Anthrax scares may have stimulated the use of email, but snail mail is inadvertently hitting back at IT by frying chips. According to John Schwartz in today's New York Times (registration required), the irradiation machinery being used by the US mail to zap anthrax spores can destroy chips, and in one case has allegedly set the mail on fire.

The equipment is intended to destroy anthrax spores by heating them up, but the juice is turned up rather higher than is the case when irradiation is used on food to prolong shelf life. The Compact Flash Association has conducted its own tests, and warned that flash memory cards can be destroyed by the machinery. It can also damage food, drugs, clothes, contact lenses... but the upside is the anthrax is definitely going to be dead.