One-Million-Liter Test Sphere
The One-Million-Liter Test Sphere—also known as the Test Sphere, the Horton Test Sphere, the Cloud Study Chamber, Building 527, and the "Eight Ball" (or "8-ball")—is a decommissioned biological warfare (BW) chamber and testing facility located on Fort Detrick, Maryland, US. It was constructed and utilized by the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories as part of its BW research program from 1951 to 1969. It is the largest aerobiology chamber ever constructed and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. The structure The stainless steel test sphere, a cloud chamber used to study static microbial aerosols, is a four-story high, 131-ton structure. Its , carbon steel hull was designed to withstand the internal detonation of "hot" biological bombs without risk to outsiders. It was originally contained within a cubical brick building. Its purpose was the study of infectious agent aerosols and testing of pathogen-filled munitions. The device was designed ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Frederick, Maryland
Frederick is a city in, and the county seat of, Frederick County, Maryland, United States. Frederick's population was 78,171 people as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Maryland, second-largest incorporated city in Maryland behind Baltimore. It is a part of the Washington metropolitan area and the greater Washington–Baltimore combined statistical area. The city is located at an important crossroads at the intersection of a major north–south Native Americans in the United States, Native American trail and east–west routes to the Chesapeake Bay, both at Baltimore and what became Washington, D.C., and across the Appalachian Mountains to the Ohio River watershed. Frederick is home to Frederick Municipal Airport (Maryland), Frederick Municipal Airport (International Air Transport Association airport code, IATA: FDK), which accommodates general aviation, and Fort Detrick, a United States Army, U.S. Army bioscience and communica ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Horn Island (Mississippi)
Horn Island is a long, thin barrier island off the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, south of Ocean Springs. It is one of the Mississippi–Alabama barrier islands and part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore. Horn Island is several miles long, but less than a mile wide at its widest point. It occupies about . Description The island, in part, shelters and bounds the Mississippi Sound to its north, and has a long beach on the Gulf of Mexico on its south side. The island is undeveloped, except for a small ranger station mid-island. Part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore, it is a favorite boating destination for those living on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Horn Island has long stretches of sugar-white sand, dunes punctuated with sea oats, tall pines on small groves, saw palmettos on small groves, and a few inland lagoons. It is home to varied wildlife including alligators, ospreys, pelicans, anhingas, ibises, manatees, ducks, rabbits, raccoons, tern, herons, and other ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Biological Warfare Facilities
Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and distribution of life. Central to biology are five fundamental themes: the cell (biology), cell as the basic unit of life, genes and heredity as the basis of inheritance, evolution as the driver of biological diversity, energy transformation for sustaining life processes, and the maintenance of internal stability (homeostasis). Biology examines life across multiple biological organisation, levels of organization, from molecules and cells to organisms, populations, and ecosystems. Subdisciplines include molecular biology, physiology, ecology, evolutionary biology, developmental biology, and systematics, among others. Each of these fields applies a range of methods to investigate biological phenomena, including scientific method, observation, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Government Buildings Completed In 1951
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a means by which organizational policies are enforced, as well as a mechanism for determining policy. In many countries, the government has a kind of constitution, a statement of its governing principles and philosophy. While all types of organizations have governance, the term ''government'' is often used more specifically to refer to the approximately 200 independent national governments and subsidiary organizations. The main types of modern political systems recognized are democracies, totalitarian regimes, and, sitting between these two, authoritarian regimes with a variety of hybrid regimes. Modern classification systems also include monarchies as a standalone entity or as a hybrid system of the main three. Historically prevalent forms ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Military Facilities On The National Register Of Historic Places In Maryland
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily Weapon, armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a distinct military uniform. They may consist of one or more military branches such as an army, navy, air force, space force, marines, or coast guard. The main task of a military is usually defined as defence of their state and its interests against external armed threats. In broad usage, the terms "armed forces" and "military" are often synonymous, although in technical usage a distinction is sometimes made in which a country's armed forces may include other paramilitary forces such as armed police. Beyond warfare, the military may be employed in additional sanctioned and non-sanctioned functions within the state, including internal security threats, crowd control, promotion of political agendas, emergency services and reconstructi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Buildings And Structures In Frederick County, Maryland
A building or edifice is an enclosed structure with a roof, walls and windows, usually standing permanently in one place, such as a house or factory. Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and functions, and have been adapted throughout history for numerous factors, from building materials available, to weather conditions, land prices, ground conditions, specific uses, prestige, and aesthetic reasons. To better understand the concept, see ''Nonbuilding structure'' for contrast. Buildings serve several societal needs – occupancy, primarily as shelter from weather, security, living space, privacy, to store belongings, and to comfortably live and work. A building as a shelter represents a physical separation of the human habitat (a place of comfort and safety) from the ''outside'' (a place that may be harsh and harmful at times). buildings have been objects or canvasses of much artistic expression. In recent years, interest in sustainable planning and building practi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Military Installations Closed In The 20th Century
