Top UK science journal Nature: Attack anthrax doesn't match Ivins' flask!

[JackRiddler]

Anyone wondering why LEAHY still wants to investigate the Bush regime?

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090225/full/news.2009.120.html

Published online 25 February 2009 | NATURE | doi:10.1038/news.2009.120

Anthrax investigation still yielding findings

Chemical composition of spores doesn't match suspect flask.

Roberta Kwok

The deadly bacterial spores mailed to victims in the US anthrax attacks, scientists say, share a chemical 'fingerprint' that is not found in bacteria from the flask linked to Bruce Ivins, the biodefence researcher implicated in the crime.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) alleges that Ivins, who committed suicide last July, was the person responsible for mailing letters laden with Bacillus anthracis to news media and congressional offices in 2001, killing five people and sickening 17. The FBI used genetic analyses to trace the mailed spores back to a flask called RMR-1029, which Ivins could access in his laboratory at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Maryland.

SNIP

At a biodefence meeting on 24 February, Joseph Michael, a materials scientist at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, presented analyses of three letters sent to the New York Post and to the offices of Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. Spores from two of those show a distinct chemical signature that includes silicon, oxygen, iron, and tin; the third letter had silicon, oxygen, iron and possibly also tin, says Michael. Bacteria from Ivins' RMR-1029 flask did not contain any of those four elements.

Two cultures of the same anthrax strain grown using similar processes — one from Ivins' lab, the other from a US Army facility in Utah — showed the silicon-oxygen signature but did not contain tin or iron. Michael presented the analyses at the American Society for Microbiology's Biodefense and Emerging Diseases Research Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland.

The chemical mismatch doesn't necessarily mean that deadly spores used in the attacks did not originate from Ivins' RMR-1029 flask, says Jason Bannan, a microbiologist and forensic examiner at the FBI's Chemical Biological Sciences Unit in Quantico, Virginia...

SNIP

That's the four paragraphs, so please follow the link for more!

There are possibilities for how the anthrax could get the metal traces; the point is, Ivins has been convicted and hanged posthumously, but the case is not, has never been closed.

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[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

1. Thanks for the update

One of those killed was a former coworker of mine at American Media. I'm glad to see that this episode is not going to fall between the cracks.

[JackRiddler]

9. Well, I hope so - and sorry about your former coworker.

That would be Robert Stevens? He was the first to die in the attacks.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. 8 years!

I guess we'll have to ask Rumsfeld

[JackRiddler]

3. bump

[eridani]

4. K&R n/t

[mod mom]

5. We need to expose the terrorists from within. rec'd

[JackRiddler]

6. A year ago, still, this would have had 80 recs by now.

Requiescat in pacem.

[robertpaulsen]

10. I'm so sorry I couldn't recommend this in time.

Didn't see this catch until Raw Story reported it. But I'm definitely bookmarking this for future reference.

[JackRiddler]

11. Hey, no need to be sorry, and it's not my article so I don't care personally...

What I mean is, what's happened to the focus at DU? Because this is not something from the distant past of seven years ago - people here generally understand the potentially earth-shaking consequences of this particular issue. It's the potential wedge to the whole Bushista ball of wax. (Ugh, sorry about the metaphor mix up! I got a case of Tom Friedman's disease.)

Best to you!

[JackRiddler]

15. My point is moot, my complaint was premature...

This one has 82 recs - may it go for weeks!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3757713#3758076

[Ichingcarpenter]

12. I knew the guy was a set up fall guy back then

Now where will this story lead? I hope back to the Bushies.

[bleever]

7. K&R.

Thanks.

[Qutzupalotl]

8. K&R

[Ichingcarpenter]

13. Keith is going over this story now. He described the lie I hope he has

someone on that will go into detail with it.

At least it made his news

[Doremus]

14. Stay safe, Mr. Microbiologist. No small aircraft for you, please. n/t