Question

Biological weapons like bacteria ... power point

Answer 1

bacteria are really weapon actually better than virus which acts as if it is dead and then when it get host it comes back alive
in cause of bacteria some of the dangerous diseases are caused by bacteria that it can be killed by taking antibiotic and prevented by taking in hygienic food
:)) hope it helps u......

Answer 2

Bacterial Agents
"...little living animalcules, very prettily a-moving..."
~Anton Van Leeuwenhoek
As possible biological agents, bacteria are defined by its virulence or ability to induce disease, incubation period, mode of transmission, and case fatality rates.

Some bacteria can form spores when it finds itself in a hostile environment. The bacterium, through a process called sporulation, replicates its genetic material and then surrounds it with a thick coating. In spore form, the bacterium's water is released and metabolism ceases; it can survive temperature extremes, radiation, and lack of air, water, and nutrients for extended periods of time to be revived when nutrients are abundant again. A spore's virtual indestructibility renders it ideal as biological weapons agent.


History of Bacteria
Scientists suspect that life on earth evolved from bacteria. At first, man believed disease to be either punishment from the divine, sorcery from enemies, or the invasion of evil spirits. The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates wrote Corpus Hipporaticum, which combined 50-70 volumes and formulated a new theory of disease. He believed the body to be composed of four humors: yellow bile, black bile, phlegm, and blood. Disease was caused by an imbalance of these humors. Fever, for example, was believed to be an excess of yellow bile, and a cold bath would increase the cold and wet phlegm humor to re-balance the body. The theory that imbalance of bodily humors caused disease was also popularized by the 2nd Century Greek physician Galen. Aristotle formulated the theory of spontaneous generation, the spontaneous process through which a decaying flesh generated small animals. Another theory of disease, the miasma theory, postulated that a poisonous vapor with particles from decaying and rotting biomatter, mold, or dust caused diseases like cholera and the Black Death.

The first recorded descriptions of bacteria were in letters from Anton Van Leeuwonhoek to the Royal Society in the 1670s- descriptions of what he observed in his single-lensed microscope. The word 'bacteria' derives from the Greek word for 'staff' to describe the rod-like shape of bacilli. In 1857, Louis Pasteur, after he observed that yeast and bacteria fermented wine, put forth the theory that disease was caused by microorganisms. In the 1870s, German scientist Robert Koch proved the disease theory by experimenting with anthrax in mice. An intense competition between Koch and Pasteur, reflecting the political rivalries of late 19th Century Europe between Germany and France, propelled forward advances in the bacteriology and epidemiology fields. In 1905, Koch won the Nobel Prize for his work, and Pasteur won his in 1907. In 1909, Paul Ehrlich discovered that Atoxyl, an arsenic compound, disabled the syphilis bacteria, and in 1910, produced the drug called Salvarsan. Salvarsan inspired Alexander Fleming to pursue experiments that led to the discovery of penicillin, the first antibiotic drug, in 1928.

The history of using bacterial agents as biological weapons stretched back to ancient history. The Greek historian Herodotus from the 5th Century BCE wrote of Scythian archers who lived in the Black Sea region and used poisoned arrows. The poison was composed of the decomposed bodies of venomous adders, human blood, and dung that were mixed together and left to putrefy. Scientists suggested that such a concoction would contain gangrene (Clostridium perfingins) and tetanus (Clostridium tentani). In the 14th Century, the Tartar army flung bodies of plague victims over the walls of Kaffa, the modern city of Feodosia in Ukraine. While plague did break out in Kaffa, it was more likely that flea-infested rats brought plague from the Tarter camp into Kaffa. During World War I, Germany began its bioweapons program infecting Romanian sheep with anthrax before they were transported to Russia. During World War II, the Japanese bioweapons program known as Unit 731 poisoned Chinese wells with cholera and typhus bacteria, and tested deadly diseases on Prisoners of War. Since then, biological agents have developed globally as a weapon of destruction.
Bacteria as Biological Weapons
Despite the widespread use of antibiotics, bacterial biological weapons agents remain a formidable challenge to global security. Antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria, aerosolized, combined with a health infrastructure that rarely handles cases of atypical diseases such as plague or anthrax could present an attractive target for a biological weapons attack.