Bubblewrap terrorism

I can happily spend ages bursting bubblewrap. It has a certain surprise value that never stops giving, you never quite know when the bubble will burst.

I saw some nice photos Rachel Armstrong (@livingarchitect and Senior Ted Fellow) has made playing with chemistry, using bubblewrap cells as mini-reaction chambers to great effect. She is a proper scientist, not a mad one, and does some interesting stuff and is worth following. She isn’t the problem.

My first thought was, I need a chemistry lab, then I thought about Dexter and Stewie with their labs and realised that I have way too much in common with them, including mental age band, and remembered some of my childhood ‘events’ with my chemistry set, and basically I haven’t moved on so it wouldn’t be a good idea.

My second thought, a couple of seconds later, was that bubblewrap would make an excellent way to keep nasty chemicals separate and then to suddenly mix them, and that it could be easily wrapped around the body or in a briefcase lining, or as obviously innocent packing material for a fragile object being carried on a plane, with the top few rows of cells kept largely chemical-free to erase suspicion. Now I know I can’t be the first person to think of that, but I remember seeing warnings about all sorts of things I’m not allowed to take on planes or that must be put in the little plastic bag and I don’t recall seeing any mention of bubblewrap.

And if chemistry, why not biotech, mixing some sort of dispersal activator with a few cells of nasty viruses. Or in fact, why bother with the dispersion chemicals, bubblewrap makes a nice burst of compressed air when you pop it anyway so would be good for dispersing stuff just by popping cells.

Just a thought, but is bubblewrap already a known terrorist threat, or is it just about to become one?