Fast, Accurate Detection of Explosives

It doesn't come easy writes "Fast, highly reliable detection of residues that could indicate the presence of explosives and other hazardous materials inside luggage is now possible with technology under development at Purdue University. Recent improvements to a previously developed prototype have proven successful at detecting at the picogram (trillionths of a gram) level in lab tests, about 1,000 times less material than previously required. From the article: 'In the amount of time it requires to take a breath, this technology can sniff the surface of a piece of luggage and determine whether a hazardous substance is likely to be inside, based on residual chemicals brushed from the hand of someone loading the suitcase.'"

Comments

Vulnerable to a "chaffing" attack?

[patniemeyer]

Ok, here's something I've always wondered about. If you have these exquisitly sensitive machines that can detect even a few molecules of material, aren't they by the same token super-vulnerable to being attacked by "chaffing" or overloading?

Couldn't a bad guy simple walk around the airport with some material on his shoes and permanently, for all time, destroy the effectiveness of the instruments? I mean, how could one possibly clean a whole airport down to a few molecules worth of the stuff?

Isn't that a *huge* hole in any "super sensitive" chemical detection system?

Oh great...

[Dr. Zowie]

now, when I fly, I have to worry not just about whether I handled matches or toy cap guns or went to the shooting range in the last 24 hours, but also whether my neighbor, my dog, or the taxi driver handled any nitrate-laden deli meat in the last month.

Re:Oh great...

[fishbowl]

>I thought carrying an unloaded pistol in your checked baggage was legal anyway.

It depends on your destination, as always.

You cannot fly into Massachussetts or DC, for instance. But I routinely take firearms on trips from Arizona to Oregon. There's a little drill at the baggage check, where you have to say certain words verbatim; the weapon has to be unloaded in a locked container, and any ammo has to be in the packaging as it came from the factory and also locked.

There's always a little stressful situation at the counter where you have to take the gun out of the box, show them it's unloaded (open the revolver, rack the slide, etc.). Invariably, there's someone in line behind me that freaks out on this.

Then you have to carry your bag to a special X-Ray line, and tell the X-Ray guy what's in there. They make sure you have the only key.

At the destination, nobody ever seems to care, or know, what's in the suitcase, and rifle cases are always just piled with the golf bags.

But there's nothing to it. Get this -- in AZ, it's perfectly legal to wear a pistol openly in a holster on your hip, in the airport, all the way to the first checkpoint (but absolutely not past it!).

Oh, this should be fun.

[DrEldarion]

Expect every airport to be shut down for a week after the 4th of July.

Even faster and cheaper

[MiKM]

Fire. In all my experience as a pyromaniac, it has quickly and with 99.99% accuracy told me whether or not a substance was flammable.

Re:No, not really...

[fishbowl]

"You'd hope the screeners would wonder why they suddenly started getting a 100% hit rate and figure it out."

You're overestimating the intuition possessed by law enforcement and security people.