The Dangers of Being A Microbiologist 304
Anonymous Coward writes "Globe and Mail is running a story for all the paranoid conspiracy theorists among us: "Eleven microbiologists mysteriously dead over the span of just five months.... Throw in a few Russian defectors, a few nervy U.S. biotech companies, a deranged assassin or two, a bit of Elvis, a couple of Satanists, a subtle hint of espionage, a big whack of imagination, and the plot is complete, if a bit reminiscent of James Bond.""
Ah ha! (Score:2, Funny)
"Wait, this isn't my drink! AARRGGHH!!"
Elements of madness (Score:2, Funny)
You forgot CowboyNeal.
Re:Elements of madness (Score:2, Funny)
Plot not yet complete (Score:5, Funny)
Ahhhh, the simplicity of safe-guarding IP.
Re:Plot not yet complete (Score:2)
Re:Plot not yet complete (Score:5, Interesting)
My mom is a microbiologist and officially retired several years ago due to an "accident." What was interesting was the timing of the accident. I was interviewed at my house by one of the security staff who stated he was friends with Ewing Kauffman, the owner of MMD (he died recently and MMD is now defunct.) The guy with the nice golf shirt probed with many questions about my mom's consulting work. Shortly after that, contractors came into my mom's office to move some furniture. It would be a few hours after mom entered the office that she would be in the hospital. There are bad ways to die, but having the lungs burned with a chemical indicator to cough up green mucus is gruesome. Its not your average deathmatch in Quake III. She survived with 30% lung capacity. Someone at the company did not like her and we were forced to pay for the treatment until many years through the courts payed off.
Pick your profession carefully. I'd recommend avoid working with companies that deal with intellectual property right minefields. Know where the mony comes from, especially when it deals with genetic coding of lifeforms. If you work with spooks, you better enjoy politics. I got to see intense rivalry between her peers. And it didn't seem fair. Just because it may be a white collar profession, people get hurt.
Pagan != Satanist!!! (Score:3, Informative)
Perhaps some of those deaths seem suspicious, but please: a murder-suicide by an associate of the deceased? I really do not see how the "spooks" could cause something like that.
Don't worry I'm an athiest! (Score:2)
Re:Don't worry I'm an athiest! (Score:2)
Re:Pagan != Satanist!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Pagan != Satanist!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Aluminum foil doesn't work!
The control waves are tuned to Periodic Table group 14 -- carbon for controlling humans, silicon and germanium for controling transistors. You accordingly need to protect yourself with one of the group 14 metals -- either genuine tin, or lead. Aluminum doesn't work!
Re:Pagan != Satanist!!! (Score:2)
You're all fools. It's wonderful, isn't it?
Spoiler Warnings???? (Score:4, Funny)
(apologies to the Beastie Boys)
Ahh! Now let's see how the Machine responds. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, however, that it's a story on Slashdot, (along with several other Big Hot Button stories which have made Slashdot headlines over the past couple of days), we'll get to sift through all the Perfectly Logical Explanations.
Let the Paranoia and Head-in-the-Sand-'Rationality' begin!
-Fantastic Lad --The Truth is somewhere in between. .
measurement may affect results (Score:2, Funny)
1. microbiologists might start being more careful
2. people might try to kill more microbiologists, since it's the popular thing
3. contrarians (which many murderers are) might decide not to kill microbiologists, it being too passe
4. other effect
So, by all means, let us continue our scientific observations, but keeping in mind that the act of observing may influence the results, and may be dangerous to your health (if you are a microbiologist)
Re:Ahh! Now let's see how the Machine responds. . (Score:2)
First, if you're running a conspiracy to off microbiologists, why those eleven? There's no pattern as to nationality, research subject, etc.
Second, unless you know how many microbiologists there are (20,000 academic in the U.S. is the only number given, which is clearly inadequate), how can you even show this is an unusual rate of "unusual" deaths? Only until you establish that there's a statistcally unusual number of deaths is there any grounds for any speculation at all.
Re:Ahh! Now let's see how the Machine responds. . (Score:2)
Actually, I'd be inclined to say eight. There are 11 untimely deaths, but only 8 are truely mysterious.
The guy who got offed by his daughters and her satanist friends is reasonably well explained, and "normal" in that -- If you're going to get offed, chances are it's going to be by family or 'friends'. You even have living, breathing conspirators who, if they were part of a larger comspiracy, would probably be happy to talk about it. The only thing really unusual about it is the satanist connection.
Similarly, the Pizza delivery murder-suicide is similarly well explained and fits the family/friend statistical norm. In this case, however, everybody who was directly involved is dead. Unless someone can point to some evidence that the suicide was 'forced', I'm going to chaulk this one up to a love triangle, or something and mark it 'untimely but explained'.
