Magpie - 12-3-2018 at 17:46
That is the title of one of the chapters of “I, Claudius.” This title referred to Livia Drusilla, wife of Caesar Augustus. She was an expert at
poisoning political rivals. This all leads up to the recent poisoning in Salisbury, England of an ex-Russian spy. Investigators released today that
the poison was a Novichok of Russian origin.
Are the Russians the only ones who can make a Novichok or does this poison have a fingerprint?
Sulaiman - 12-3-2018 at 18:56
Looks like common knowledge : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent
Ozone - 12-3-2018 at 22:23
I'll be damned. It was largely conjecture, then, but we had a pretty nice discussion about these, here: http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=7639
I can only imagine that the implementation of such an exotic agent-class served the purpose of sending a very specific message? Could also be BS. Who
knows.
O3
Bert - 12-3-2018 at 23:01
My opinion? (like assholes, everyone has one)
Dr. David Kelley is going to have a chat with poor Skripal in Valhala about what a crappy retirement plan HM Gov't. gave them.
Bert - 14-4-2018 at 12:41
Both victims have recovered/regained consciousness. As another ape wirh fancy shoes and too many tools wandering this rock, I sympathize with them and feel better over that part of the outcome.
Not a likely event, considering the claimed class of nerve agents are deliberately designed to be irreversible after a short "aging" period, the
victims were found unconscious hours after the claimed time of administration.
However, the Swiss laboratory performing testing for the OPCW has found an agent present consistent with all the reported effects, down to the lag
in symptoms presenting after the alleged time of administration and having a much greater range between lowest effective dose and one likely to kill
the recipient (nobody died, not a prominent feature of the hyposethized "novichok" class of agents).
Remember our old CBW friend from the 1950S, the chemical commonly refered to as BZ?
“the central nervous systems effects tend to be delayed, you can have a prodomol period of several hours”
aga - 14-4-2018 at 13:05
2 super-powers amassed around a poor piece of the planet, far away from those two super powers' homelands, yet near natural resources they both want
to own ....
Shit is going to happen, again. That's nature.
Porton Down probably already made the 'new kids' decades ago.
It's what they do there.
More likely that the Russians, being more cost-sensitive, just stole them, possibly using the same spy.
Bert - 14-4-2018 at 14:37
Porton Down and every other similarly tasked national laboratory world wide certainly made such chemicals as soon as they knew they were relavent to
their objectives, be those offensive or defensive. It would be irresponsible for them NOT to have done so, how can testing be done without standards?
Or countermeasures assessed in the only situation that matters, real world exposure?
Porton Down has openly said it was done there. Should you feel a need to synthesize some chemical to have a standard for identification purposes,
would you destroy it all after?
VSEPR_VOID - 18-4-2018 at 17:30
Where can I buy some of these? Its for a friend
LearnedAmateur - 19-4-2018 at 01:19
Not to start any conspiracy theories but there are plenty of third parties around who would love nothing more than for tensions to increase between
Russia and Western Europe, and who certainly have the capabilities for this sort of synthesis...