Would, for instance, putting your mail in the microwave before opening it (for less time than it takes the letter to burst into flames!) render the germs impotent?
Or would the germs then simply take Viagra to counteract the effects?
Would irradiating the mail on a mass scale (say, at the post office) kill the little suckers?
Should our government be looking into this? Is it?
My understanding is that anthrax spores are tough little bastards, and there isn’t much that’s capable of killing them. Sorry.
Me.
paper kills anthrax
anthrax kills scissors
rock kills anthrax
Looks like there have been experiments with killing anthrax. Here is a 1998 article:
An article from the Independent (London) that was reprinted in the Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo) this morning supports the information in Violet’s cite.
“The Truth About Anthrax”, Steve Connor
So the answer to your question would be, “nothing that doesn’t kill everything else as well.”
What really kills them is when they’re doing a show and the audience doesn’t really seem into it.
Oh! Sorry.
With so much misinformation being circulated by sensationalist media, be thankful we have the Anthrax Education Center. 
I would expect gamma irradiation to kill anthrax spores and I think there is a least a possibility that microwave radiation might work. However, I can’t find any publications on the subject that aren’t in Russian (which I can’t read).
What kills Anthrax?
{B}SLAYER!**
On CNBC their “expert” said “irradiation” would kill it.
I wonder about bleach. It is pretty good at killing a lot of stuff.
Microwaves don’t actually do much. Ionizing radiation probably would, but we’re talking like 5,000 kilorads (1 kilorad is lethal to humans). For your average home user, it’s pretty much fire or nothing. And it’s hard to read your mail after setting fire to it.
To anthrax spores. That wasn’t a comment on microwave radiation in general. Sorry.
Yes, {B}SLAYER[sup]tm[/sup] Bat-poison should help prevent anthrax by keeping your home bat-free. You should also avoid bat-based food products, just to be sure. Thank god we have the Anthrax Education Center to arm us with this useful information.
Preview, damnit, self … preview!
On the microwave question, here is something from an expert. (MHJ is Martin E. Hugh-Jones, a bona fide anthrax expert.
“[Someone has been posting a statement seemingly by myself concerning microwaving envelopes. ProMED-mail did not post such a statement.
We have done this for an extended period and saw no change in the viability of spores. It is now being repeated for longer time periods. But again, so far we have not been able to demonstrate that microwaving anthrax spores does anything harmful to them. I wish it did. Life would be much simpler. - Mod.MHJ]”
I used to work for Johnson & Johnson many years ago and at the time they used a very powerful ionizing radiation source (not microwaves) to sterilize Band Aids and gauze after they were packaged. I wasn’t in that division but I think they used a radioactive material rather than generated radiation like X-rays. It’s a bit dangerous and it took some time to make sure they were sterile but it was effective.
Yesterday CNN interviewed someone that said microwaves would not kill anthrax.
Someone else,I believe it was the Capitol Police rep said they disenfect with chlorine bleach.
I heard on the radio that some “bioweapons researcher” said that ironing your mail would do it.
ahem
We use 70% EtOH to kill anything that might infest our cell cultures. Give it a shot. As a digital child, the only paper mail I receive is bills.
Here in San Diego, we have a company called TitanScan that makes a device used for ‘electron beam exposure’. My understanding is that it is some kind of gamma radiation emitting device that controls the emmissions and concentrates them to a small area.
The company has had a lot of success irradiating meat to kill e.coli and (I think) samonella, both of which are bacterias.
When the whole anthrax scare started, they immediately jumped on that and found that by increasing the power, they could kill those little bastards too. So their stock went through the roof, they are rumored to be getting a contract with the US postal service, but I can’t confirm anything…other than that I’ve heard people talking about it…