On 16, Oct, 2001 at 09:22:19AM -0500, Igor Chudov wrote:
My guess would be that microwaving them will not help. Microwaves heat up moist things by starting electric currents in them. Anthrax spores are not moist and probably will not even heat up.
Right.
Try your regular stove. Set it to, say, 400 degrees and pray that the papers will remain legible. I'd prbobably be more likely to be attacked by meteorites or abducted by aliens than be anthraxed via mail, but *if* I had to sterilize mail, I would use a stove.
In labs an autoclave is used to sterilize everything. Autoclaves are basically pressure cookers, high pressure steam at 121 deg. Celsius and ~2 Bar kill everything. The effectivity of autoclaves is tested with spores from Bacillus stearothermophilus, which is some of the most resistant there is, and I suspect B. anthracium is quite heat resistant too, as most other Bacillus species. But I'd use a pressure cooker to kill the spores if I had the need (and didn't have an autoclave, that is). The paper probably wouldn't fall apart, though the ink might not be readable after having been wet. These things I know from having worked as a lab technician in a microbiological lab once. Have a nice day Morten -- Morten Liebach <morten@hotpost.dk> PGP-key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xD796A4EB https://pc89225.stofanet.dk/ || http://pc89225.stofanet.dk/