3 untimely death in a short time period is probably not that far off for a group of this size. As for the other 8 deaths, I'm betting that they take this group far outside the statistical norm.
Any epidemiologists out there?
hysteria (Score:2)
Imagine that there had been a missile attack scare in the US. This is roughly like looking through the ranks of recent deaths of computer scientists and implying that anybody who died who was working on Ada compilers, control systems software, robotics, or large-scale software engineering was somehow related to SDI work.
Of course, an X-Files style conspiracy would be so much more interesting, I suppose.
Re:hysteria (Score:3)
The murder rate, US and britain together, is on the order of 5 in 100,000 per year (US it was 6.8 in '97, according to CNN [cnn.com].) I assume that it's about the same in Russia. The odds of seeing 7 (definitely murders) over the course of 9 months out of a group of about 30,000 people are small, but not preposterously small. Given the portion of my prominent colleagues who are, to be blunt, old men, I'm suprised only two of them died of strokes during that period.
Also, if you keep subdividing the population into little pieces, eventually you're going to find a subsection (young black men of course, but besides that) who got killed disproportionately in any given period.
If you keep taking different colors of bullets, and shoot each color fifty times, you will eventually find a color of bullet that is more accurate; if you insist on a higher "degree of significance," it just means you have to check more colors (blue isn't more accurate, but turquoise is!) before you "find one."
This is not to say that I don't think that there's a conspiracy related to biological weapons, especially anthrax, in the United States. I believe that there is, and I believe that the fellow who fell off a bridge may very well have been bumped off. It is entirely a credible suggestion that the microbiologists who died under somewhat odd suggestions where targeted for assassination for some reason; such has happened in the past. Last year's death toll for molecular biologists *may* very well have been substantially enriched by CIA hitmen. Now, I don't think this is true, and you cannot conclude that it is true (or even likely) from the body count. The body count is not itself any cause for alarm.
Just to be on the safe side, though, I'm installing a metal detector for federal employees who come by the lab.
Dr. Wiley (Score:2)
My apologies to the family of the victims, but I couldn't help but share my geekish laughter at the idea of "Dr. Wiley" (sic, sort of) mysteriously dying. My only hope is that the doctor, while he was still alive, got a good laugh out of his name and title, too.
Didn't this happen to Programmers in the UK too? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, like the one guy who took a lamp cord, bared the two ends, and taped them to his metal fillings in his molars and plugged it in.
A lot of the deaths also occured in a brief span of time, and lots of strange and horrible ways to die.
Re:Didn't this happen to Programmers in the UK too (Score:3, Informative)
> I remember almost a decade ago, there was a rash of mysterious deaths in the UK of top programmers working on top secret military projects.
To be precise, a total of 20 programers linked to Marconi Defense Systems or the Ministry of Defense died suspiciously between 1985-1987.
The first mainstream magazine to break this story was the April 30th 1987 edition of Computer News (UK), but unfortunately the article does not seem to be available online.
However, it gets a mention in the Risks Digest [ncl.ac.uk], as well as plenty of conspiracy sites such as this one [futuretalk.org].
Re:Didn't this happen to Programmers in the UK too (Score:2)
It could still have been a statistical blip; things do occasionally happen to clump, and a doubled rate in a specific subsample isn't all that unusual. But a prima facie case for somebody bumping off British programmers exists.
Re:Didn't this happen to Programmers in the UK too (Score:2)
Yet the police mysteriously overlook everything.
The truth is, you can't trust anyone. Especially when money is involved. It's the one thing that can get you anything.
Remember that.
Don Wiley- Assassinated? (Score:2)
Antrax Connection? (Score:2)
Alternatively, someone might have found out what the person responsible for anthrax had done and killed him or her. I wouldn't even put it past the US government to do such a thing if they felt the guy would spill national security secrets or they would have to divulge too much classified info to pin the crime on him.
On the other hand there might just be some anthrax crazed vigilante who is whacking high profile microbiologists.
Some of the deaths are almost certainly just coincidental, and maybe they all are, but I do hope that the FBI is at least taking a serious look at whether there is some connection.
'nervy'? (Score:2)
Re:'nervy'? (Score:2)
Just a click away, dictionary.com [dictionary.com] has the answer.
(was this a "a nervy thing to say"?)
Heh... (Score:2)
The moon is covered with the results of astronomical odds.
Nathan
Re:Heh... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Heh... (Score:2, Insightful)
Then divide the possiblity of many promenent biologists dying mysteriously (and almost all unconventionally) by what...... 5 months?
