Replies

I thank you for your take on it. But if you could, I’d ask you ask Dr. Richard Spertzel, given that we both credit his expertise in microbiology. I would but don’t know his email.

As for whether Ken has ever actually put it into practice, I’ve asked Debra to seek his insights and provide his input. Of course, his contribution would be highly authoritative.

As for the FBI’s Amerithrax investigation, my sense is that the investigation has been conducted very professionally since they plugged the leaks relating to the one squad’s interest in Dr. Hatfill. That was years ago and so it appears Mueller’s admonitions upon his upset over the leak concerning silica to the journalist of our acquaintance were effective.

As for the story on Amerithrax that did appear, the Washington Post, in an article “Hardball Tactics in an Era of Threats,” dated September 3, 2006 summarized events relating Ali Al-Timimi:

“To the government, they were a terrorist risk in the Washington area. To local Muslims, they were unfairly singled out for prosecution and severe sentences in a post-9/11 world.

‘In late 2002, the FBI’s Washington field office received two similar tips from local Muslims: Timimi was running ‘an Islamic group known as the Dar al-Arqam’ that had ‘conducted military-style training,’ FBI special agent John Wyman would later write in an affidavit.

Wyman and another agent, Wade Ammerman, ...

The agents reached an alarming conclusion: ‘Timimi is an Islamist supporter of Bin Laden’ who was leading a group ‘training for jihad,’ the agent wrote in the affidavit. The FBI even came to speculate that Timimi, a doctoral candidate pursuing cancer gene research, might have been involved in the anthrax attacks.

On a frigid day in February 2003, the FBI searched Timimi’s brick townhouse on Meadow Field Court, a cul-de-sac near Fair Oaks Mall in Fairfax. Among the items they were seeking, according to court testimony: material on weapons of mass destruction.”

How much plainer do you need a leak to be TrebleRebel? Nothing more than the warrant and his lawyer’s comments at the time should have been necessary. His own lawyer said they suspected him and then the govenrment saw fit to see him sentenced to life plus 70 years.

On February 26, 2003 at 6:00 EST, at the same moment they raided al-Timimi’s townhouse they searched the residences of two PhD level drying experts.

Mueller has said that the reason they have refused to brief Congress is to avoid the intimidation of witnesses and the flight of people under suspicion.

Of course, the fact that they suspect he accessed the know how is by no means evidence he did. Moreover, it may instead point to a monumental unfairness — where he was prosecuted on grossly inflated charges because of an incorrect suspicion concerning Amerithrax.

But if the government is involved in shadow boxing, the only way to get rid of the shadows is to turn on the lights. To fill in the factual gaps. What was his nature of the work for the Navy that required a high securitly clearance. Did ATCC have vrulent Ames in its patent repository? etc.

But for starters, please email Dick Spertzel and ask. It’s hardly an undue imposition on his time. I, of course, also credit your expertise, but am seeking an opinion now of a microbiologist.

VM, the fellow who had Ali Al-Timimi’s phone number, and GB, the former USAMRIID head who is a prolific Ames anthrax researcher, provided further explanation in the related patent below. Given that my consulting expert who makes anthrax simulants for the US Government, and you’ve never made an anthrax simulant, and don’t work with microbiological organisms, I’m surprised you don’t see the value of consulting with Dr. Spertzel.

“[0026] As one embodiment of the invention, a surfactant may be added to the cultivation medium during or after the cultivation medium’s preparation. According to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 2d ed. 1997, a surfactant is “a substance which lowers the surface tension of the medium in which it is dissolved, and/or the interfacial tension with other phases, and accordingly, is positively adsorbed at the liquid/vapour and/or at the interfaces”.

[0027] The addition of surfactants tends to aid and facilitate the binding process between the cultivation media and hydrophobic particles.”
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Where silicon dioxide particles are used, such particles ought to be hydrophobic and ought to have a surface area between approximately 50 and 380 meters.sup.2 per gram of weight.”

They explain that surfactants include synthetic polymers.

