US plans to build a new all-singing, all-dancing dangerous-pathogens lab suffered a slight setback last week, with a report from the Government Accountability Office saying the risks of building a biosafety level-four facility on the mainland haven’t been adequately looked at.
But there is still no place for poor old Plum Island, New York, in government research plans. Plum Island currently hosts a relatively small bio-safety level three research facility. As the government wants a new, huge level four-rated set of labs, Plum Island is up for sale.
“My hope of hopes is that it continues to be used as a Biolevel-3 facility. It has all of the infrastructure to support research – perhaps we could get a university program over there,” local official Scott Russell said recently (Northfork.com). “But I can’t suggest that my idea is anything but a pipe dream.”
All this leads The Scientist to suggest that anyone looking for a nice property near the Hamptons should consider the island. One recent valuation puts the property’s worth at about $2 million.
But what else could you do with the site? The Great Beyond presents: 101 uses for a Plum Island.
OK, we didn’t quite come up with 101 uses. Any more suggestions welcome
1 Boutique hotel for vacationing biotechnologists
2 Secure prison for medical ghostwriters
3 Base for secret evil genius plotting world take over
4 Nuclear waste storage facility
5 Containment facility for government employees with swine flu
6 Giant money box for unspent science stimulus money
7 Solar panel facility covering whole island to kick start the rivalry with India’s new 250 gigawatt solar energy targets
8 Containment facility for all these primates that keep giving humans their diseases
9 Theme park recreation of Tracy Island, complete with slightly ghoulish life-sized Thunderbird puppets
10 A real-life MarioKart level for the kid who has everything
11 Jurassic Park style facility for new robo-dinos
12 Film set for upcoming US remake of Battle Royale
13 Venue for Big Brother, series 11
14 New Alcatraz for credit crunch bankers
15 Garden shed (for North Fork Hamptons mansion)
16 Goldman Sachs trader’s pocket money purchase/fourth home
17 Cold Spring Harbor Labs overflow conference accommodation
18 Toddler containment device
19 Site for future museum on Craig Venter and his synthetic life form
20 Organic plum farm
21 Public display facility for Obama’s birth certificate
22 Storage for unsold boxes of Windows Vista
23 Basis of gigantic new Transformer – Infectecon – for next Michael Bay movie
24 Set for next series of TV show Ninja Warrior: Ninja Warrior – Escape from Plum Island
25 Site of new stadium for the Mets
26 Safe haven for Nature blog editor being sought by enraged boss wanting to know why news team have spent whole day dreaming up 101 uses for Plum Island
Image: wikipedia