Stuart, you have to appreciate Alibek’s reasoning and the basis for that phrasing. He is explaining that anthrax has an exosporium and thus there would be no need for silica except for drying — which relates directly to the question of adhesion and clumping.
My consulting military scientist has sent SEMS of spores — which I’ve shared with you — that if you run an infrared spectroscopy on them they contain a large peak of silica, but no silica particles are to be seen. He says they “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.” They look very different from the ones in the aerosol journal article but the same as those represented to look like the Daschle product (except as to concentration). That is because, he reports, they are better than those made for the tests reported in the aerosol article. His lab does aerosol experiments with anthrax simulants. He has worked with the journal authors. No, I can’t tell you how they were made. In one ordinary light microscope picture (phase contrast), the clumps are of dried spores from a water solution and the individual ones are from the dried siliconizing solution (which is your signature polymerized glass). But all of Ed’s obsession about silica is merely due to the total absence of substance to his true crime analysis. I mean you can’t go too far with his analysis when he created his profile around specific individuals and none of the posited traits in fact apply. But when you appreciate that all of his ad hominem labels best apply to him, his theory can be put on the trash heap with a Zack Theory. My military consultant method supports you IMO. He just has not provided an EDX yet to us that would be definitive on these points.
Ken’s assistant has explained the reason for the silica in a PhD thesis supervised by Ken. She reports that “many experts who examined the powder stated the spores were encapsulated. Encapsulation involves coating bacteria with a polymer which is usually done to protect fragile bacteria from harsh conditions such as extreme heat and pressure that occurs at the time of detonation (if in a bomb), as well as from moisture and ultraviolet light. The process was not originally developed for biological weapons purposes but rather to improve the delivery of various drugs to target organs or systems before they were destroyed by enzymes in the circulatory system” (citing Alibek and Crockett, 2005). “The US and Soviet Union, however, “ she explains, “used this technique in their biological weapons programs for pathogens that were not stable in aerosol form... Since spores have hardy shells that provide the same protection as encapsulation would, there is no need to cover them with a polymer.“ She explains that one “possible explanation is that the spore was in fact encapsulated but not for protective purpose. Encapsulation also reduces the need for milling when producing a dry formulation.” By reducing the need for milling, she means permits greater concentration of the biological agent. If the perpetrator was knowledgeable of the use of encapsulation for this purpose, then he or she may have employed it because sophisticated equipment was not at his disposal.”
So if the product was not stolen outright, then the task for the FBI was to find the scientist knowledgeable about an encapsulation technique.
Of course, my interest in the subject has nothing to do with the fact that silicon and oxygen were detected in the Daschle sample, but no one saw any silica OR poylmerized glass in the sample. And the entire field of Microbial Forensics seems to have been created to determine with scientific accuracy what that silicon and oxygen was and how it got there. If it's "lab contamination" as believed, it would be key evidence in a criminal case.
That may seem unimportant to you, but it seems pretty important to me.
The rest of my interest is simply a matter of showing that Stuart's belief is a lot of hogwash when he tries to suggest that the attack spores were coated with silica and that the entire FBI and thousands of microbiologists are all involved in some sinister plot to keep that information from the American public.