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Published online 29 September 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.1137
News: Briefing
Silicon highlights remaining questions over anthrax investigation
Did Bruce Ivins weaponize deadly spores?
Nearly two months after the suicide of scientist Bruce Ivins — whom the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) claims was solely responsible for mailing a series of letters laced with anthrax in 2001 — questions still remain over whether he was actually able to produce those anthrax spores.
Scientists initially believed that the spores had been weaponized – modified to make them disperse more easily and penetrate tissue more deeply.
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Interested readers should study the contributions of Barbara Hatch Rosenberg (Sept. 9) and Serguei Popov (Sept. 24) at http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/. I find quite intriguing Rosenberg's reference in footnotes 21 and 22 of her analysis to U.S. Patent Application number 09/805,464 by Charles Bailey and Ken Alibek, March 14, 2001. The patent (#6,649,408) was issued on Nov. 18, 2003. Silica is mentioned repeatedly in the patent, and the instructions look very much like they could have been used by the preparer of the anthrax in the letters. Rosenberg suggests that the patent application was available to 100+ potential anthrax attack suspects well before the anthrax attacks, but it is not clear that the application was made public before the attacks started. See also the penultimate paragraph of www.scientiapress.com/findings/mailer.htm.
Actually, a more detailed document by Serguei Popov, as mentioned in the previous comment, can be found in the link marked "Here" on Sept. 19 at http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/.
Where did the information about Peter Jahrling seeing "black dots" come from? According to Richard Preston's book "The Demon In The Freezer," Peter Jahrling and Tom Geisbert saw "goop" oozing out of the spores they had killed with chemicals when they turned up the power on their TEM. Later, when they used an SEM to view spores killed with radiation, they saw only pure spores. AFIP verified NOTHING. AFIP tested a newly prepared sample of spores killed with radiation. Jahrling's beliefs about additives related to the "goop" he saw oozing from spores that had been hydrated with chemicals. Who says that "spores are sticky?" This appears to be "junk science." Spores are covered with non-polar proteins. Silica is added to keep MOISTURE from causing the spores to clump. What property does a dormant spore have that allows it to find and join with other spores? It is total nonsense to believe that spores clump in nature. Spores are found IN clumps of dirt, vegetation and animal products. They do NOT clump all by themselves in nature. That is just plain preposterous. There is a huge misundertanding about van der Waals forces between spores. There is absolutely NO reason to believe that it is a significant force. This bizarre belief results from a misunderstanding of why spores weaponized at Dugway Proving Grounds were coated with silica. It had NOTHING to do with van der Waals forces. It happens because the spores are MILLED, and milling generates static electricity. Silica is at one end of the Triboelectric series and spores are at the other end. Therefore, silica will cling to spores due to static electricity, NOT due to van der Waals forces. The claim that silica is GLUED to spores to defeat van der Waals forces is JUNK SCIENCE of the junkiest kind. Ed Lake www.anthraxinvestigation.com
The belief that the anthrax spores sent to the two senators were coated with silica is simply a ridiculous conspiracy theory of the most absurd kind. It's based upon JUNK SCIENCE. It's based upon misunderstandings about van der Waals forces and it's also based upon the absolutely absurd belief that concentrations of ordinary anthrax spores could not have caused those 5 deaths back in 2001. The conspiracy theorists use what happens in nature to justify their beliefs, but CONCENTRATED SPORE POWDERS DO NOT HAPPEN IN NATURE.
Mr. Dillon, One inventor of the patent you mention is the former deputy USAMRIID commander. The other is leading anthrax scientist Ken Alibek. They were working on the largest biodefense contract in history -- it was a DARPA-funded contract with USAMRIID and involved the Ames strain. A related patent was by the former deputy commander and a scientist who inherited Ali Al-Timimi's telephone number. The know-how of the second patent, I am told, is Dr. Alibek's, although his name does not appear on this related patent. Ali Al-Timimi's office was 15 feet from this leading anthrax scientist and the former USAMRIID deputy commander. He had a high security clearance while at the contractor SRA in 1999 with Dr. Bailey. His lawyer in a court filing says he is an "anthrax weapons suspect." Perhaps he came to be an anthrax weapons suspect because, his lawyer says, he was coordinating with the "911 imam" and Bin Laden's sheik -- and because of this Silicon Signature you discuss. The FBI WMD head said at the scientific briefing the silicon dioxide could have been in the culture medium. These patents suggest the FBI's WMD head is right. Note the related patent's discussion of van der waals forces. (Mr. Lake is not a scientist). http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2006/0273187.html Cell Culture Document Type and Number: United States Patent 20060273187 Kind Code: A1 Abstract: The invention involves developing and stabilizing cultivating droplets within a matrix of a porous medium. A cultivation medium may be selected, prepared and mixed with a surfactant. Where cells are desired to be cultured in droplets, cells may be added. The mixture may be converted into cultivating droplets. The cultivating droplets may be stabilized by introducing them to a porous medium. The porous medium may contain hydrophobic particles. Stabilized, cultivating droplets having one or more cells may form an aseptic microenvironment for the concentrated growth of cells. *** The porous medium may include hydrophobic particles (sometimes be referred to as hydrophobic beads or beads). In an embodiment, the porous medium is a hydrophobic powder. Hydrophobic particles may help protect the inoculated mixture from contamination, as well as water penetration from neighboring cultivatable droplets. An example of hydrophobic particles includes silanized silicon dioxide. *** One particular example of hydrophobic particles is the series of silanized Aerosil particles produced by DeGussa AG of Dusseldorf, Germany. These include, but are not limited to, Aerosil® R 104, Aerosil® R 106, Aerosil® R 202, Aerosil® R 805, Aerosil® R 812, Aerosil® R 812.S, Aerosil® R 972, Aerosil® R 974 and Aerosil® R 8200. By themselves, Aerosil particles are generally hydrophilic (like sand). However, Aerosil particles can become water repellent, and hence suitable for stabilizing cultivatable droplets, after being treated via silanization. *** Generally, hydrophobic particles are held on the surface of water with weak Van der Waal's forces. It is well known in the art that the interface between a hydrophobic particle and water surface can be substantially stabilized in the presence of surfactants in a solution.