Letters to the Editor
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Jonathan
My source for the National Enquirer was also Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attack (see the box on right side of the page)
I Googled (anthrax 2001) because I remembered only Daschle, CBS, and some tabloid in Florida. Which tabloid doesn't matter much to me; either way, I think it underscores the ridiculousness of claiming (as ABC News did) that Arabic-speaking Middle Eastern Islamic terrorists unfamiliar with U.S. culture could possibly have selected such "liberal" targets.
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WeikuBoy:
Nice post, I understood it and enjoyed it. I think it clearly underscored the point that we were misled about the nature of the bioterror attack, which ties in with GG's point for this article.
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Brian Ross gets just deserts
Alleged "D.C. Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey has given an exclusive interview to ABC News.
ABC News investigative correspondent Brian Ross recently interviewed Palfrey, who for over a decade operated what she terms an "erotic fantasy service" in the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area, for an upcoming investigative report on "20/20" and on "The Blotter" on ABC News.com.
From ABC's "The Blotter"
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/04/dc_madam_speaks.html
So he moves up in the world -- after doing his part with the leading DC whores, Ross gets to chat with their madam....
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False flag attacks a long track record
An old method used by many governments for the purpose of controlling the population into the desired direction the government wants the public to think.
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I may have your answer here...
First, it appears that the bentonite claim was shot down almost immediately by further "sources". The new story: the anthrax was weaponized with a coating of silica, which ALSO pointed toward Sadam. Here's the WaPo, from Oct 27, 2002:
Also early in the case, U.S. authorities dismissed the possibility that Iraq could have sponsored the attacks because investigators determined that the spores had been coated with silica to make them disperse quickly, rather than the mineral bentonite, regarded by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command as Iraq's additive of choice.
However, Iraq's alleged preference for bentonite appears to be based on a single sample of a common pesticide collected by U.N. authorities from Iraq's Al Hakam biological weapons facility in the mid-1990s. By contrast, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency warned in declassified documents as early as 1989 that Iraq was acquiring silica to use as a chemical weapons additive.
In 1998, Iraq reported to the United Nations that it had conducted an artillery test of a live biological agent that used silica as a dispersant. And U.N. and U.S. intelligence documents reviewed by The Post show that Iraq had bought all the essential equipment and ingredients needed to weaponize anthrax bacteria with silica to a grade consistent with the Daschle and Leahy letters.
(link here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28334-2002Oct27)
Note that Bentonite WAS used by Iraq - in ONE sample, and even then, not of Anthrax. And that's what they built the whole initial case (the Brian Williams report) around.
So this article was trying to recast the notion that silica coatings would still point the finger at Sadam. The problem: this was also bogus. Here's the summary by Ed Lake:
Here are the basic elements of the coating argument as I see them:
1. Professor Matthew Meselson of Harvard and former bioweaponeer Ken Alibek have both seen large, clear electron micrographs of the Daschle anthrax. They have reported that they saw NO coating on the spores.
2. There is virtually no way an experienced scientist can make a mistake and not notice coatings of fumed silica or a silica coating or glass particles or anything like that on a micrograph - particularly if they were specifically looking for such things - which Meselson and Alibek almost certainly were.
3. No one has ever said that they have seen coatings on the attack anthrax spores!
4. The Matsumoto article is not based upon anyone seeing coatings. It is based upon findings that the element silicon was found when the spores from the Daschle letter were examined with a spectragraph. A spectragraph does not produce images. It produces a graph that shows what basic elements are present in the substance. Silicon was detected in the Senate anthrax. No one argues that fact.
5. Gary Matsumoto and his prime collaborator Stuart Jacobsen believe that the spores were coated, and they produced the Science Magazine report based primarily upon interpretations of the X-ray spectra from electron probe X-ray microanalysis - and assuming that the presence of silicon means the presence of a coating - while ignoring the reports by people who actually saw the spores and saw no coatings.
6. They did not ask the key scientific question: How can a spectragraph detect silicon if there is no silicon-based material visible in the micrograph images? There are many possible explanations.
Link here: http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/coatings.html
Neat, eh? Silica was present, so they jumped to the conclusion that there was a silica coating - and ignored the actual reporting that THERE WAS NO COATING.
Deceptions on top of deceptions on top of ignorance on top of bad faith on top of dissembling. And Brian Williams, apparently, is proud to still be a part of it.
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Oops...
My bad - it's late.
Make that Brian Ross, of course, not Brian Williams...
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@batman_valentino
First, if you have created membrane proteins, you are a seasoned professional, not an amateur as implied by much of the FBI material. Also, membrane proteins, presumably for medical research do not require biosecurity level (BSL) 3 or 4 level containment. Unless you are trained and supported in an advanced BSL laboratory, a small mistake will kill you when working with this (Ames) strain of anthrax.
BSL requirements can be found at
http://bmbl.od.nih.gov/sect3bsl3.htm and http://www.niehs.nih.gov/odhsb/biosafe/bsc/bsc.htm
Basically, a small BSL 3 workspace could probably be created in a suburban garage. I haven't done any BSL 3 or 4 work, but I have worked with radionucleotides and with air/water sensitive compounds at different times. Working with dangerous and/or sensitive materials requries steady nerves and steady hands, but many little tricks transfer well from one project to another. You don't need BSL 3 experience to avoid anthrax contamination. You do need to know how to handle dangerous materials and how to decontaminate carefully and thoroughly. Someone with the nerve to send an anthrax-laden letter through the us mail, probably enjoys that sort of work.
So how much membrane protein are you producing? More than a few milligrams in the purified state would probably mean you are commerial scale, not research lab scale.
30mg, purified GPCR. In a research lab. aim: Structural biology.
The grad student who did the work came from the bio-tech industry in India. He had some different ways of thinking that proved to be very effective.
Bioreactors in particular are not usually run by the head of the lab. The day to day work will be done by a graduate student or lab technician. The technology is changing rapidly, and there are many people who have training, not necessarily in places you would expect them to be. Personally, I'm now doing bio-informatics work from home, which is why I get to lurk here so frequently. Nor am I particularly unusual. My local butcher in Amsterdam was a Moroccan trained as a biologist. Of the ten people I did my graduate training with, 3 are no longer doing science. Many many people with advanced training fall through the cracks one way or another. If a few of them were particularly disaffected, got together, and were aided by an effective enabler, some technically impossible things could become possible.
Sorry about the delay in responding. It was kind of late GMT.