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This article barely scratches the surface of the problem. What is stopping someone from gene splicing the disease of choice onto heat-loving bacterium? Something that can live near the 600°F of melting lead will certainly survive the standard hospital-sterilization process.

D.J. Kava
Beaumont, Texas

The statement “2 tons of ore from ocean sites should yield as much copper as 80 million tons of material mined on land” can’t be correct. That’s 40 million to 1. No one mines that kind of ore.

Terrence Kerwin
Silverton, Colo.

The statement should have been that 2 million tons of ocean ore would yield that much copper. —J. Raloff