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Lasers for Fun and Profit
Stuart of Wapping writes "This is a very interesting site, links to pages describing real-life, tried-and-tested Star-Trek/James Bond gadgets... The Laser Medical Pen, or Medpen, developed in-house by the Laser Division of the Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy Directorate, is a second-generation device that provides a physician or paramedic with a unique, compact, portable, and battery-operated laser capability. The laser can cut like a scalpel as well as coagulate bleeding."
FROST PISS...that sounds painful!!! count me out
I remember Scott Adams mentioning something like this in "The Dilbert Future", and why it wouldn't go mainstream, because people would buy them from medical supply stores. And then just imagine them in the hands of your friends. Go to sleep and have your asscrack sealed.
Only in slashdot are posts of solidarity modded at -1 Redundant, while posts of antagonism are modded as -1 Flamebait.
Wow, I thought laser pointers in traffic were bad.
This'll bring it to a whole new level.
This is just another example of how real life follows in the footsteps of science fiction: impossible things 30 years ago being made possible in similar ways that they were 'being done' in sci-fi stuffs. It never ceases to amaze me how writers with far-fetched ideas can be on the money so often, even though they are way ahead of their time.
What intrigued me was the information about high power microwaves. It says
"High Power Microwave produces burnout and disruption in electronics while not affecting humans."
Yes, I realize that anything within a range of the spectrum around 2.4Ghz is considered microwave (cell phone, cordless phones, 802.11, etc.) but isn't the only reason they don't hurt people because they are relatively low power? I imagine if you pump enough power into one of those things it could start to make you boil.
Anyway, I'd hate to be one of the test subjects used in determining whether or not this actually does cause damage.
The future isn't what it used to be.
I used to work at a laser lab and we had a suitcase laser. Looked like a photographers case, brushed aluminum, plug it in, and out from the corner came a beam of Alexandrite produced photons (Alexandrite is a vibronic and can be tuned to lase at many different frequencies). This suitcase was shopped around the military quite a bit, that same lab used to buy meat from the grocery store and cut it with the lasers to test surgical properties. Most dangerous place I ever worked, coding with green goggles on, possible instant blindness, 20kv shocks whilst standing in water from leaking cooling pumps! I even got my belt burned like a high school ticker tape experiment, an ND (neutral density) filter exploded because the energy from the beam was so powerful, my boss knocked the hamamatsu(sp?) energy meter out of the way, and I was behind it at belt level, two burns close together in the leather belt and one further away as I tried to escape :)
Hedley
Microwave is generally everying above 1Ghz up to near visible light.
Microwave ovens operate at around 2.4Ghz usually... the reason they can heat up water is due to the frequency itself, and it's ability to cause water molecules to move around in the field. It's not, as some say, because it's the resonant frequency of a water molecule.
Microwave at higher frequencies could even be harmless.. depending.. the reason it screws up electronics is because of the photoelectric effect.. the microwaves end up creating lots of electric currents that burn out the equipment.
It's quite concievable that this would work yet be generally harmless to a human.
Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy Directorate
I believe that is under the Department of Redundancy Department.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
Household chemicals? Ooo... so if I mix some ammonia, iodized salt, water, and ketchup, I'll have one of these? I bet my neighbors will quit making noise at 3 in the morning when they know I've got this!
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
Brings new meaning to the warning on laser pointers... Don't look directly at the beam...
OUCH!
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Allow me to quote someone from this very site:
--start--
Hit in the ass by a laser
Livin' it up when I'm goin' down
Hit in the ass by a laser
Lovin' it up 'til I hit the ground
-Wadetemp
---end---
[o]_O
Those of us who lost money on Wall Street because we couldn't trade futures options when the NYSE closed for three or four days are particularly offended by Springsteen's smarmy paean....
The NYSE supports the trading of neither futures, options, nor this mythical "futures options" instrument you have just fabricated. The NYSE lets you trade stocks, and that's it.
You are therefore, dear sir, an idiot.
Do you mean it cauterizes the wound? That is when intense heat stops bleeding. Coagulation is when the platelets aggregate to form clots. I doubt the laser is doing this.
Is this a troll or a parody?
First page of the instruction manual that comes with a laser:
CAUTION: DO NOT LOOK INTO LASER WITH REMAINING EYE!
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
All that money. All that research. All those lasers.
