Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/07/13/novichok-bottle.html
…
8 Likes
"Curiouser and curiouser!”
11 Likes
Did they find the bottle somewhere and take it home, did someone plant it in their house, or are they actually Russian agents?
15 Likes
If we had a legitimate POTUS, we’d likely get some answers concerning this issue.
8 Likes
I wonder if there are a whole bunch of little bottles all over London that are basically little nerve agent time bombs waiting to go off…
3 Likes
Sigh. Why do people continue to call Novichok a “Russian nerve agent”? Why just the other day someone on Sputnik TV proved it came from an American lab. /useful idiot.
11 Likes
I did read that they were known for retrieving things from bins (“dumpster divers” in US parlance?) so that may be a possibility.
(ETA … and actually, I believe it is his house - not theirs - she was ‘homeless’/resident in a local hostel awaiting a flat of her own, even though they were apparently in a relationship.)
12 Likes
Cause that is sure to make the world a better place. /sarc
2 Likes
I find it so frustrating to read stories about “Novichok” agents when they never, ever name the supposed chemical in question.
I have to believe there’s some factual basis under all of this, but still worry that “Novichok” is being used as a catch-all term for “nerve agents we haven’t quite identified or understand.”
1 Like
I’m glad nobody is publishing the actual chemical formulae!!!
9 Likes
Yeah I was kind of thinking that. I mean, the less people in general understand how to make it the better right? Most of us wouldn’t have access to what we’d need to make it but enough people do, and illegal labs aren’t exactly unheard of. In light of that it makes sense that public info on the exact chemistry of it would be muddied deliberately.
Let’s not set the bar unreasonably high.
10 Likes
Better living through chemistry! /s
3 Likes
Chemists have solutions.
9 Likes
If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate…
23 Likes
By the way this nerve agent is extremely shelf stable and can remain active for approximately 50 years. Which means if left unchecked it can fatally affect people many times over.
4 Likes
@Captain_Stove @FGD135 @PPK
I’m so happy your reaction to all this is to bond so well.
It’s a shame #notallchemists are so light-hearted and some put their skills to shit like novichok. 
7 Likes
I like that there are still Chemistry jokes, I was told all the good ones Argon.
27 Likes
The precursors for nerve agents - most notably methylphosphonyl difluoride (and it’s precursors) are tightly controlled substances with few legitimate purposes. Getting hold of them is hard, preparing nerve agents without killing yourself is even harder.
The formulae of chemicals like sarin and tabun are well-known, but we’ve not had a wave of terrorists, or even industrial states developing nerve agents. With a few exceptions, they’ve not spread.
11 Likes
I think it’s perfectly reasonable to circulate that advice in this circumstance, where authorities don’t have a comprehensive explanation for how a long-term-stable and highly lethal nerve agent was unleashed on the victims. If other items in the area were contaminated, intentionally or not, it would be a bad idea to pick them up at random. At this point it doesn’t seem likely that there’ll be any further incidents triggered by random stuff on the ground, but better safe than sorry until all the data is in.
