I just finished watching the TV re-make of The Andromeda Strain, one of my favorite 70's SciFi cautionary tales. Suffice to say the original has nothing to worry about. The 1973 film was straightforward: meteor carrying extraterrestrial pathogen strikes satellite, satellite crashes to earth, pathogen wreaks havoc. Gold... sheer box office gold. If it 'aint broke broke, don't fix it, right? But no, the TV re-make had to throw in wormholes, Buckyballs, temporal parodoxes, and government conspiracies.However, one new twist on the original that I rather liked was the addition of an environmental angle. Turns out the 2008 version of Andromeda has an unusual Achilles Heel. It can only be neutralized by exposure to metabolic chemicals produced by the microbe Bacillus infernus (in photomicrograph at top of post). It just so happens that B. infernus is a thermophile (a type of extremophile) Archaean found associated with active seafloor vent systems at depths of 2,700 meters.
In a timely art imitates life moment, a fictional seafloor mining corporation is preparing to ravage seafloor vent systems for a wealth of poly-metallic ore. So far, so good. But hold on, here's where it gets complicated. Sometime in the future, after seafloor vent systems and their associated Bacillus infernus colonies have been wiped-out, Andromeda pays a visit to this future Earth and presumably wipes out humanity. But not before future researchers can manipulate a wormhole and send an Andromeda sample and a coded warning back in time to a point just before deep sea vent systems are stripped bare. Still with me?Save the vents, save the world.
So in a preemptive effort to save the world, I'm proposing the following to Nautilus Minerals. In the off-chance that some extraterrestrial pathogen is hurtling to Earth at this very moment, perhaps you should hold-off on strip mining the seafloor off Papua New Guinea. We might need those B. infernus real soon. Heck, why focus on doomsday scenarios. Maybe there's some other organism down there with the potential to cure cancer, or stamp-out HIV, or even grow me a full head of hair? I'm willing to wait and see.
You can thank me later for the foresight.