Scoff, but if you refuse to even slghtly question the cable news channels view of reality, you are much more unintelligent than you give yourself credit for.
Unless you are omnipotent and can be everywhere at once, you must have trust in someone else's information (or view of reality). If you were a giant corporate news station, do yoou think you would have the money to fabricate something like this??
Yes. And, although I'm sure a few deaths will occur to cover up the coverage of the one before it, no one will notice, and this will all be laughed at again as another "conspiracy".
Wonderful, isn't it?
Re:Heh... (Score:2)
Please, next time you make an argument use valid logic instead of trying to insult my intelligence if I disagree with you. Same conclusion, different logic. Valid logic.
Re:Heh... (Score:2)
Heh, my post was tongue in cheek. Stop taking everything so seriously.
;)
Disbelievers and their habits. . . (Score:2, Offtopic)
Really neat!
With the advanced warning that Fantastic Lad's views on these matters come with a heavy bias, since I have become utterly convinced that prevailant forces beyond the understanding of conventional science are at work all over the place all the time, here are my observations. .
Anyway, I've found the whole process of making these observations utterly fascinating, and I know there are some out there who might also be interested. And of course, Caveat Lector should be employed at all times when reading my stuff. While I tend to know WAY more on most of these topics than a bevy of New Age morons, I'm still only on the lower parts of the knowledge mountain myself! For every bit of verification I find, I run across 25 lies and bits of fabricated sensationalist crap.
-Fantastic Lad
Re:Disbelievers and their habits. . . (Score:2)
So videotape it next time.
Re:Disbelievers and their habits. . . (Score:2)
Amen to that! It's funny how all of these phenomena are perceptible to human sense organs yet mysteriously defy technological recording. I once read a book (Faerie Tale by Raymon Feist) that made an interesting plot point: A paranormal investigator is walking around an upstate farm looking for clues and rapid-fire dictating into his handheld recorder. He stumbles on the Wild Hunt. Now, one of the myths is that those who see the Wild Hunt are doomed to forget it. (We'll leave out how there could be any myth about it, then...) This happens to poor investigator.
But later, he plays back the tape, which -- being a machine -- could not be made to mystically "forget". When he hears himself describing the Hunt, he suddenly remembers the experience himself. Technology to the rescue!
For a while, Feist's book shapes up to be an incredible tale posing human tech versus faerie magic in the ultimate showdown. Then for whatever reason Feist flinced and wrote what was -- to me -- a much lesser climax. But the idea has stuck with me: If "paranormal" is real (i.e., interacts with the physical world), then it is susceptible to scientific investigation.
Re:Disbelievers and their habits. . . (Score:2)
It wasn't a bad book, though I do agree the ending was weak. The first few books of the Riftwar Saga were much better though.
Offtopic, but needs to be said. (Score:2)
Let's examine these too beliefs. One belief is that practically any personality trait or significant event actually has something to do with the arrangement of stars and planets in the night sky. Or, in some cases, what they happened to be on the day you were born. Does this mean that it might be preferable for pregnant women to medically delay birth, for a more favorable astrological "sign" ? If they have a C-section, does it count. If an embryo is frozen for 3 years, and then implanted in a womb, does this affect things at all, or is it truly the birth date?
What, you retards never actually tested any of this? Your 10,000 year old voodoo beliefs? What, are you afraid that if there were such tests, things might show it to be unsupportable superstition? And if you aren't afraid that is the case, what prevents you from doing this?
See, this is what science is about. Figuring out what is going on. If atrology were in any way valid, not only would it strengthen your arguments that it is, but science would allow you to refine just what you know.
Statistics, lies though they are, don't even come close to supporting anything that atrology ever claims. Made up bullshit by the trolls here on slashdot, is statistically indistinguishable from this garbage.
Channeling? Hmm, dunno. I won't rule it out, but the truth is, this one would be much more defendable by you, on its own. It's certainly not repeatable though, let alone reliable. But this once, you get a "Get out of jail free card". I won't attack this one just yet.
As for me being "programmed" to not believe stupid new age garbage, I thank you, I don't often recieve compliments on slashdot. For those of you that don't speak the fruity dialect of nutcasian, that translates to "having common sense".
You see, it's not out of malice or distrust that the natural inclination is to not believe something until proven true. It's simply that there are any number (read: infinite) of possibilities, all contradicting. And it would be IMPOSSIBLE to give all the benefit of the doubt simultaneously. So therefor, you figure out the things you know for sure, while setting aside all the crazy stuff, until you get around to test this.
Why? Because it's the only way to function as a human being, otherwise you'd starve to death worrying that if you ate at the wrong time, the gods would punish you (which they might, if all theories are equally plausible until tested, they might very well kill you for such a transgression, and by the time you find out, it's too late).
