05.24.13
Bean Pounding (minor update)
Why? “No one can really say what attracts a few unusual American men to it. Pure madness and mental dysfunction, social anomie, or just a bad itch, one scratched by making what they believe to be a secret deadly powder?”
The FBI asserts active ricin was found in tainted letters attributed to Matthew Buquet in Sopkane, WA.
This means they ran the powder against an assay that relies on a measure of protein transcription in a cell process and its inhibition.
Ricin inactivates protein synthesis at the level of the ribosome. If you add a sample to a biochemical assay which relies on translation, it will stop.
Ricin can then be confirmed through addition of antibody specific for the poison in another round of testing. Cancellation of translation inhibition is then confirmatory for active ricin in a powder.
From the wire:
The indictment did not mention ricin, but the FBI made the link in a news release late Wednesday, saying analysis showed the letter sent to the judge contained “active ricin toxin.”