Andromeda strain

noun

Etymology

After The Andromeda Strain (1969), techno-thriller novel by Michael Crichton documenting the efforts of a team of scientists investigating the outbreak of a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism in Arizona.

Definitions

  1. Any microorganism whose release and spread could cause a public health catastrophe.

    • Trout are important to those of us who enjoy angling, but trout are unimportant if this Andromeda Strain of destruction without replacement—which began more than 200 years ago and burgeoned in the twentieth century—continues.
    • John Langone, a science writer for Discover magazine, characterizes the popular view of AIDS in 1985 as an “Andromeda strain with the transmission efficiency of the common cold.”

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for Andromeda strain. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA