Armageddon Science (30 page)

Information on the spread of the ARPANET worm is from Charles Schmidt and Tom Darby,
The What, Why, and How of the 1988 Internet Worm
,
http://snowplow.org/tom/worm/worm.html
.

Information on the etymology and first uses of “cybernetics” is from the
Oxford English Dictionary
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).

The small-scale examples of cyberterrorism are taken from Dan Verton,
Black Ice: The Invisible Threat of Cyber-terrorism
(Emeryville, California: McGraw-Hill, 2003).

The research showing how failure of a subnetwork with a low load could be better at taking out the U.S. West Coast grid than failure of a subnetwork with a high load is at Jian-Wei Wang and Li-Li Rong,
Cascade-Based Attack Vulnerability of the US Power Grid,
Safety Science, 47, 1332, 2009.

Ian Fells’s comment about using Semtex near a power station is from Paul Marks, “How to Short-Circuit the American Power Grid,”
New Scientist,
September 12, 2009.

The 1997 cyberattack exercise is described in Dan Verton,
Black Ice: The Invisible Threat of Cyber-terrorism
(Emeryville, California: McGraw-Hill, 2003).

The July 2009 cyberattack on U.S. computers is described on the BBC Web site at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8139821.stm
.

The number of serious cyberattacks on energy companies and the suggestion that many are organized from the Middle East features in Dan Verton,
Black Ice: The Invisible Threat of Cyber-terrorism
(Emeryville: McGraw-Hill, 2003).

The threat from access to wireless networks, such as the American Airlines curbside check-in, is described in Dan Verton,
Black Ice: The Invisible Threat of Cyber-terrorism
(Emeryville, California: McGraw-Hill, 2003).

Chapter 8

No Longer Human

The assertion that the urge to enhance ourselves is part of what makes us human is from Brian Clegg,
Upgrade Me
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008).

Road traffic accident mortality rates from
Wolfram Alpha,
www.wolframalpha.com.

Ray Kurzweil predicts the coming of the Singularity, merging human and technology to produce a new form of life, in Ray Kurzweil,
The Singularity Is Near
(London: Duckworth, 2005).

The prediction of posthuman evolution via robots from BT’s labs is from Ian Pearson, Chris Winter, and Peter Cochrane,
The Future Evolution of Man
(Ipswich, UK: BT Labs, 1995).

Information on Neanderthal man is from Clive Finlayson,
The Humans Who Went Extinct
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

Damien Broderick’s example of the growth curve of speed of transport is cited in Bill McKibben,
Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age
(New York: Henry Holt, 2003).

Chapter 9

Future Fears and Natural Pitfalls

John Michell’s early ideas on earthquakes are described in Florin Diacu,
Megadisasters
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

The use of muons to probe the interior of Japanese volcanoes is described in “Cosmic Rays Reveal Volcano’s Guts,”
New Scientist,
October 3, 2009.

Information on the Yellowstone supervolcano is from Bill Bryson,
A Short History of Nearly Everything
(New York: Broadway Books, 2003).

Details of Archimedes’ weapons are from Brian Clegg,
Light Years
(London: Macmillan, 2007).

Bulwer-Lytton’s vril is described in P. D. Smith,
Doomsday Men
(London: Penguin Books, 2007).

For more on the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest see
www.bulwer-lytton.com/
.

Enrico Fermi’s wondering where the aliens were is described in Marcus Chown,
We Need to Talk About Kelvin
(London: Faber & Faber, 2009).

Ice Nine appears in Kurt Vonnegut,
Cat’s Cradle
(London: Penguin, 1965).

The impact of the rising of the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau is described in Clive Finlayson,
The Humans Who Went Extinct
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

The most recent glacial period and the move into an interglacial one, with their impact on humanity, are described in Steven Mithen,
After the Ice
(London: Phoenix, 2004).

Chapter 10

Cautious Optimism

Eve’s taking the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is from the New English Bible (London: Oxford and Cambridge University Presses, 1970).

Information on the autistic spectrum, the extreme male brain, and its frequency of occurrence in the sciences is from Simon Baron-Cohen,
The Essential Difference
(London: Penguin, 2004).

