Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal (part 2)

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

new thread as the old one is practically done.

Technically he was falsely accused of fraud by a professor in another subject who later admitted he was wrong I think. I can’t remember the full story.

I can’t remember the full story.

Enough said!

Thanks, that article was a useful summary, Rafals.

It echoes what nursy and other posters were saying on the first thread, about atropine being a generic first line treatment of nerve agents.

Counterpoint,

'Either way, it looks like the OPCW was given some lab produced substance that had also probbaly served as a reference for Porton Down trying to identify its nature.'

Why would Porton Down need a 'reference substance'? You have heard of mass spectrometers, right? And chemical formulae?

'BTW - the fact that the substance analysed by OPCW was found to be so 'pure' would rule out those speculations on mixing of binary agents.'

Why? They said 'high purity', not perfectly pure.

'Most unlikely that the military (or an assassin) would take steps to purify something to the degree found, and stated so, by the OPCW.'

A professional lab would not need to 'purify' a substance if it did not have impurities in it in the first place. Given the dangerous nature of the substance, I assume it is produced in a negative pressure environment.

I really doubt you are a chemist, Counterpoint (nor am I but I did study it up to university level). This is yet more FUD, isn't it?

The purity indicates that it was made in a professional lab (i.e a small factory) and not cooked up in someone's garage, that is all.

@larry - I never claimed to be a 'chemist'.

And, Boris' claim is that only Russia had this substance; and, yet, if you know what you need for GCMS, you would know that you need to calibrate with a pure reference. So either we had this substance and hence could identify any new presentations of it or we didn't and then we could not identify it. Which is it?

As for the binary point I made; since you did chemistry to degree level, how many reactions go to 100% completion, under all conditions (assuming this happened on a doorknob or other non-ideal conditions and that it's also not some reversible reaction with an equilibrium that is easily swayed by normal Salisbury early spring atmospheric parameters? Hmm? Think back to working out percent yields.

Ahh Counterpoint,

So many expertises, always delivered after a convenient delay. Had a chance to go back to your controllers to get answer Now?

If you read my post carefully, I said I did it to university level. I specialised in another science for my degree. What was your degree, by the way?

You are inferring a hell of a lot from ‘a high degree of purity’. I think they meant a lack of contaminants; I doubt that they were commenting on the ratio of reactants to products.

Just back from watching a recording of an earlier episode of the Durrells, if you must know.

I don't claim expertise. My posts are delivered according to who I want to address with what I know and are opinions for those who can judge them as worthy or not. But to troll me with playground comments says more about you.

I don't care what your degree is and it doesn't matter what mine are in either. We are not here as academics or to trade qualifications. I know others have, but their so-called qualifications are meaningless online. Either statements are in my field and I understand and comment or they are not and I leave them alone and go and see to my cooking and cleaning.

Now, please comment on the posts and leave personal questions out of it or I shall not respond to any more but will report to the mods.

Actually the counterpoint on the previous thread did claim expertise, several times.

Not you?

But thank you for admitting that you're stating opinions, not facts.

counterpoint could the leaving out of personal questions/comments
apply to your posts as well please ?

Back to the point of the high level of purity put out by the OPCW.

Someone has raised the fact that Novichocks degrade easily. If so, the samples OPCW had for analysis were probably freshly prepared and not leftover from a few weeks before when the Skripals first came down with symptoms.

Very early on, I said I believe Britain were probably world leaders in nerve agent production. I haven't seen anything to suggest otherwise.

Following on from that and what someone said earlier about Britain supplying the agents to make chemical weapons:

From the article -
Syrian conflict: Key sarin ingredients sold by UK firms
By Nick Hopkins
Investigations correspondent, BBC Newsnight
9 July 2014

Then foreign secretary, William Hague, said: "We judge it likely that these chemical exports by UK companies were subsequently used by Syria in their programmes to produce nerve agents, including sarin."

It seems extremely likely that Britain has made Novichocks.

Of course I'm offering opinions? Are you a factoid merchant?

For example, I am of the opinion that the earth is round.

I've heard 'evidence' that it is round and 'evidence' that it is not. I scrutinised the data and I am still of the opinion that the earth is round (near-spherical, for the pedants).

Does that mean my opinion is invalid?

Goodness Counterpoint, that was a strange response at 21:47.

It was to larry. She's/he's been trolling me on other threads too.

