How long will it be (if ever) before a typical bio-science Ph.D will have the capacity to kill, say,a million people?
How hard is it to get one's hands on some of the select agents?
The second one on the list can be created accidentally in the kitchen, using ingredients already present in most kitchens. I'm not sure if there is a safeguard against slipping it into some portion of the food pipeline, such that it struck as many as a million prior to a recall being issued.
A Ph.D student in neuroscience shot at least 50 people at a showing of the new Batman movie. He also appears to have released some kind of gas from a canister. Because of his educational background this person almost certainly knows a lot about molecular biology. How long will it be (if ever) before a typical bio-science Ph.D will have the capacity to kill, say,a million people?
Edit: I'm not claiming that this event should cause a fully informed person to update on anything. Rather I was hoping that readers of this blog with strong life-science backgrounds could provide information that would help me and other interested readers assess the probability of future risks. Since this blog often deals with catastrophic risks and the social harms of irrationality and given that the events I described will likely dominate the U.S. news media for a few days I thought my question worth asking. Given the post's Karma rating (currently -4), however, I will update my beliefs about what constitutes an appropriate discussion post.