There have actually been several domestic ricin plots in recent years, none involving jihadists and most the work of antigovernment radicals. Not that any have come close to executing a successful attack: in late 2011, for example, federal agents arrested four Georgia men with militia ties whose plans included bombmaking and killing government officials with ricin. “This is worse than anthrax,” one of them reportedly boasted. “There ain’t no cure for it either.” The men, all in their 60s and 70s, were busted before they even began brewing the substance, which experts said they likely would have been unable to use on the mass scale of their imagination anyway.
Time
Federal agents arrested a man on Monday suspected of sending letters feared contaminated by the poison ricin to President Obama and a Mississippi senator, according to two officials with knowledge of the case. The suspect was identified as Paul Kevin Curtis of Tupelo, Miss.
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The letters were signed: “I am KC, and I approve this message.”
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The arrest, two days after the letters were intercepted in mail-sorting facilities for the White House and the Capitol, was based on information collected “very early on” about who had sent the letters, said one of the officials.
NYT
And by the way, we never did get a satisfactory explanation for the September 2001 anthrax attacks, did we?An envelope that tested positive for the deadly poison ricin was intercepted Tuesday afternoon at the U.S. Capitol's off-site mail facility in Washington, congressional and law enforcement sources tell CNN. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he was told the letter was addressed to the office of Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi.
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Sen. Claire McCaskill told reporters after a briefing for lawmakers that a suspect has already been identified in the incident. Members will be warning their home-state offices to look out for similar letters, she said.
CNN
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.Until now, the [bird flu] virus only passes on to humans via direct physical contact with infected birds - particularly by eating poultry such as chickens, ducks and geese - which has allowed public health officials to keep outbreaks under control.
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[S]cientists have long been concerned about the much more serious consequences if the H5N1 virus ever mutated into an airborne form. So in an attempt to work out how that might happen, and to formulate a scientific and medical response, [scientists from the Netherlands and the US have engineered a version of the H5N1 bird flu virus that can be transmitted atmospherically] with the intention of publishing their results so that others [may] study it too.
alJazeera