And yet the one thing I ask for is still missing. That's right. I want some sharks with frickin lasers attached to their heads.
Throw me a bone here, people.
Laser Medical Pen is 12 inches long, less than 1-inch in diameter, and weighs a mere pound.
And the paramedics don't have these WHY? 2nd attempt. Slashdot doesn't think I can formulate a though and type it out within 20 seconds.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
When confronted with the rumors of an Active Denial Technology being developed; government officials claimed that this was only a rumor. They also said that the government do not intend to pursue such a technology. Other sources within DARPA and the Department of Defence says that this is not true and that several government institutions are actively using it today.
Look a monkey!
Everyone should have a Death Ray.
Especially a battery operated, portable Death Ray!
I just picked up a 3 Watt laser diode at a Hamfest recently. It's whats at the core of the med-pack and portable med-pens displayed. This thing is really fucking cool. It will make paper and wire insulation, plastic, etc. burst into flame from about 1/4 inch away.
The diode is made by Spectra Diode Labs (SDL) and channels 3 Watts of optical energy at 808 nanometers into a fiber optic. I have that clamped into a standard mechanical pencil to hold the fiber and allow it to be directed with some control.
The spot that appears is very scary because it appears weak red, about 5 mW of visible light energy is present but 98 % of the optical power is invisible in the infrared spectrum.
I haven't tried any home laser surgery yet, but it makes a dandy wire stripper or marking scribe. I also use it to open sealed ni-cad battery packs and change cells for walkie-talkies, etc.
Yep, Everyone should have a Death Ray!
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
They give off nasty gasses when they operate, HELLO EPA and if one of those planes that carries them crashes there is a 2 mile radius kill zone from the chemicals. Yea, it doesn't tell you that on the website.
The laser pen is cool though.
Maybe it's a parody of a troll!
/. - I can get all this out in 20 seconds. Too long, okay?)
Seriously, Borned in the USA?
(Hint to
Is it just me or does this laser laser resemble something out of Real Genius? Now all we need is a giant Jiffy-Pop package and a mean ol' professor...
There is no spork.
A set of computer watches that can be linked into a Beowulf cluster.
Futures options do exist, they are simply options on futures, and you can trade them on CBOT and maybe CME, aswell as some of the other minor exchanges (Philly, Pacific, etc.) The trade isn't as liquid as say Eurodollar futures, but it beats eggs or milk futures. I also think they were trading around the 12th or 13th since neither Chicago exchanges were threatend, and they're trying to become the global exchange just like NYSE, NASDAQ, Dax, LSE and the other major country bourses.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Bury this post and watch to see if my prediction comes true....
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
Wow, now they just need to control the "length" of the laser and we'll have fully functioning lightsabers.
You people are just not doing your jobs and will have to be fragged.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Actually I think most of the things we have today are because of the ideas in books/movies/etc. Not becuase some writer "predicted" it but because some reader thought "man it would be cool to have one of those communicator thingys" and so he made one. I doubt most writers are ahead of thier time but they have damn good ideas which us ubergeeks latch on to and make a reality. Mark my words, one day some geek will beat his brains out until warp engines are cruising ships around the galaxy not because Gene Roddenberry had some kinda vision of the future but because his idea seemed like it made some sense and sparked the brain of a few fans.
They should have the rest of the manual in braille for those who don't heed the caution.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Young Frink: Well, sure, the Frinkiac-7 looks impressive [to student] Don't touch it! [back to class] But I predict that within 100 years computers will be twice as powerful, 10,000 times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings in Europe will own them.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Hope it's packaged differently then the typical penlight that the doc keeps in his pocket for checking the pupil response of your eye. Imagine him/her making a mistake by grabbing the wrong one out of his shirt pocket and shining it into your eye. "Oooops".
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
Considering that I don't sleep naked when my friends spend the night.
Step 1: Build / Buy lasers
Step 2: Attach them to something (shark's heads, for example, as per other posts)
Step 3: Copyright this
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Profit!!!
Step 6: Fun!!! (For you, anyway)
Step 7: Make a beowulf cluster of them for added fun and profit
If a man's character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business. -Thackeray, William
Does anyone else besides me think that this site shouldn't be up? Do we have to tell the French everything?
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
I guess they can't blame cattle mutilations on aliens anymore. "No human technology can produce this precision and with NO BLOOD!!" Maybe they've just been testing this one for a few years.
this sig has been rated E for Everyone.