Sorry.

:) I'm going to head off to bed, to try and get a sensible nights sleep.

Me too. Night night.

Why do you keep writing Boris&May like that? You've written it the exact same way on all the Russia related threads across MN. Odd.

On another note, I cant get past how such a pure nerve agent didn't actually manage to kill anyone.

I think they are both culpable for this situation - working as one, hence Boris&May.

Anyway, I agree with your regarding puzzling over the apparent lack of potency of the pure nerve agent; its failure to kill doesn't follow.

The other factor worth thinking about is why the OPCW samples were found to be so pure if they were collected about 3 weeks after exposure to sun, wind and rain - supposedly exposed on a doorknob and from various other places, I presume. Also, why no mention of 'gel' constituents or other delivery systems since they (our government) are also trying to link this to Russian experimentation with applying it to various surfaces.

All very intriguing.

Yeah, I noticed the weird Boris&May meme too, KenAdams. Was unusual enough that I googled it this morning to see if it was a thing.

Doesn't seem very widespread, only got five hits (other than "show more like this").

Anyway this is what I got.

From twimap.net/twitter/kremlinlana it looks like this is, as one might guess, an account called posting pro-Russian, anti-western memes (modified photos, etc).

Defra say it was delivered in liquid form, just a very small amount and has been found over 8 sites and will take months to clear up.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43798068

I hope they've found all of the sites.

I think they are going over the top with the 'clean up'. It's been raining the the last few weeks and the wildfowl and pigeons have been allowed free roaming in the whole area.
Crazy situation!

I think they are going over the top with the 'clean up'.

Really?? I don't.
I think that the population of Salisbury has been misled.
From the BBC report linked above:

The nerve agent does not evaporate or disappear over time, experts said, and intense cleaning with caustic chemicals is required to get rid of it.

We were told that washing your clothing and wiping your phone with baby wipes would be fine to get rid of any contamination, and that the agent degrades in water. Well, which is it?? Can't have it both ways.

Hoardings will go up in public places in the next few days for the clean-up to begin.
Grass and stones will be removed from public areas around the Maltings shopping centre, and all material found to be contaminated will be incinerated.
Almost 200 military personnel will help with the work, which is expected to take a number of months.

What about the fact that people were moving freely in and out of The Mill and Zizzi's and the Maltings for a whole day, before they were shut? The contaminated table was eventually incinerated. What about any money/phones etc. that customers had placed on that table in the meantime? 'Grass and stones will be removed and incinerated'? It's like they expect us to believe that the agent was all neatly contained and is being taken care of. Hundreds of people had access to contaminated areas before they were cordoned off. Just take a little time to think about the implications, if the agent is as durable and tenacious as is implied.

Can you have a "meme" with only 5 hits?

If you spent more time on criticising the actual arguments, Perking, instead of thinking you're on a 'trail of a troll' you might feel less miffed at failing to support your position. It's a common tactic to go after a poster when you can't counter their arguments.

Anyway, doing my own googling, it seems the first usage of Brian&May was by some twitter account for Momentum, back in December. I wouldn't have looked at it as I don't do twitter so I'm happy to assume we came up with it independently.

The rest of the meaningful uses seem to come back to mumsnet!

As for any post-Skripal uses, then no problem - the term sums it up nicely.

Oh - I've been hacked! That was meant to be Boris&May not Brian&May.

lol

There's been another death of a Russian investigative journalist, after what I said above about how brave people were.

Russian reporter Borodin dead after mystery fall
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43781351

In recent weeks, the journalist had written about Russian mercenaries known as the "Wagner Group" who were reportedly killed in Syria on 7 February in a confrontation with US forces.

Last week, the outgoing head of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, said that "a couple hundred" Russian mercenaries died in the clash in Deir al-Zour province. The mercenaries were apparently taking part in an attack by pro-Syrian government fighters on the headquarters of a US ally, the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Weeks later Russia admitted that several dozen Russian citizens had been either killed or wounded, but stressed they were not regular soldiers.

Last month, Borodin had written that three of those killed had come from the Sverdlovsk region in the Urals, in which Yekaterinburg is the main city. Two of the men were from the towns of Asbest and one from Kedrovoye, he said.

He had also investigated political scandals, including allegations made by a Belarusian escort known as Nastya Rybka in a video posted by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.