Lisa Jardine’s comments on the lack of competence of the ruling classes to make decisions about science and technology are from her C. P. Snow Lecture, delivered at Christ’s College, Cambridge, England, on October 14, 2009.

The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

A. M. Turing’s Ace Report of 1946 and Other Papers
(ed. Carpenter/Doran)

Abelson, Philip

Acheson, Dean

Acheson-Lilienthal report

Adam and the tree in the garden of Eden

aerosols (particles in the air)

AIDS

as potential weapon

airports

radiation detection devices and

wireless systems, vulnerability of

al Qaeda

Algerian army, gas warfare and

Alibek, Ken

alien invasion

Alley, Richard

alpha particle

Alvarez, Luis

Amazon rain forest

decline of

and positive feedback

American Airlines

wireless systems, vulnerability of

American Petroleum Institute global warming, campaign to dismiss

American Physical Society

americium

Anderson, Carl D.

Angels and Demons
(Brown)

and antimatter

FACT section

anthrax

development as a weapon

effect of

postal attacks following 9/11

antihydrogen

antimatter

big bang and

cyclotron (small particle accelerator)

as energy

from natural sources

PET (positron-emission tomography) scanner

storage of

antimatter containers (traps)

antimatter weapon

Antiproton Decelerator

antiquark

antispyware

antivirus

Arabs and Greek philosophers

Archimedes

Ariel (fictional character)

ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency)

ARPANET

Robert Morris’s worm

See also
Internet

artificial intelligence

artificially upgraded humans

artificial intelligence

Homo hybridus

robotic development

Singularity

See also
human beings

Aryan Nations

Asimov, Isaac

Asperger, Hans

Asperger’s syndrome

asteroid collisions

Cambrian/Ordivician event

Devonian event

iridium and

K/Pg (Cretaceous-Paleogene event)

K/T (Cretaceous-Tertiary event)

nuclear weapons, using against

Ordovician/Silurian event

Permian/Triassic event

Triassic/Jurassic event

Tunguska (Siberia) event

atomic bomb.
See under
nuclear weapons

atomic energy.
See
nuclear reactor

Atomic Energy Act

atomic pile.
See
nuclear reactor

atomic weapons.
See
nuclear weapons

atoms

concept of

proof of existence

atoms (manipulating)

and computer chips

and electronic devices

at the molecular level

problems producing new objects

Attlee, Clement

Aum Shinrikyo

Australian bush

and positive feedback

autistic spectrum

Back to the Future
(film series)

Bacon, Roger

and the talking brass head

Bangladesh (East Pakistan)

cyclone deaths

Baron-Cohen, Simon

Baruch, Bernard

Basov, Nikolay

Beijing Olympics

NEST and

Beria, Lavrenty

Berkeley Radiation Laboratory

berkelium

Berners-Lee, Sir Tim

beryllium

beta decay

Bethe, Hans

Bhopal (India) disaster

big bangand

antimatter

energies in

as a theory

See also
particle physics

Bikini Atoll test

fallout from

radiation poisoning

Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention

biological weapons

anthrax

anthrax, postal attacks with following 9/11

Canada and

delivery, problem of

diseased corpses

history of

international conventions and inspections

Japan and

kinds of agents

manufacture and acquiring, ease of

potential death from

smallpox-riddled blankets

spread of diseases, difficulty of controlling

terrorists and

testing in the population

United Kingdom and

United States and

USSA and

Western countries and

See also
chemical weapons; infections; terrorism

Biopreparat

Black Death

death from

Feodosia (Ukraine) siege

black holes

event horizon

gravitational fores

Hawking radiation

Large Hadron Collider and

particle-sized

as a theoretical construct

Bock’s Car
(B-29)

Nagasaki bombing

Boden, Vitek

Bohr, Niels

border crossings

radiation detection devices and

Borg aliens (fictional characters)

Boxer, Barbara

Brasenose Collage (Oxford)

and the talking brass head

Broderick, Damien

Brown, Dan

Brown, Doc (fictional character)

Brown, Robert

BT (British telecommunications company)

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward

C-bomb (cobalt bomb)

fallout from

Caldeira, Ken

californium

Cambrian/Ordivician event

Canada

and biological weapons

Canadian forests

and positive feedback

carbon capture

zeolitic imidazolate frameworks

carbon dioxide (CO
₂
)

Industrial Revolution and

livestock and

as a nanoparticle

oceans, absorbed by

recycling

Carpenter, B. E.

