80-year-old `viable` anthrax strain debunked using advanced genomic sequencing
(PHYSorg.com Biology)

A team of international researchers has found that a strain of anthrax-causing bacterium thought to have been viable 80 years after a thwarted World War I espionage attack, was, in reality, a much younger standard laboratory strain. The team speculates that the mix-up was due to commonplace laboratory contamination.