Word: hydrogenating
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...following excerpt, Suskind describes the government's reaction to information about a different WMD threat: hydrogen cyanide gas. As in the rest of the book, he illuminates the constant interplay and occasional tension between the "invisibles," the men and women in the intelligence and uniformed services actually fighting the war on terrorism, and the "notables," high-level officials who "tell us that everything will be fine, or that we should be very afraid, or both." Suskind, who won the Pulitzer Prize as a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, wrote the 2004 best seller The Price of Loyalty, an inside...
Precisely, the mubtakkar is a delivery system for a widely available combination of chemicals - sodium cyanide, which is used as rat poison and metal cleanser, and hydrogen, which is everywhere. The combination of the two creates hydrogen cyanide, a colorless, highly volatile liquid that is soluble and stable in water. It has a faint odor, like peach kernels or bitter almonds. When it is turned into gas and inhaled, it is lethal. For years, figuring out how to deliver this combination of chemicals as a gas has been something of a holy grail for terrorists...
...been on the lookout for reports of a solution to these engineering hurdles. Now, the CIA had found it. Mubtakkar means "invention" in Arabic, "the initiative" in Farsi. The device is a bit of both. It's a canister with two interior containers: sodium cyanide is in one; a hydrogen product, like hydrochloric acid, in the other; and a fuse breaks the seal between them. The fuse can be activated remotely - as bombs are triggered by cell phones - breaking the seal, creating the gas, which is then released. Hydrogen cyanide gas is a blood agent, which means it poisons cells...
...confined environment, such as an office building's ventilation system or a subway car, hydrogen cyanide would cause many deaths. The most chilling illustration of what happens in a closed space comes from a 20th century monstrosity. The Nazis used a form of hydrogen cyanide called Zyklon B in the gas chambers of their concentration camps...
...biggest threat to the planet,” Thompson said. Another fellow with a physics doctorate from Harvard, Alex Johnson, will work in the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences with Assistant Professor Shriram Ramanathan, developing technologies that will hopefully aid a shift from oil-based to hydrogen-based energy. “[The fellows] are scattered through the university,” said Minard. “There is a fairly wide array of topics.” The other five fellows are Peter Alagona, a doctoral candidate in history at the University of California-Los Angeles; Nicole...