And if you don't agree, all you have to do, is prove it to me with repeatable results. That's the cool thing about science, my belief doesn't matter if it's true.
Re:Disbelievers and their habits. . . (Score:2)
1. Shock! Surprise! If someone comes off as a complete nutball, the odds are high that anything coming out of their mouth will be considered wrong. This isn't 'programming'. Surely you know an idiot at work. Once you realized he was an idiot, did you give all of his suggestions your full attention? Hell no.
2. Yes, believing in one thing that most people don't believe in doesn't make you automatically believe in EVERYTHING you hear. The best example of this is religion.
3. No kidding. You introduce a fundamental change in someone's worldview; they will walk around for a day or two thinking about it.
4. Heh, the powers that be have nothing to do with it. It's called being a skeptic. It comes with being not sheeplike.
Re:Disbelievers and their habits. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, perhaps, it's just what Carl Sagan calls our "baloney detection kit". The essence of science -- and the reason it has lead to four hundred years of success, versus millenia of stagnation before -- is that it makes things rest on proof, not faith. What we can talk about, scientifically, may be a miniscule part of what's Out There. But what we say, can be said with confidence.
Maybe geeks and techheads are more doubting because (a) they are more trained in scientific ways; (b) they are in fields that require judicious doubt and problem-solving skills to look for the simplest explanation; and (c) they are disproportionately likely to have gotten their fantasy fix by actually reading (honest) fantasy and sci fi, so the mystical worlds spouted by paranormal believers -- worlds which IMHO are much less transcendant than the fiction I read, let alone the actual Universe as revealed through science -- simply do not offer anything worthwhile.
Re:Disbelievers and their habits. . . (Score:2)
Olympic games (Score:2, Funny)
Tom Clancy, the Nostradamus of our time.
//Humming
Re:Olympic games (Score:2)
The answer is no. Of course, in America, a trust of authors is ingrained into each one of us as children.
The question is always WHY. But if you delve into the subject deeper, you may find more than you dreamed of.
And also, remember, the powerful groups who do stuff like this also surf the web. You must delve DEEEEp.
If you have the time, I strongly recommend it. If you don't, keep working, get that money. You're going to die one day.
Remember, you are going to die one day.
You too, will die someday.
You are going to DIE. Not now, not by terrorism, but one day, everyone will die. You are not an exception. You WILL die. You will cease to be.
Maybe you are just useless and living a standard, unexciting life. I'm non-standard. I like to have a little fun, blow my mind a bit.
Just remember, you are going to die someday. Someday, it will all go black, and there will be no more YOU.
So, don't be afraid to bend reality a bit. It's so boring sometimes, this Television news and government sanctioned information.
Break the rules, find out what the more open-minded are thinking..
humanunderground [humanunderground.com] continues to process intelligence.
Walken in San Jose (Score:2)
I live in San Jose, and I've been laid off about three months. The other day I was watching View to a Kill, and I found myself genuinely hoping that Christopher Walken's character would succeed in blowing up the Silicon Valley.
Christ, I need to find a job.
Impressive List.....but not as near complete as (Score:2, Interesting)
Or the Bush Body Count (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Impressive List.....but not as near complete as (Score:2)
Yet another piece of thouroughly debunked right wing bullshit, as you can see in this Snopes (Anti-)Urban Legend Article [snopes2.com]
There's just got to be some way to bitch-slap people who mod trolls like this up. Single meta-mods just don't cut it.
The sober, scary truth (Score:5, Interesting)
The author is an academic and lawyer who had a hand in drafting US anti-biowarfare laws - he knows the history, the players, and the reasons related to US biowar activities, the Gulf War Syndrome, strangely convenient anthrax attacks on the US Congress, and well-founded suspicions about what's going on here. It's authoritative and frightening.
Re:The sober, scary truth (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The sober, scary truth (Score:3, Interesting)
The question is, WHO? The answer is usually "some powerful government" but in reality, how hard is it to make a series of deaths seem like suicides and strange coincidences?
Any reasonably intelligent human who's read all the detective stories, watches discovery channel, and has the time to plan it all out could make something like this happen.
So then, the question becomes "WHY?" To understand the WHY, you must understand the HOW.
HOW are these individuals REALLY connected. Sure the story gives us some facts on what each researcher was working on, but there are no concrete links.
And why no speculation in the story on the why and how? Then you must examine the what and the when:
What: Biowarfare. A hot topic these days, and
WHEN: 31 days after Sept. 11th, when we are in the midst of this anthrax attack.