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily Weapon, armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a distinct military uniform. They may consist of one or more military branches such as an army, navy, air force, space force, marines, or coast guard. The main task of a military is usually defined as defence of their state and its interests against external armed threats. In broad usage, the terms "armed forces" and "military" are often synonymous, although in technical usage a distinction is sometimes made in which a country's armed forces may include other paramilitary forces such as armed police. Beyond warfare, the military may be employed in additional sanctioned and non-sanctioned functions within the state, including internal security threats, crowd control, promotion of political agendas, emergency services and reconstructi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Former Medical Research Facilities Of The United States Army
A former is an object, such as a template, gauge or cutting die, which is used to form something such as a boat's hull. Typically, a former gives shape to a structure that may have complex curvature. A former may become an integral part of the finished structure, as in an aircraft fuselage, or it may be removable, being used in the construction process and then discarded or re-used. Aircraft formers Formers are used in the construction of aircraft fuselage, of which a typical fuselage has a series from the nose cone to the empennage, typically perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the aircraft. The primary purpose of formers is to establish the shape of the fuselage and reduce the column length of stringers to prevent instability. Formers are typically attached to longerons, which support the skin of the aircraft. The "former-and-longeron" technique (also called stations and stringers) was adopted from boat construction, and was typical of light aircraft built until th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Building 470
Building 470 — also called the Pilot Plant, or sometimes "the Tower", or "Anthrax Tower" — was a seven-story steel and brick building at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, United States, used in the small-scale production of biological warfare (BW) agents. The building, a Cold War era structure, was transferred from the Department of Defense to the National Cancer Institute-Frederick (a unit of the National Institutes of Health) in 1988, to which it belonged until 2003 when it was demolished. Structure and design Building 470 was the tallest structure on the Fort Detrick grounds and for many years was the tallest in Frederick County. The structure of the building was unique: a seven-story tower, the configuration of which was dictated by the two 2,500-gallon, three-story high fermentors housed within. Although the building was hermetically sealed and negatively pressurized, false windows and window-sills were added to the exterior during construction in an effort to pas ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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United States Biological Weapons Program
The United States biological weapons program officially began in spring 1943 on orders from U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Research continued following World War II as the U.S. built up a large stockpile of biological agents and weapons. Over the course of its 27-year history, the program weaponized and stockpiled seven bio-agents '' Bacillus anthracis'' ( anthrax), '' Francisella tularensis'' ( tularemia), ''Brucella'' spp (brucellosis), '' Coxiella burnetii'' ( Q-fever), Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, Botulinum toxin (botulism), and Staphylococcal enterotoxin B. The US also pursued basic research on many more bio-agents. Throughout its history, the U.S. bioweapons program was secret. It was later revealed that laboratory and field testing (some of the latter using simulants on non-consenting individuals) had been common. The official policy of the United States was first to deter the use of bio-weapons against U.S. forces and secondarily to retaliate if deterrenc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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United States Army Medical Research Institute Of Infectious Diseases
The United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID; ) is the United States Army's main institution and facility for defensive research into countermeasures against biological warfare. It is located on Fort Detrick, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., and is a subordinate lab of the United States Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC), headquartered on the same installation. USAMRIID is the only laboratory of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) equipped to study highly hazardous viruses at Biosafety Level 4 within positive pressure personnel suits. USAMRIID employs both military and civilian scientists as well as highly specialized support personnel, totaling around 800 people. In the 1950s and 1960s, USAMRIID and its predecessor unit pioneered unique, state-of-the-art biocontainment facilities which it continues to maintain and upgrade. Investigators at its facilities frequently collaborate with the Centers for ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Aerobiology
231x231px, Some common air-borne spores Aerobiology (from Greek ἀήρ, ''aēr'', "air"; βίος, ''bios'', "life"; and -λογία, ''-logia'') is a branch of biology that studies the passive transport of organic particles, such as bacteria, fungal spores, very small insects, pollen grains and viruses. Aerobiologists have traditionally been involved in the measurement and reporting of airborne pollen and fungal spores as a service to those with allergies. However, aerobiology is a varied field, relating to environmental science, plant science, meteorology, phenology, and climate change. Overview The first mention of "aerobiology" was made by Fred Campbell Meier in the 1930s. The particles, which can be described as Aeroplankton, generally range in size from nanometers to micrometers which makes them challenging to detect. Aerosolization is the process of a small and light particles becoming suspended in moving air. Now bioaerosols, these pollen and fungal spores ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |