With all this talk of germ warfare and carbon fiber attacks, I started thinking of another useful technology which made its appearance a number of years ago, and promptly vanished from sight. Not so long ago, some university scientists invented a catalyst which, even in microscopic amounts, would prevent formation of the contiguous oxide film which protects metals from rapidly reacting with the oxygen in the air. They called a press conference to demonstrate their new invention, which was carried on CNN, and after placing one drop of their magic solution on a metal plate, held it in front of the cameras as white power erupted from various points on its surface and it promptly crumbled to pieces. Now I found this quite an interesting demonstration, and much to my non-surprise, this invention was never mentioned in the media again. A few years later, in an article for Omni Magazine on scientifically advanced technologies for knocking out critical infrastructure, G. Gordon Liddy made mention of a "Classified Liquid Metal Embrittlement Technology," in which a liquid catalyst could be concealed in a object like a magic marker, and applied in small amounts to structurally significant components of aircraft, which would later undergo catastrophic structural failure in fight. This sounded to me a whole lot like the stuff the scientists had shown on CNN in the press conference. Anyone remember this? Would any chemists in the audience care to hazard a guess as to the chemical composition of said catalyst and the mechanism of its interaction with the target to be destroyed? -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd@netcom.com $ via Finger. $