(contains spoilers for the movie!!)
“No Time To Die”, the latest installment in the infamous James Bond series, showcases the power and danger of biological weapons when acquired by the wrong hands. In the movie, a deadly and illegal biological weapon known as ‘Project Heracles'--developed by scientist Valdo Obruchev--gets stolen from a lab. The antagonist, Lyutsifer Safin, proposes to use the weapon to harm leaders and government officials. This weapon utilizes microscopic nanobots that can instantly kill specific individuals by obtaining their DNA profiles. Furthermore, these nanobots continue to replicate and transfer from one person to another until it reaches their intended target through physical touch. Once someone gets exposed to these nanobots, the effects are irreversible since it remains in their bloodstream. However, a person will not be affected if their DNA profile is not recorded in the weapon.
In science fiction movies, scientists are typically portrayed as mad individuals with cutting-edge bioweapons, utilized by the antagonist to endanger the world. From the name itself, bioweapons are warfare agents that produce disease-causing organisms to deliberately harm humans, animals, and plants. This involves the use of microorganisms such as viruses and other toxic materials. Biological agents have been the cause for illness and death for thousands of years, with them appearing naturally as a plague or utilized as a weapon. For example, the Black Death that spread through migration killed millions of people in Europe. Other than that, The United States used a defoliant and herbicide chemical known as “Agent Orange” to eliminate trees and crops to reduce hiding spots for the Vietnamese. Unfortunately, this extremely harmful chemical is responsible for the drastic increase of health issues of many innocent lives such as miscarriage, cancer, birth defects, and more. Hence, bioweapons, as portrayed in science fiction movies, can be damaging but achievable in the real world.
As time passed, so did the world’s understanding and knowledge about microorganisms grew. To illustrate, anthrax, a man-made infectious disease was known to cause death to livestock and humans in 1979. Then in 2002, scientists developed an anthrax strain more resistant to antibiotics and vaccines. Therefore, this case proved how the advancement of the scientific world poses a potential danger to living things and the environment if the knowledge is used irresponsibly or for bad intentions. Following World War I, World War II, and the Cold War, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) banned the usage of biological weapons in a treaty signed in 1975. Nonetheless, there are rumors that some countries such as Russia, China, and North Korea, continue to produce advanced chemicals and bioweapons.
All in all, biological weapons are one of the most powerful yet fatal weapons since it involves altering microorganisms. Although a bioweapon similar to the movie “No Time To Die” does not exist, it is not exactly impossible to create. Thus, bioweapons are to be used with great responsibility as their consequence can bring great harm.
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