Word: castor
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...ricin isn't especially good as a weapon of mass destruction. It's easy to make, using a recipe you can get off the Internet. It comes from the castor bean, which is used around the world in products ranging from laxatives to brake fluid to nylon, and also grows wild in the southwestern U.S., so there's no shortage of raw material. But unlike anthrax, ricin is tough to aerosolize and inhale; the easiest way to deliver a fatal dose is injection or ingestion, and you need a lot for the latter. Ricin is powerful...
...bulletin also tells local law officials and other first responders to be aware of telltale signs of toxin production: for instance, large caches of yeast or infant formula, which can be used to grow or dilute biological toxins, and sacks of castor beans, from which ricin is extracted...
...possibility of terrorist retaliation. But others are less restrained. Last week British Prime Minister Tony Blair said an al-Qaeda attack in Britain is "inevitable." According to the New York Times, U.S. officials believe that Islamic militants arrested in London early this year for allegedly manufacturing ricin--a castor-bean-derived poison that Saddam may also possess--may have been plotting to tamper with food served to British troops at least at one nearby base...
...Students' notebooks were filled with descriptions of explosives and demolition techniques--including those for underwater attacks. One printout inserted into a notebook gave precise instructions for making a mini-mine "using common plastic soap dishes." More alarming documents, including a formula for ricin (a poisonous biological agent derived from castor seeds) and diagrams of nuclear bombs, were found by a Times of London reporter. But at least one item was a phony: a nuclear-bomb recipe taken from a parody website. Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge insisted last week that the nuclear documents tell us no more than we already...