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But this worm, the third worm, burrowed from Paul Moffat’s digestive tract up into the largest vein in the body, the vein responsible for carrying life-giving oxygen to the rest of the organism.
The descending aorta is not a vein -- it is an artery.
“We already knew there was human DNA in the tapeworms.” “Yes, but it was a small enough amount that it should still have been possible to use most common antiparasitics without killing the human host.”
This makes no sense. Why would using an antiparasitic to kill the worm have more effect on the host if the worm has more human DNA? Antiparasitics, by definition, have little effect on human-encoded targets.
“Ten percent human DNA,” said Dr. Cale grimly. “That’s an apocalypse number.”
History is the ultimate thesis review board, and unlike the board that reviewed my thesis, history doesn’t take bribes.
So Shanti Cale bribed her thesis committee? Why? She couldn't get a thesis legitimately? Why not? She's obviously smart enough. Does Seanan McGuire think that bribing of thesis committees is common? I've served on dozens, and it never happened, or even was hinted at.
The science was all gibberish delivered by people wearing white coats and serious expressions;
"people wearing white coats and serious expressions" -- these are not real scientists. These are the way actors playing scientists in TV commercials look.
–SHERMAN LEWIS
your body is hermaphroditic, and every egg it generates will be a tiny, perfect clone of you, Sal.
No. Hermaphrodities don't reproduce clonally.
The big question of the hour is pretty obvious: it’s the question we’ve been asking every scientist from Galileo to Oppenheimer, from Frankenstein to Moreau. Do I feel like we at SymboGen are trying to play God?
Umm, no. People don't (or shouldn't) ask of EVERY SCIENTIST if they're tryign to play God. Some, yes. But "Are you trying to play God?" is the question we ask of physicians.
Dr. Banks and his team could have learned a lot from watching The Secret of NIMH a few times. Maybe it would have convinced them that modifying the genetic code of living organisms wasn’t as much fun as they thought it was.
And it doesn’t matter, because I’ll always know that he couldn’t have done any of this without me. He had the science. He had the ambition. What he lacked was… well, for lack of a better word, what he lacked was poetry. He could make the genes move. He couldn’t make them sing.
I let myself drift, wondering only abstractly how I could remember something that had happened before I had a mind to remember with. You always had a mind, I scolded myself. You didn’t think like a human, but you thought. Beverly thinks. Minnie thinks. Everything with a brain can think. You just had smaller thoughts.
the pound and a half of tapeworm that was wedged tight into Sally Mitchell’s skull,
That's an awful lot to fit in a skull along with a brain.
You think you’re stronger than us because nature made you that way. Science made us. Which do you think is going to win? –SAL MITCHELL
Instead, an observer would find Dr. Cale’s assistants moving between the machines, most of them wearing T-shirts or tank tops and jeans, a few with dirty white lab coats thrown over the top, as if to say, “I’m working in an indoor farm, but I’m still a scientist; I will always be a scientist.” The number of lab coats had dwindled even in the weeks since I’d come to the factory, as people realized that maybe some trappings of the old world were less important to hang on to than others.
What's this with the lab coats? Scientists don't care about lab coats anywhere near as much as nonscientists apparently think they do.
When he needed help, he’d gone looking for the smartest, most ethically flexible genetic engineer he knew: Dr. Surrey Blackburn-Kim, Nathan’s mother. Dr. Kim had known that this path would lead them through the broken doors at last, and she’d tried to refuse—not too hard, I was sure; she’d been the same person then, even if she’d gone by a different name—and when Dr. Banks had produced information that he could use to force her to work on his project, she’d agreed, on one condition. Dr. Kim had to die.
That’s the danger of genius. One way or another, it’s going to destroy the world.
I have what I always said I wanted: a problem too big to be solved in a single lifetime, a lab full of people to help me solve it, and no oversight of any kind. Why do I feel like I’ve lost?
Three more stopped, and four more were barricaded. It was like a strange and potentially fatal math problem: if yelling at the onrushing cannibal zombies makes them stop moving, but it only works for X percent, how many times will you need to yell before safety is assured? Show your work, and don’t get eaten.
“I know what it’s like to pursue your funding, Dr. Banks. I was just a kid when Mom was really dealing with the hard-core academia, but I’ll never forget the way she promised those men the moon and the stars if they’d just put their money in her hands, rather than in the hands of her competitors.
No, this is not at ALL what it's like to pursue academic funding.
