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New explosive-detection equipment set to revolutionise air safety
January 20, 1999University of Leeds physicists have developed equipment to detect hidden explosives that could soon revolutionise air safety and anti-terrorism measures worldwide.
The pioneering apparatus is cheaper and thousands of times more powerful than anything currently available - it can detect the equivalent of a pin head of explosive material in Wembley stadium, while the current techniques would struggle to find it inside a squash court.
Developing technology sensitive enough to find explosives has proved so difficult that airports throughout the world are forced to use sniffer dogs to help screen baggage. The dogs are surprisingly effective, but are subject to fatigue and lapses of concentration.
X-ray scanners can detect large amounts of explosives but can be baffled by disguising the material - and have even confused plastic explosive with Christmas pudding.
Professor David Batchelder and Dr Simon Webster have been working on the project with the Home Office Police Scientific Development branch and the chemistry department at the University of Strathclyde.
Like its canine counterparts, the compact apparatus identifies the tell-tale traces of vapour given off by the hidden cargo - but with much greater sensitivity and reliability. The new equipment can also be used to check large freight containers that are often inaccessible to dogs and impossible to X-ray.
The equipment uses the principle that every material vibrates at a unique frequency. The distinctive vibration of different types of explosive can be picked out using beams of laser light.
The scattered light returning is usually extremely weak and the equipment's extreme sensitivity is based on being able to amplify it millions of times by mixing it with a dye and silver colloid. This allows even a single molecule of explosive to be detected under favourable conditions.
Its extreme sensitivity also gives it the potential to detect Semtex - one of the terrorists' most deadly weapons. "Semtex doesn't give off much vapour so it's very difficult to detect unless you know exactly where to look," said Professor Batchelder.
The ability to detect trace amounts of explosives means the device also has important uses in forensic science. Semtex residue, for example, is extremely difficult to remove and laboratory tests have shown the detection apparatus can still pinpoint it in fingerprints - even after repeated hand washing.
Testing in this way also reduces the chance of making crucial mistakes. "As well as being extremely reliable, the test is completely non-destructive so the evidence could be stored and re-examined whenever necessary," said Dr Webster. Field trials of the prototype machine will take place in the summer.
Plymouth, University of
Evolution Current Events and Evolution News RSSWe're off then: the evolution of bat migration
Not just birds, but also a few species of bats face a long journey every year. Researchers at Princeton University in the U.S. and at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell, Germany studied the migratory behaviour of the largest extant family of bats, the so-called "Vespertilionidae" with the help of mathematical models.
Insect Resistance to Bt Crops can be Predicted, Monitored, and Managed
Since 1996, crop plants genetically modified to produce bacterial proteins that are toxic to certain insects, yet safe for people, have been planted on more than 200 million hectares worldwide.
Multiple health concerns surface as winter, vitamin D deficiences arrive
A string of recent discoveries about the multiple health benefits of vitamin D has renewed interest in this multi-purpose nutrient, increased awareness of the huge numbers of people who are deficient in it, spurred research and even led to an appreciation of it as "nature's antibiotic."
Supervolcano eruption -- in Sumatra -- deforested India 73,000 years ago
A new study provides "incontrovertible evidence" that the volcanic super-eruption of Toba on the island of Sumatra about 73,000 years ago deforested much of central India, some 3,000 miles from the epicenter, researchers report.
Is global warming unstoppable?
In a provocative new study, a University of Utah scientist argues that rising carbon dioxide emissions - the major cause of global warming - cannot be stabilized unless the world's economy collapses or society builds the equivalent of one new nuclear power plant each day.
Scientists at UA, collaborating institutions decode maize genome
Scientists from the University of Arizona led by Arizona Genomics Institute director Rod A. Wing and from collaborating institutions have deciphered the complete genetic code of the maize plant for the first time.
New Maize Map to Aid Plant Breeding Efforts
In a massive survey of genetic diversity in maize, also known as corn, researchers across the United States, have developed a gene map that should pave the way to significant improvements in a plant that is a major source of food, fuel, animal feed and fiber around the world.
'Hobbits' are a new human species -- according to the statistical analysis of fossils
Researchers from Stony Brook University Medical Center in New York have confirmed that Homo floresiensis is a genuine ancient human species and not a descendant of healthy humans dwarfed by disease.
Research challenges for understanding landscape changes identified
Nine research challenges and four research initiatives that are poised to advance the study of how Earth's landscapes change were unveiled today in a new report by the National Research Council.
Scientists Unravel Evolution of Highly Toxic Box Jellyfish
With thousands of stinging cells that can emit deadly venom from tentacles that can reach ten feet in length, the 50 or so species of box jellyfish have long been of interest to scientists and to the public. Yet little has been known about the evolution of this early branch in the animal tree of life.
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