A lot of things that the general public first saw in sci-fi stories were already being discussed in the scientific community. The science fiction writers were often in contact with scientists (as friends, sometimes coworkers and in other relationships), and were inspired by what the scientists were already discussing.
That's the Directed Energy Directorate. Undirected energy R&D is handled by the Energetic Materials Branch of the Air Force Research Laboratory, which develops conventional bombs.
Actually, Adams wrote about the star trek device for sealing open wounds :)
What is wrong with electrocautery?
See it here!
No, the original poster got it right.
When we use surgical lasers, we tend use a more narrow-spectrum green beam to coagulate (I've most often used argon) -- the green light is better tuned to the absorption properties of hemoglobin (and thus a greater amount of the energy is absorbed by the blood).
The cutting beams we use can be at a different wavelength, and they also tend to have a tighter focus and will have a longer pulse (even continuous)...The tighter focus and longer pulse are all better for cutting. With something like tattoo removal, or other superficial uses, you'll tend to use a less focused beam.
To trade is human, to hedge, divine!
For some reason I can't connect to this website. Any chance someone could give me the IP address so I can view the website?
/.'ed
Unless it's been
Thanks.
And ya know what, they aren't doing that already. One more thing to slow us down. And just how do you see a laser scalpel from a normal metal ball-point pen on the X-ray?
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
While the concept sounds cool this isn't really useful in the field for emergency care. Disposable electrical cauteries that do exactly the same thing have been around for years. Very rarely does someone die from external bleeding that could be cauterized. Those types of wounds can usually be controlled easily with direct pressure, pressure points, etc. What kills people is pulmonary injuries, internal bleeding and/or neurological injuries. If you get shot or stabbed, closing the entrance/exit wounds with cauterization does very little for you. All the serious damage is on the inside and the only answer is being taken to the O.R. This is particually true of gun shot wounds as the shockwave around the bullet cavitates the tissue around its path through the body doing massive damage, of course relative to the size and more so velocity KE=1/2 m * v^2.
STOP ROCK VIDEO
I want some frickin sharks with some frickin lasers attached to their fricken heads.
Dr. Evil, Austin Powers: Goldmember
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
How many of you have read the "reports" regarding supposed cattle mutilations coupled with UFOs, and how the incisions/cuts on the carcesses seem to be made with surgical precision, but no loss of blood at the incision (ie, the cuts seem to have been cauterized)?
I know there is at least one account I have read of that described the "aliens" seen using a laser like device, about one foot long...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
(For other things like cellphones, the ratio of wavelength to body-part size could be critical to efficiency of heating, so frequency can be critical, and is so frequently.)
The wavelength of the microwaves needs to be comparable to the size of the object which then gets an induced alternating electrical field. That alternating field drives the molecules as little syncronous induction-motor rotors. Heat being just molecular kinetic energy, it is felt as, and cooks, as, any other heat source, but inside-out.
. It is because of the frequency of the microwave photon.
NO! If you check standard texts, you will find that microwave oven performance is largely insensitive to variation in frequency, and indeed may vary within the ISM band. Domestic microwave ovens are at about 2.5GHz in the Industrial Scientific and Medical (ISM) Band out of historical coincidence (existing allocation, existing equipment) only. Note that has a wavelength of 12cm, a bit long for a molecular resonance. This is very close to the 2.4G part-15 data and part-97 ham bands. The water and water-vapor absorption is quite weak, being on the flank of the 22GHz weak resonance. Any competent microwave design book, whether for data, radio-astronomy, or diathermy, will have the tables and charts. See for example,
You can see in the diagram there that absorption does decrease from 1G to 2.5G, it's nothing like a resonance, it's considered an edge of the low "window". In the 10GHz range, we consider clouds to be lenses not opaque absorbers, and that's higher up that peak's flank.
Under the terms of my ARS radio license, I know I have to abide by federal human/radio safety standards (which will prevent me from anywhere near our full authorized power on 2.4G any time soon! Just thinking about 5W on 10G with feed and dish gain is enough to worry about.). The scarier thing is those who don't know about them are supposed to too.
The Federal standard for human / radio absorption safety is available from FCC OET RF Safety Home page ; their Consumer Facts watered down version is Human Exposure To Radio Frequency Fields Federal Communications Commission
73 de radio n1vux