It was a dark and stormy night …

How many movies or TV shows have you seen that start with workers in a microbiology lab becoming infected with a new microbe that leads to destruction of the human race (or a zombie apocalypse)? Well , this is no movie!

According to the New York Times, workers at the Centers for Disease Control were exposed to a lethal form of Bacillus anthracis while studying ways to better kill this bacterium that causes anthrax. Bacillus sp. have the ability to form a protective endospore which allows them to survive many attempts to kill them. These scientists had used a new chemical means of trying to kill the bacteria, but it was unsuccessful and the spores were aerosolized and possibly inhaled by the workers. None of the exposed people have shown symptoms, but are being treated with antibiotics just in case.

Again, this is not the start to a zombie apocalypse, but it does reiterate the warning about being safe while working with pathogenic microbes.

Link to article: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/health/up-to-75-cdc-scientists-may-have-been-exposed-to-anthrax.html