Many theories may arise from these minor statements:
1. People killed were involved in the plot, and were killed to keep from talking.
2. If this is the case, who was controlling the plot, and
3. Is this linked to Sept 11th???
Then you might ask:
4. Most of these scientists were American, therefore perhaps the plot involved Americans..?
then maybe
5. The same people were behind
6. Yet, is such an agency who is capable of a Sept 11th also capable of this other plot:
Yes.
So you see, a few minor leaps of the imagination, and we are to the implcations of the matter.. it is not that hard these days to see what might really be happening, as much as we wish to not believe it.
Believe or not, is it better to make 5 educated and strongly verified guesses, or trust a cable news channel (owned by the largest media corp in the world?)
I ask you this.
Bored? Delve in deeper:
Human Underground [humanunderground.com] Continues to Process Intelligence
The cast of characters.... (Score:3, Funny)
I give up. Is this MTV's latest The Real World cast? Where's the loveable, misunderstood homosexual?
- A.P.
Too bad the lone gunmen are dead (Score:2)
Thanks a lot, jackass! (Score:2)
Re:Too bad the lone gunmen are dead (Score:2)
CONSPIRACY!!!!! (Score:2)
Re:CONSPIRACY!!!!! (Score:2)
Then if they started to get killed, what then? Would you start to worry?
If you are doing something they (whoever "they" is) care about and you are fucking up their plans, they will neutralize you.
What is it about killing people that makes people think this is all so unlikely?! MILLIONS died in world war two! What makes you think things are any different now.
Except of course, the media.
Cheers.
they missed a few. (Score:3, Interesting)
On Nov. 24 a Swissair flight from Berlin to Zurich crashed on its landing approach. Of the 33 persons on board, 24 were killed, including the head of the hematology department at Israel's Ichilov Hospital, as well as directors of the Tel Aviv Public Health Department and Hebrew University School of Medicine.
on Oct. 4, a commercial jetliner traveling from Israel to Novosibirsk, Siberia was shot down over the Black Sea by an "errant" Ukrainian surface-to-air missile, killing all on board. The missile was over 100 miles off-course. Despite early news stories reporting it as a charter, the flight, Air Sibir 1812, was a regularly scheduled flight.the plane is believed by many in Israel to have had as many as five passengers who were microbiologists. Both Israel and Novosibirsk are homes for cutting-edge microbiological research. Novosibirsk is known as the scientific capital of Siberia, and home to over 50 research facilities and 13 full universities for a population of only 2.5 million people.
http://fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/02_14_02_
Now, I'm not sure this is anything more sinister than Washington doesn't want a cure or cheap treatment for AIDS found... read between the lines of the 1974 NSSM200 report and match it up with the extensions of drug patents and other well-known actions contrary to Washington's hand-wringing about this epidemic.
http://www.africa2000.com/SNDX/nssm200all.html
http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0937307041
Re:they missed a few. (Score:2, Informative)
The plane flew too low and ended up flying into a forest in Birchwil, which is a few kilometres from the end of runway 28, the shortest of ZRH's 3 runways (it is 2.5 km long, the others are 3.3 and 3.5 kilometres long). According to the CVR, it appears to have been an accident. At least partially responsible were noise regulations forcing airliners to land on a runway that was not IFR equipped during poor visibility, though the pilot should have been capable of performing this procedure safely.
No, I do not work for an airline. Or for an airport. I happen to know this because Birchwil is about 2-3 km from where I live.
Here's another list of murdered scientists (Score:2, Informative)
dead scientists [google.com]
Pagans != Satanists! (Score:2)
Re:Pagans != Satanists! (Score:2)
Some pagans worship Lucifer
Therefore
All pagans are Satanists.
Most college students would recognize this as a "false" statement.
75% of America has not, and will never go to college.
Remember that.
Conspiracy theory vs. fear and trust (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm a South African and was shocked to read about the support given by almost all Western Governments to the Dr.Mengele of the Apartheid Government, Dr.Wouter Basson, a.k.a. Dr.Death, in that regime's attempts to create bio weapons which would only affect black people. (Although why they had this strange idea that blacks are some other species I don't know). In any case, although probably many people don't remember it, in the mid 80's an East German microbiologist claimed that the actual origions of the HIV virus(various newspaper archives) were in fact in a USArmy bioweapons lab in either Virginia or Maryland (Ft.Derrick? I don't remember the name). He was laughed off at the time. I also, in terms of normal common sense found it somewhat implausiable. But the problem is, who do you believe, and who do you trust?
I was somewhat amazed at the many coincidents (reminiscent of a good episode of the X-Files) in the Anthrax attacks in the US last year. Why Florida? Why the isolated cases of lonely old women? Why liberal or popular politicians? How did the FBI get to the conclusion so rapidly that it was not linked to the 9/11 higjackers and that it was "probably of domestic origion"? Why has nothing ever come out of the investigation?
I don't really like conspiracy theories, as they tend to cloud real events, but who do you believe? And what do you believe? Did anyone in any so-called country ever give their politicians an explicit right to muck around with stuff as dangerous as this?
Wow! Glad I got out of that profession... (Score:2)
The most exciting part of your day is handling the live sample bottles of E-coli.
Re:Wow! Glad I got out of that profession... (Score:2)
Seriously, thanks to Infectious Awarables I'm sure there's someone at the last place I worked that thinks Ebola is a clothing designer that does men's ties.
Get out that home video camera (Score:2)
and you too can own the distribution rights to this newsy event before someone else makes a movie about this with Pierce Brosnan or Wesley Snipes
Fuck the MPAA!
Neat... (Score:2)
But seriously, the conspiracy angle has a bit of flaw -- while the former Biopreparat (Soviet biological warware program) scientist Valdimir Pasechnik is dead, Kanatjan Alibekov [spss.com] (or Ken Alibek as he likes to call himself these days) who was nearly at the top of the Biopreparat hierarchy, is still very much alive -- wouldn't he be the obvious target of any conspiracy? Or, wait, he would be, but that would be too obvious. Anyway, gotta go, someone's knocking on my door (which is a bit odd, as none of my friends get up this early on weekends...)
News links to some of the events, including plane (Score:5, Interesting)
Dr Benito Que was beaten to death on Nov 12 by 4 unknown men Miami Herald [newsbank.com]. He was a cell biologist working on infection diseases at the University of Miami's School of medicine, and was killed as he left work.
Dr Don Wiley drowned under mysterious circumstances on Nov 16.
CNN [slashdot.org].
Only a week after Dr Que, Dr Wiley disappeared after a dinner party. Criminal intent has been noted by the Memphis police. Dr Wiley was the foremost infectious disease research at Harvard.
Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik was found dead on November 23 Nytimes [nytimes.com].
Dr pasechnik was a soviet defector from the Russian biological warfare who was an expert in Anthrax.
Dr. Robert M. Schwartz was stabbed to death on Dec 10. msnbc [msnbc.com].
Dr Schwartz was an expert in DNA sequencing, 'cultists' are blamed.
Set Van Nguyen died in an airlock on Dec 14. Chemical incidents report center [chemsafety.gov]. He was in the field of animal diseases (anthrax) and died in an airlock filled with nitrogen. This is very odd since he should have been able to notice he was suffocating and open the door.
Steven Mostow died in a mysterious plane crash on March 25.Colorado 9news [9news.com]
One of the country's leading infectious disease and bioterrorism experts from the Colorado Health Sciences Center. Preliminary reports say the airplane engine failed. This is an extremely uncommon event, and does not necessarily lead to fatality. I am a pilot and can testify that the events of this death are highly suspicious.
Re:News links to some of the events, including pla (Score:2)
If you're a pilot, then you're probably also aware that light twins (which this was) are often referred to as "doctor killers", because they're typically owned/flown by doctor/pilots who only fly them occasionally, thus don't have the reflexes to deal with an emergency like this.
Light twin on final (low and slow) losing an engine -- leading to asymmetric thrust and consequent yaw/roll moments? And in a snow flurry?
Nothing surprising about crashing under those conditions.
Re:News links to some of the events, including pla (Score:2)
Actually, no, he shouldn't. In most people (though there are some medical conditions under which this is not true), the sensation of suffocation is not caused by lack of oxygen, but by buildup of carbon dioxide.
Since breathing an inert gas allows the exchange of CO2 into the atmosphere, the only symptoms suffered are those of oxygen deprivation -- which impairs judgement and leads to giddiness like being drunk -- not a sensation of being suffocated. Due to the impaired judgement, people suffering from the symptoms generally don't recognize that they are suffering the symptoms, making inert-gas asphyxiation an especially easy way to die.
(Note: specifically because there is no sensation of pain or suffocation, inert-gas asphyxiation has been proposed as a humane method of execution.)
Re:News links to some of the events, including pla (Score:2)
The mere idea of having execution become seen as humane frightens me. Someone once speculated that the problem with "stun weapons" is that because they did no (well, rare... well, pretty rare, anyway) lasting harm, police and authorities would use them with greater impunity. Hey, why not shock a demonstrator or two? No permanent damage, and it's humane!
