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From: jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Andromeda Strain question
Message-ID: <16173@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Aug-85 11:37:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.16173
Posted: Wed Aug 14 11:37:10 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 21-Aug-85 05:47:22 EDT
References: <207@proper.UUCP>
Reply-To: jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner)
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 22

In article <207@proper.UUCP> judith@proper.UUCP (judith) writes:
>I haven't seen _The_Andromeda_Strain_ in a few years, but I began to wonder
>about this recently.  As the scientists who are to investigate the bug are
>taken deeper and deeper into the lab complex, they are progressively cleaned,
>shaven, disinfected, weaned from real food, etc. etc. etc., so they will be
>REALLY clean when they get to the lowest level.
>
>What for?
>
>They never interact with anything important except through waldos and other
>interfaces built to eliminate contact, so what's the difference?

The part of the installation outside the isolation chamber has neato
detectors that shoot off alarms if they find any micro-organisms in
the air.  This is a reasonable precaution, considering that the
micro-organisms may be nasty.  To avoid false alarms, all benign
micro-organisms were removed from all personnel going to that level.

(Since any alarm started the countdown on a nuke, they were justifiably
concerned about avoiding false ones.)

				Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo