Hi friends,
as some of you already know, a Petri dish with translucent red material was lying at one of the tables in social room today. Examination revealed that it is not sealed and carries a label "Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)". Nobody known who brought this.
After some very unpleasant moments, another official looking label was found at the bottom: "Bacteria soap - made in China". Some brave/suicidal colleagues then opened it, proving it smells like a perfumed soap and have an appropriate consistency.
Result: it was a prank.
*Please*, do not do such jokes in Brmlab. It would be fine on other places, but not in a hackerspace, because you cannot dismiss the remote possibility that it is the real thing. Yes, it would require someone seriously crazy to bring something like that, but, well, crazy people exist and they gravitate to interesting places, which Brmlab definitely is.
Please note: if you suspect it is the real thing, you are *bound* by the law to call the police. We are not legally allowed to dispose of such material ourselves (this requires a lab with biosafety level 3). Of course, contacting police would result in arrival of a biohazard operation team, a quarantine and becoming the main news on TV Nova. Even if the conclusion (after a few months) were "well, it was a soap, someone was making fun of you", it might seriously threaten the career of people who work in biosciences and therefore would be the primary suspects.
So, once more, please, no such jokes in brmlab. Today I had to answer a question "if it were a real thing, what would be an early post-exposure treatment?", and it was not funny at all to reply "well, current medicine can't treat it, we would be as good as dead".
Thank you for understanding.
Happy hacking,
JD