In October 2001, a quiet panic gripped the United States. Letters laced with anthrax spores began arriving at newsrooms and government offices, killing five and exposing thousands. Though the attacks were delivered through envelopes ' not dispersed through the air ' they exposed how everyday systems, like mail delivery, could become vectors for bioterrorism. In the aftermath, the U.S. government launched BioWatch: an ambitious early-warning system meant to detect airborne biological threats in public spaces. Air-sampling units designed to collect and analyze air for traces of deadly pathogens like anthrax or smallpox were installed in more than 30 major cities. But the technology had a critical limitation. Samples first had to be collected on filters and then transported to laboratories for analysis ' a process that took up to 36 hours. This approach could only catch an attack after the fact; it was too slow to prevent initial exposure or halt early transmission. Since 2001, we've...
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