Of course, you probably didn't mean to imply that execution is humane, just that inert gas asphyxiation is a better way to go than a bullet or the chair, and that's gotta be true. Still... I think it's better not to attach the words. Execution may be necessary sometimes... but let's never fool ourselves about what it is.
Re:News links to some of the events, including pla (Score:2)
"Less brutal." That seems accurate.
OK, the raving semantic consequentialist in me is placated. : )
Zodiac (Score:3, Funny)
Either that, or I've been reading too much Neal Stephenson again.
Nitrogen? (Score:2)
What the hell sense does that make? As a scuba diver, I know that humans can (and do) regularly take large pressures of nitrogen... so what does that mean?
Re:Nitrogen? (Score:2)
It says he died from asphyxiation in a 'deadly gas'. This makes no sense. Nitrogen is not deadly, and asphyxiation takes time; he should have been able to open the door once he noticed he couldnt breath..
Re:Nitrogen? (Score:2)
Re:Nitrogen? (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was in Grad School for Biology. (Score:2, Funny)
Stories like this make me glad I selected something microbe-free for a career.
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Quite frankly, I'm disgusted... (Score:3, Funny)
This new generaiton of Spooks and Operatives dropped the ball again - people are finding out. The just need to keep it simple - a drowing here, a maiming there - and nobody notices. Just like it should be. By now-a-days, these whipper snappers have to get clever - swords, nudity, pagens and these new-fangeled aero-planes. Lets get back to business, and just do our jobs, and leave the 'flair' for the Operatives in San Francisco.
Sounds like Silk from Greg Bear's Vitals (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, just keep telling yourself it's only a novel... ;-)
exposure to nitrogen (Score:3, Insightful)
Surely those who write articles on such topics could do a little research. The author most likely saw that he died in a nitrogen environment and concluded that he died from the nitrogen. Silly writers. Nitrogen isn't a deadly gas! It comprises a huge portion of our atmosphere. It's the lack of oxygen that killed him. Next they're going to run a story about the deadly effect of H20 in our tapwater.
All I know... (Score:2)
Mystery British Death Toll at 10 dead programmers (Score:2, Interesting)
For those interested in a book which follows a plot with a striking similarity to the Marconi incidents, try The Chain of Chance [google.com]
by Stanislaw Lem.It is a shame that noone will ever read this because I posted so late.
Re:Satanists != Pagans! (Score:2)
A Pagan is defined [dictionary.com] as;
n.
3. A non-Christian.
adj.
1. Not Christian, Muslim, or Jewish.
3. Neo-Pagan.
If the daughter was some deranged wacko who actually DID THINK she was talking to the evil one that indeed, she WOULD BE CONSIDERED A PAGAN.
While there may not be a world wide conspiracy of devil worshipers running around, there are indeed a few nut bags now and then who may think they are doing something eeeviilll. In this case obviously her delusions went
When pagan was used it obviously was not referring to the cute and cuddly "hug all the woodland creatures" new age neo-pagans, who to their credit have turned out some rather decent works of art.
(and that is all I am giving them. Well ok, and they also have a tendency to tie themselves to trees to help stop big corporations, which I have absolutely no problem with either.
Re:Satanists != Pagans! (Score:2, Offtopic)
Kintanon
Disclaimer: I am a christian, my wife is a pagan. I am not a "Big Church" christian.
Re:Satanists != Pagans! (Score:2, Insightful)
It refers (rather, used to) to the folk religions of the people, rather than the state-organized fun.
Re:Satanists != Pagans! (Score:2)
Satan worship is a spinoff of Christianity, technically it's closer to a christian denomination than a Pagan religion.
Kintanon
Re:Satanists != Pagans! (Score:2)
Re:"Exposure to Nitrogen"? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:"Exposure to Nitrogen"? (Score:2, Funny)
Chilling idea, actually...
Re:The Microsoft Conspiracy! (Score:2)
Re:The Microsoft Conspiracy! (Score:2, Funny)
The fact that the parent comment is currently ranked "+1 Insightful" makes me want to spoonfeed myself 10 kilos of ebola. If this weren't Slashdot, I'd swear the end is near...
Re:"Statistically, what are the chances?" (Score:2)
I see your point -- there wasn't really any hard data presented. However, unless you have some hard data yourself, you're just muddying up the picture even more.
By the way, the pizza boy was obviously an agent trained to convince the cops he was innocent. Either that, or her colleague was sick and tired of her ordering pizza instead of cooking for ONCE when it was her turn to cook and couldn't wait until the pizza boy had left before pulling the trigger in a mad rage. I don't know about you, but the pizza-boy-did-it story sounds more convincing to me.
Oh and then there was the guy that died of nitrogen exposure! GOOD GOD! The Earth's atmosphere is 78% nitrogen! AAAAAAHHH! We're all gonna die!!!
