Replies

Stuart,

The whole argument over electrostatic forces and Van der Waals forces in regards to spores is kind of silly. First, any chemist or biochemist knows that the former are much stronger than the latter (which are among the weakest of forces). Hydrophobic effects, sometimes called Van der Waals forces (actually the attractive force, not what follows), but better described as the force of trying to escape water (like attracts like in hydrophobic forces) . The repelling forces of hydrophobicity are so strong that they drive molecules together and close enough for the Van der Waals forces to add up. Hydrophobicity is a very strong influence. You see it in action when you try to wash grease off a frying pan in which you have cooked a lot of bacon. It takes a lot of soap or detergent to do so and probably not all of the grease is ever removed (good for the frying pan since it protects it from rusting if it is an iron skillet). When the spores are dispersed in water and then dried, the same thing kind of happens unless they are coated with an electrostatic material (could be protein, could be exosporium, or something else). Electrostatics only allow the spores to stick to things of the opposite charge or if a divalent cation (an ion with two positive charges) is present, then to each other by the bridging positive charges. Without this double positive charge, a monovalent cation simply neutralizes the charge and then we are back to the above, no attraction or perhaps hydrophobicity. The latter usually doesn’t happen with a soluble counter positive ion because it dissolves in water and if the spores are washed thoroughly in distilled water, the ion can be washed away. The result is we have a negatively charged spore. When these are dry they don’t stick together, they fly apart (with electrostatics opposites repell). No matter what you do you cannot contain such spores. They literally levitate off of a negatively charged surface (some plastics or other materials) and fly and stick only when wetted (water can form a positive counter ion and the spores are more wettable than the hydrophobic kind-—these require detergent to wet—Tide). So it does make a difference whether one uses silica (silicon oxides), silicates (silicon acid negative ions), silanes (silicon organics), or silanols (silicon alcohols). Perhaps the best thing is to not make a hydrophobic or neutral spore.

You should go make a BG simulant and submit it for testing. If you haven’t made aerosols, the federal judge would disqualify you from testifying on how to make something that “floats like a butterfly and sting like a bee.” To warrant being deemed an expert on making weaponized anthrax, you have to have done it and then you need to be in a position to submit your work to others for testing and objective measurement in an aerosol chamber — and submit it for a SEMS and EDX.

Now quit picking on Ed. Although he got a little full of himself for a half decade or so by not relying on experts, his Suzy the Spore cute. It is just the bait we need to get the First Grader he suspects to take the bait. You, go, Ed.

Now, note that Dr. Alibek was Program Manager at Battelle when they used Dugway simulant and tested it as the Battelle Life Sciences facility (which includes air chambers) in Utah. But like I said — the Daschle product does not look like the Dugway simulant made by those aerosol article authors.