizards will eat the flies, but by doing this she has caused her home to be infested with flies and lizards and decline the family’s living conditions severely. While the Walls home in Phoenix was infested with cockroaches and termites, Jeanette “suggested we buy roach spray, like all our neighbors did, but Mom was opposed to chemical warfare…

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“To Catch a Bombmaker” by Clay Dillow appeared in Popular Science in October 2015. Catching a Bombmaker does not come easy; you must have intelligence, surveillance, and knowledge behind the science of a bomb. In “To Catch a Bombmaker” these three things led to a terrorist being caught in the action. Mr. Dillow’s purpose for writing this piece is to inform. Dillow is very professional in his writing.

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In the journal article, Tim Gill wrote about the society and also about the safety of children playing outside affecting child’s growth. All the safety was design to prevent injuries and protect children but actually children are getting more fragile because of the overprotective adults. He even showed concrete evidence to support his statement. Playground becomes too safe that more broken limbs among children occur these days and they have more scars. In addition to restricted freedom, children change in attitude to take risk in society which means they are afraid to take any risk in what they are doing in real world.

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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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" The National World War I Museum and Memorial, https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/chemical-warfare. Accessed 30 Mar. 2023. "Weapons of World War I." History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2021, https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/weapons-of-world-war-i. Accessed 30 Mar. 2023.

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