okay this is a odd question but... With the current supply of notes contaminated with cocaine has anyone ever officially or unofficially tested bills from series 1912 and before for comtaminates? I'm not talking about irradiated dimes or even biological agents reminesent of the one NCIS episode where a terrorist put a nerve agent on money using a dermis penetrating chemical as a mode of transmission. Id wager that if type notes were contaminated with an illicit substance i'd put my money on some form of opioid due to the morphine epidemic during and after the Civil War.
That is an interesting question.... I thought that modern bills were contaminated with cocaine because of people using the bills to physically snort the powder... you are saying some bills might be contaminated from people trying to spread chemicals through the normal stream of commerce?
kind of UL its been a concern in the past that terrorist may try to spread a chemical/biological agent via that means but what i really want to know is what type of substance is found on the old horse blankets. and yes unfortunately our money is contaminated with cocaine chloride. i took a NBC course in ROTC that scared the heck outta me.
I am a lawyer and one of my first cases was trying to argue that canine sniffs outside of a car does not lead to "reasonable suspicion" because paper money is sufficiently contaminated with cocaine to cause a trained dog to alert regardless of what was actually in the vehicle. (We lost). I wonder if old notes are carriers of biological agents like smallpox and H1N1 Spanish flu? I remember reading somewhere that a few months ago a researcher at Harvard Medical School found a sample of smallpox inside a book that was misplaced decades ago. Scary stuff.
Viruses can't survive outside the human body for more than a few days, unless they are in a certain medium like blood or other body fluid that are kept in a climate controlled environment (ie. Cryogenically Frozen).
Funkee - can you still detect traces of viruses even if the virus is no longer viable? It would make an interesting conversation piece to be able to show someone, say, a 1899 $1.00 Black Eagle and say, "Yep... that's got smallpox all over it."
UL- the only possible way i think one might find a sample would be if there was a stain/ residue of some organic sample (blood, mucus, saliva, etc.), gross i know, a specimen could yield a positive due to the findings of trace indicators on certain cells. there might be other ways that i am unaware of. Most biological agents have a specified survival time on fauxmytes (Spelling?).
It's actually a bit more complicated than I initially stated. Viruses are not technically alive or dead. Viruses contain genetic code (DNA/RNA), but cannot reproduce on their own. When a cell is exposed to a virus, the virus enters that cell and replicates from within. On a surface, most viruses only survive a few hours to a few days. And by survive, I mean remain active. Interestingly, smallpox is one of a few viruses than can remain active for a couple of years! On a surface (or outside of the body), a virus can be inactivated by environmental factors. Heat, light (UV), and chemicals (like soaps) can irreparably damage a virus and prevent it from effectively entering or replicating inside of a cell. As far as detection, yes it is possible to detect an inactivated or dead virus.
