Zenna is a major protagonist in the novel. She's introduced early on, in a near-future world, living in a Citiburb with self-driving vehicle and cool holo-gloves that melt onto her hands. She's a leading microbiologist, who bioengineered microbes for cloud seeding. Here I describe her work, a key in the plot that develops. (Side-note: the past tense doesn't quite feel right here, but it is consistent with the rest of the novel. Re-thinking my tense throughout.)
Question: is this too much hard science? Will most readers skip over this stuff? Can I pull it off?
(By the way, I didn't make this stuff up, its based on real science! Wikipedia describes bioprecipitation and Ice-minus Bacteria.)
It is interesting to me, but maybe slows the story line surrounding it. I'm contemplating having someone else describe Zenna's relevant work with cloud seeding bacteria and mention her name, rather than including it in the chapter that introduces this character.
"Zenna was a microbiologist, specializing in bioengineering of microbes for various industrial purposes, including weather manipulation. She had done some ground-breaking work to bio-engineer Pseudomonas Antarctica IN-74, a hardy variety of bacteria found extensively in Antarctica. It has superb ice-nucleating properties, ideal for snow creation at temperatures higher than would normally support it. The ski resorts bought tons of it, allowing them to extend the season a month on each end. Then the weather providers wanted to get their hands on it, but due to climate regulations for weather modification couldn’t use it."
"Business being business, a compromise was finally reached. If they could make the bacteria self-destruct before it could replicate, anti-GMO fanatics would be calmed. And if the bacteria could also photosynthesize, then the global warming folks would also be happy."
"Meeting the secondary requirements changed the whole game, but Zenna managed to isolate the ice-nucleating properties from the IN-74 bacteria and inject the critical properties for ice formation into already genetically modified photosynthetic Cyanobacteria which naturally input carbon dioxide and output oxygen."
"These photosynthesizing Cyanobacteria were then modified by injection with an 'enemy bacteria' – bacteriophages - that expand as the bacteria gobbles up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere until they burst like a water balloon in approximately 8-12 hours. This served three purposes: first, it would release the ice nucleating artifacts; second, it would prevent the bacteria from reproducing; and third, the bacteria are destroyed, therefore posing no threat to the earth as they fall to the ground inside the snow or rain.That project was a true masterpiece and those bacteria are now utilized all over the world, probably a key reason that weather service providers have been able to expand their business so rapidly."
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