The Zong

Scientific American reports that llama blood is a fantastic tool for detecting bioterror. I swear to Christ I’m not making it up. Check this shit out:

Llamas are not just for transportation anymore. It turns out that the animals’ blood could be useful for detecting all sorts of maladies in the surrounding environment–from deadly pathogens to industrial emissions. A research effort has done just that, manipulating a rare type of antibody found in llamas to make an inexpensive and diverse biosensor.

Now, this might come as unwelcome news to you if you’re a llama. Who can read. And has internet access. Nevertheless, I’m envisioning an entire ridiculous army of llamas, coats dyed with the seal of the Department of Homeland Security, lined up on the borders of this great country, ready to detect threats from bioterrorism and industrial waste. Someone wake the President, goddammit! If this isn’t living in the future, then what the hell is?

Clement Furlong, a researcher in medical and genomic sciences at the University of Washington notes that the “huge advantage” of these heavy-chain-only antibodies “is that you can make them by fermentation in microbial systems and make a lot of antibodies inexpensively.” Then, he adds, “you have extremely inexpensive reagents, so you can then develop technologies for Third World countries as well as First World countries.”

Riiiight. Let me be at least the fifth person to ask, “What the fuck are you talking about, man?” We’re going to use llama blood to ferment special reagents to detect microbial terrorism plots? That is some serious next-level shit, and I’m excited to be a part of it.

All I’m saying is, if someone comes to me a few years from now and tells me that President Bush’s Secret Llama Blood Anti-Terrorism program saved the entire eastern seaboard from a smallpox attack, I’ll vote Republican for the rest of my life. And go to church. On Monday morning.

- M.G.