On Tue, 22 Feb 2000, Amanda Lowery wrote:

> ...we eventually get around to building a research vessel to another
> planet, Mars for example, that can take soil samples and bring them back to
> Earth. 

We're doing this.  It's either on the way or in production, IIRC.

> But what we didn't take into account were the various previously
> benign viruses present on the equipment taken on the previous exploratory
> missions to Mars, which were released onto the planet and have been hanging
> around there in the radiation, mutating and growing more virulent, just
> waiting to be scooped up in a soil sample and returned to Earth.
> 
> So what then, huh?

Bad things.  Unspeakable things.  Ideally this would be a cocktail of
virii, at least some of which would be of the Change-You and not the
Make-You-Sick variety.  The changy ones get loose into the ecosphere and
mutate various animules and plants into Lovecraftian horrors complete with
psi powers.  Dogs and cats living together...

Jim

James S. Coleman Battista
Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Political Science, Duke University
james.battista@duke.edu      ICQ 754720        (919)967-9171
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Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?
Well, I think so, Brain, but "apply North Pole" to what?