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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.”
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It is contemplated that the present composition of cultivatable droplets coated with hydrophobic particles will vary, depending on a multitude of factors. Factors include, but are not limited to, the cell type, the size of the individual droplets, and the desired final density and growth phase. In one embodiment of the invention, the ratio of individual hydrophobic particles to droplets may be within a range of 99:1 and 1:99. In another embodiment of the invention, the ratio of individual hydrophobic particles to inoculated mixture may be within a range of 2:1 and 1:2.
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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. This interaction is comparable to the well known phenomenon of soap bubbles. Apart from soap and other detergents, many other particles (e.g., activated carbon, activated alumina, etc.) are well known for their ability to adsorb liquids or gases. With respect to the invention, it is expected that the surfactant would anchor a hydrophobic particle at the cultivatable droplet surface once the surfactant adsorbs the hydrophobic particle.
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0042] Cultivatable droplet stabilization may also be affected when the cultivatable droplet volume to aerosil volume ratio is relatively high. When this case occurs, cultivatable droplets may tend to come into contact with each other. Upon contact, cultivatable droplets may form a multilayer of beads between the surfaces of the cultivatable droplets, as shown in FIG. 3. Stability of such contacting cultivatable droplets may depend on how strongly beads are anchored to the cultivatable droplet surface. If the beads can be easily moved and/or displaced form the contact area, the cultivatable droplets may coalesce. However, if the beads are anchored and/or cannot easily move out of the water surface, cultivatable droplets may be stabile.”
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[0043] Various techniques may be used to create and stabilize cultivatable droplets. As an exemplified embodiment, inoculated mixture may be transformed into cultivatable droplets via a jetting technique. As shown in FIG. 5, cultivatable droplets 515 may be ejected from a thin capillary tip when pressure 505 is applied to a micro-syringe pump 510. To catch the cultivatable droplets 515, a container 520 lined with a porous medium (such as an aerosil layer) may be used. The porous medium can be a hydrophobic powder, fibrous powder, etc. The container 520 can be, but is not limited to, a Petri dish, beaker, cup, etc., to achieve a near uniform-to-uniform coating. The aerosil layer may be subjected to slow mixing using a bar magnet 525 and a magnetic stirrer 530, which can aid in controlling mixing speed. Hydrophobic fumed silica, such as Aerosil.RTM. R 972, having an average diameter of 16 nm, may be used. By varying the pressure and diameter of the tip, the size of a cultivatable droplet’s diameter may be controlled. For example, a flow rate of about 8 mL/hour through a glass capillary tip ranging from about 30-50 .mu.m can produce highly homogenous cultivatable droplets with average diameters between approximately 100-200 .mu.m.
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045] Another technique is the showering technique. As shown in FIG. 7, an inoculator 705 having inoculated mixture may be connected to a pump 710. Using nozzles 715, the pump (which may include a motor) may pump inoculated mixture from the inoculator 705 to a sprayer 720. Droplets may be formed by using the sprayer 720 having an array of holes to disperse inoculated mixture. The sprayer 720, which can resemble a shower head, may be created by punching holes in a Teflon film. Holes may vary in diameter, for example, from 50-100 .mu.m. Alternatively, a shower head may be used. To catch cultivatable droplets 725, a vessel 730 (such as a bucket, can, jar, dish, beaker, etc.) may be used. The vessel 730 may include a porous medium (e.g., a cloud or layer of aerosil 740). The porous medium can be a hydrophobic powder, fibrous powder, etc. The presence of the cloud of aerosil 740 may enable effective coverage of dispersed droplets by aerosil particles. Because droplets 725 tend to be heavier than the aerosil particles 740, the droplets are likely to encounter the aerosil particles 740 and may be stabilized. As the inoculated mixture is sprayed into the vessel 730, the cultivatable droplets 725 formed may encounter a propeller 735 attached to a motor 745 before, at the same time or after encountering aerosil particles 740. Although not necessary, a propeller 735 may be used for distributing the cultivatable droplets 725 uniformly and/or stir the aerosil particles in a way such that cultivatable droplets 725 and aerosil particles 740 may make contact with each other. In other words, the spinning rate of the propeller 735 may be controlled with the motor 745 by the user.
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[0046] Alternatively, the invention also allows for a third technique where inoculated mixture may be introduced to hydrophobic particles prior to conversion into droplet form. This technique is known as blending. Here, as shown in FIG. 8, using a pump 815 and nozzle 820, inoculated mixture may be pumped into a blender 825 having aerosil. It is possible that the pump 815 may pump inoculated mixture from a syringe 810 or some other form of container (such as a glass, jar, beaker, tube, etc.). Alternatively, inoculated mixture may be manually placed at the bottom of a blender 825 and overlayed with a porous medium (e.g., aerosil). The porous medium can be a hydrophobic powder, fibrous powder, etc. As an embodiment, the ratio of inoculated mixture to aerosil is about 1 to 4 (volume to volume). A cocktail of dispersed cultivatable droplets may be rapidly formed with the blender’s knives revolving at around 7,000 to 12,000 rpm. It should be noted that using this technique may result in smaller sizes of atomized and cultivatable (stabilized) droplets. The size may be between roughly 10 .mu.m to 50 .mu.m. This technique may be used over the jetting and showering techniques in applications where higher dispersion of inoculated mixture is desired.
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[0048] Once stabilized, cultivatable droplets may be separated from remaining/excess aerosil particles. Because the density of aerosil particles tends to be substantially different from that of water, separation may be accomplished in a variety of ways. Examples include, but are not limited to, centrifugation, wind chamber, etc. The invention may subject cultivatable droplets to centrifugation, or an equivalent vortexing process (such as vortexing by hand/thumb). This aspect may be accomplished by placing cultivatable droplets in a centrifuge tube and spinning the tube in a centrifuge. The rate of spinning may vary in speed and length of time as determined by the user. For instance, cultivatable droplets may be centrifuged at about 2,000 revolutions per minute for about 5 minutes. However, it should be noted that there is no definitive rate or time that is necessary for separation so long as separation is achieved. When cultivatable droplets have collected at the bottom of a centrifuge tube, cultivatable droplets may be collected using a retrieving device, such as a pipette.
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[0049] If wind chamber is exercised, air may be used to blow light aerosil particles away while cultivatable droplets fall and collect at the bottom of the wind chamber. If a user decides to exercise this method, aerosil may be collected and reused after sterilization.
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[0050] However, it is not always necessary to separate the hydrophobic particles, or even excess hydrophobic particles, from cultivatable droplets. For instance, because silicon dioxide is frequently used in soil treatment, there is no need to remove the silicon dioxide from cell cultures that are grown for purposes of soil treatment, where silicon dioxide is used as the hydrophobic particle. Furthermore, since hydrophobic particles may limit the potential for the spread of contamination, it may be desirable to maintain cultivated cells within individual cultivatable droplets for storage purposes.”