On Mon, 26 Feb 2007 21:49:18 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 20:07:27 on Mon,
26 Feb 2007, Graeme Wall remarked:

A dirty bomb is a conventional explosive device designed to spread
radioactive 'shrapnel' around, any biological component would be killed by
the radioactivity long before delivery.

Not quite. It's a conventional explosive device designed to spread
*biological* 'shrapnel' around. It doesn't have to be a very big bang,
either. Just enough to do the spreading. And nothing radioactive
involved at all.

I beg to differ; my understanding is that a 'dirty bomb' has always
been thought of as being radiological in nature. A chemical or
biological weapon doesn't *need* explosive - the agent can simply be
released into the environment and allowed to disperse naturally.
Irradiated material is most effective when dispersed as widely as
possible, and isn't affected by heat (which can of course destroy
biological, and to some extent possibly chemical agents), hence the
'bomb' makes sense.

Mike
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