Re:"Statistically, what are the chances?" (Score:2)
And often these inert nigtrogen rooms are built to have close to 100% nitrogen, to prevent the decomposing of objects within them.
The human lungs require and oxygen concentration of about 8% to function AT ALL. They are not that efficient; they are just efficient enough to deal with ~16-17% oxygen found in the atmosphere.
Anythign much less, and you die. Period.
Clever assasination. I'd like to thank the man, before I arrested him and put him on trial.
Killing people (even scientists) is ILLEGAL.
Re:"Statistically, what are the chances?" (Score:2)
As the original poster pointed out, we're all exposed to lots of nitrogen every day, doesn't hurt us a bit.
The original article specifically said He entered an airlocked storage lab and died from exposure to nitrogen.. That's just stupid writing on the author's part. The guy died from lack of oxygen, same as if he'd walked out the airlock of a space ship.
(Early in the Shuttle days, a couple of technicians died the same way from entering the engine compartment after it had been purged with nitrogen.)
(And actually, I guess some people have died from exposure to nitrogen -- but at about six atmospheres pressure, from nitrogen narcosis (deep diving SCUBA divers). And even then the immediate cause of death was more likely drowning caused by the narcosis.)
Re:"Statistically, what are the chances?" (Score:5, Interesting)
Reading the article one will observe that most of the deaths involved people between age 45-64. The death rate for this group from the disaster center [disastercenter.com] is 708 deaths per 100,000 people for all causes. Subtracting out the death rates given for medical conditions that almost certainly don't apply, that leaves us 200 deaths per 100,000.
Now the article states that there are 20,000 microbiologists working in the US. Let us suppose that 1/2 of those are over 40. And perhaps 1/2 of those are "important" enough to attract attention. That's a pool of 5,000 people.
Based on the rate of 200 / 100,000 we would expect 10 deaths annually, or about 4.2 over a five month period. Applying Poisson statistics, the probability of seeing 11 or more random events when 4.2 are expected is about 0.2%. In other words this really is a strange occurence, probably having some underlying cause and not just a statistical aberration.
Of course, not knowing much about microbiology, I might be seriously underestimating (or overestimating) how important these scientists were. If they are in the top 5% of their profession, as opposed to the top half, then the coincidence would be even more startlingly unlikely.
The only two subjects I got 100% in... (Score:2, Insightful)
In brief, you are confusing statistical results after the fact with results before the fact. Lets use the "betting fallacy" on which Los Vegas continues to enrich itself: If I flip a coin twice, both times getting heads, the probability of that after two coin tosses is 1/2 x 1/2 or 1/4. But the chances of getting another head as a result remains 1/2, even though that outcome occurs only 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 or 1/8 of the time that I make three flips, because the outcome of the first two flips has already occurred.
If the result only occurs 0.02% of the time, then it will almost always occur so long as I select 50,000 events (0.02% = 1/50,000). Here, the statistical cluster involved microbiologists. If it had involved firefighters, would we have thought arsonists were getting rid of the opposition?
Statistically unlikely events occur all the time. Being able to pick and choose among them after the fact doesn't in themselves give them any significance.
Let's act like true Slashdotters: "Gee, I had no idea that Micro$oft was getting into biotech!"
Re:The only two subjects I got 100% in... (Score:3, Informative)
If the result only occurs 0.02% of the time, then it will almost always occur so long as I select 50,000 events (0.02% = 1/50,000).
You may have done well in you probability course, but you should probably go back and take some more statistics. Particularly study the Poisson distribution and how it can be used to calculate the odds of an event with a given rate of incidence occurring a certain number of times within a given time period.
The event with probability 0.2% was the occurence of 11 deaths in a period of time in which the expected average number was 4.2 (based on all those reasonable-sounding numbers the poster pulled out out of his hat). While it's true that in 50,000 trials the probability of an event with probability .002 occurring at least once is very, very close to 1, 50K trials would require watching a population of 20,000 microbiologists for 20,833 years, since each trial takes five months.
Military ethics, etc (Score:2)
Of course the morals and ethics they tend to get into tend to be justifications of their jobs. And as Sept 11 showed, it is sometimes difficult to have an intelligent conversation with a man bent on trying to kill or destroy you.
Re:No plane crashes on March 25-WRONG (Score:2)
news report on plane crash [9news.com]
Re:Do the math, people! (Score:2)
Also, you are assuming that there were only 11 deaths, which is probably not the case. What stands out about these deaths is that they have mysterious causes, or blantant criminal intent.
Go do more investigation and you will find that there really may be something to this story.