Exploding Shrapnel Beepocalypse

Popular mechanics this month paints a dim picture of our collective future. First, the honeybees of North America are dying, and this could set the apocalypse in motion, as food shortages follow:

Since last fall, the strange phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has killed off a quarter of America’s honeybee population, and threatened 25 percent of our food supply. (A wide variety of crops rely on pollination.) This past spring, a nationwide effort by top DNA scientists determined that CCD is probably caused by a number of factors, including multiple bee-killing viruses. But identifying specific viruses with DNA sequencing is a slow, painstaking process.

When the apocalypse comes, it will be time to fight over food. The long postponed war of all against all will have a chance to break out proper. Popular mechanics gives us a preview of what weapons we will be using to kill each other, and the latest development is: Reactive Materials. Reactive materials means basically explosive shrapnel:

When most bombs go off, they release a spray of deadly shards of steel. Now, imagine that those shards were themselves explosive, detonating in a massive chain reaction. It’s for real: Defense contractors are harnessing the strange alchemy of reactive materials (RMs) — in which two or more inert materials are mixed to create an explosion — to develop smaller, more lethal warheads, as well as new ways to protect troops against mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades.

The advantage of these new weapons lies in their ability to penetrate and neutralize short-range weapons: mortars, RPGs, and missiles.

Fragments of reactive materials provide an additional threat-neutralization mechanism. Whereas inert fragments must perforate the threat’s warhead with a substantial residual velocity to insure neutralization (detonation or deflagration of its explosive), a reactive fragment needs only to reach that explosive, in which it initiates a reaction by means of its great thermochemical energy (heat). Reactive fragments can thus be smaller and more numerous, which increases the probability of hitting the threat, and need to be projected only with enough velocity to perforate the threat’s casing, which reduces the amount of explosive that must be carried by the APS.

It’s a stinking, carnage filled bee-less wasteland which awaits us in future times.

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Links:

Approaching Beepocalypse
How our governments will put down insurgency if Beepocalypse occurs
How our governments will be armed in the event of a Beepocalypse

Posted by Potential Frolic on Friday, July 27, 2007 at 12:59 PM in
Comments (4) | Tell a friend

Comments:

Posted by Robert ap Richard on July 30, 2007, 01:31 PM | #

Your URL’s are invalids.

Posted by PF on July 30, 2007, 05:55 PM | #

Thanks for the info, Richard! Links are working now.

Posted by James Bowery on July 31, 2007, 01:08 PM | #

So far, I haven’t located any prevalence or incidence data by geography so the normal first-order epidemiology, ecological correlation, appears to me impossible to run. There are only existence (1 or 0) data by-State and it is merely whether CCD has been reported or not.

Posted by James Bowery on July 31, 2007, 01:11 PM | #

One of the more interesting angles on CCD that I haven’t seen written much about is the potential for ecological warfare targeting bees.

I’ve written previously about the potential for warfare targeting food supplies resulting in a collapse of the hives known as cities, but the bee angle is an interesting one.

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