Carteret Islands

abandonment of

Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, Ohio)

Casimir effect

Cavendish Laboratory (Cambridge, England)

cell phones

Commwarrior (worm)

viruses, trojans, and worms

chain reaction

Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan

chemical weapons

international conventions and inspections

nerve gases

terrorists and

World War I, gas warfare in

World War II, gas usage in

See also
biological weapons; gas warfare; nerve gases; terrorism

Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997

Chernobyl accident

commercial impact of

death from

environmental impact of

Chicago

heat wave, casualties from

child mortality

China

economic growth

global warming and

and nuclear weapons

SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak

water supply

China Syndrome

chlorine gas

effects of

Christiansen, Bob

Churchill, Winston

and gas warfare

and the “iron curtain,”

cities, sea-level rises and

Clarke, Arthur C.

climate change (global warming)

aerosols and

agriculture, major changes in

carbon capture

carbon dioxide (CO
₂
) and

coniferous forests, decline of

conservatives and

droughts

food, access to

greenhouse effect

greenhouse effect and positive feedback

ice, disappearance of

impacting with changes

long-term investments and

methane output, livestock and

as a mistaken theory

normal services, disruption of

ocean, seeding with iron filings

ocean conveyor system, collapse of

oil companies and

organized resistance to

power, price of

power outages

skeptics and deniers

sea-level rises

sea-level rises, and storm surges

Siberian permafrost, melting of

solar shield and

UN and

and urban heat waves

water shortages

and the weather

wildfires

clouds, and the climate

cobalt 60

and the Korean war

Cochrane, Peter

Cockroft, John

cold war

and the arms race

the iron curtain

Coming Race, The
(Bulwer-Lytton)

Committee on the Medical

Preparedness for a Terrorist

Nuclear Event

computer chips

Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

computers

antivirus, firewalls, and antispyware

viruses, trojans, and worms

Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures

coniferous forests, decline of

Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN)

and antimatter

Antiproton Decelerator

Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

See also
particle physics

cosmic rays

antimatter emissions from impact of

Crichton, Michael

Cuban missile crisis

Curie, Marie

Curie, Pierre

cyberterrorism

and addressing computers

denial-of-service attacks

microchips, sabotaging

viruses, trojans, and worms

wireless connections, vulnerability of

cyclones

death and destruction from

See also
hurricanes

cyclotron (small particle accelerator)

Da Vinci Code, The
(Brown)

Dalian University (Liaoning, China)

Dalton, John

DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)

Day After Tomorrow, The
(film)

death camps

cyanide gas and

death ray

Dehmelt, Hans

Democritus

Denver

background radiation level

Department of Homeland Security radiation detection devices, installation of

deuterium

Devonian event

Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)

dinosaurs

extinction of

dirty bombs

disaster movies, popularity of

diseased corpses as

biological weapons

ease of acquiring

Donne, John

doomsday weapon.
See
C-bomb Doran, R. W.

Dresden

firebombing raids on

Drexler, K. Eric

droughts

See also
water shortages

e-mail

viruses, trojans, and worms

E = mc
²

nucleus, splitting of

Earth

escaping from

size relative to the Sun

earthquakes

asteroid collisions and

death from

predicting

Ebola fever

development as a weapon

Edwards, Bradley

Edwards, Kenneth

Einstein, Albert

appearance

and atoms

E = mc
²

general theory of relativity

and nuclear fission

and stimulated emission

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

electromagnetism

and attempts to separate uranium 235

electrons

Elugelab (Eniwetok Atoll) test

Empedocles

Engines of Creation
(Drexler)

Enigma cipher machines, breaking

Enola Gay
(B-29 bomber Victor 82)

Hiroshima bombing

environmental-modification techniques

UN ban on

Eocene epoch

carbon dioxide levels