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Super-Sensitive Spray-On Explosive Detector
esocid writes "US scientists have designed a new spray-on explosive detector sensitive enough to detect just a billionth of a gram of (nitrogen-containing) explosive. After treatment, the explosive glows blue under UV light, making the detector perfect for use in the field. The silafluorene-fluorene copolymer can detect explosives at much lower levels than existing systems because it detects particles instead of explosive vapors, and is able to show the difference between nitrate esters (trinitroglycerin) and nitroaromatic explosives (TNT). The team is currently working on a similar system to detect peroxide-based explosives and say they hope to be able to investigate perchlorates and organic nitrates, too."
Explosive material found on every bedsheet of every hotel in America!
95% percent of our paper money contains microscopic amounts of cocaine, imagine if we use such sensitive equipment to detect it. We'd all be locked up. Mmmm...maybe that's the intention.
What?
The article isn't terribly specific about which nitrogen compounds react to the spray, only providing a couple of examples. If I worked in my garden 5 days before a flight, am I going to get hazed by TSA because I didn't eliminate every last speck of fertilizer from my clothes?
I lost faith in the current airport explosives detectors when I found out that Bondo products set them off. It was a hilarious hour or so watching a broken system thrash about trying to figure out why their machine kept beeping when there were clearly no explosives in my bag.
Did I mention that this was after a Defcon in the Las Vegas airport?
I lost what little respect I had in the system (note: Not the people you would ever see on the floor, they have been pretty OK for the most part) at that point.
Between the War On Moisture, pointless shoe removal, and a TSA that can't ever answer any question with the word 'Why' in it, I have absolutely zero faith in the system any more.
I am a frequent flier, put in over 100K miles last year and am on track to do more than that this year. If you simply go through the airports enough, you can trivially avoid any security measure there is, it isn't even a trick.
So, spray on bomb detectors? Great. So? Send the bad guys through security 25 times and you will see several obvious ways to not get it checked. Game over.
-Charlie
I never understood what happens when an airport baggage handler gets a second job as a landscaper, and comes to work every day covered in nitrates, and spreads it on everyone's luggages? How do chemical detectors deal with all these sources of noise?
When reading this was, so people's clothing and bags will be covered with this fluorene polymer for who knows how long. And if used liberally in an airport, we'll be breathing aerosolized fluorene. It's not classified as a carcinogen, but I don't believe humans have ever been chronically exposed to it, but I guess we'll find out if the TSA starts using it in a few years.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
A spray-on explosives detector already exists. Here's a picture of it in action in a field situation where explosives may have been present.
That one has a few negative side effects, though... Maybe this new one improves on them? That'd probably be helpful in airports.
The enemies of Democracy are
Security Theater is just that -- a system designed to placate the public that "something is being done" by giving the perception that it's safe to fly. But a certain number of guns, knives, and God knows what else still make it through every day.
You cannot have truly secure airport security without going Israeli-style (i.e., checkpoints a mile away from the terminal, multiple interviewers asking you about your trip and then comparing notes, open pretty much EVERY bag and asking the passengers about the contents, etc.). Yes -- I've flown internationally thru Ben Guiron Airport in Tel Aviv and checking in for the flight back to the States took about 3 hours (and this wasn't even El Al -- it was Continental). It's incompatible with the current American expectation of not being racially profiled and of getting thru security within 20 minutes.
It has a fresh pine scent!
Sig this!
You've fallen into the most common problem non-chemists have when reading about chemistry. Glycerin is NOT the same thing as trinitroglycerin. The reactivities aren't even close, and the structures have significant differences which lead to very different behaviors. Another comment also treated household hydrogen peroxide as equivalent to all other peroxides, and assumed they would all be detected the same way (this shows the same misconception, but is accidentally more correct than the parent comment...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycerin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitroglycerin
Remember folks, if you're chemically untrained the WHOLE word is what you should be looking for (there is structural info in the name, and that helps give rise to the properties we observe, but interpreting structures into behavior is tricky even for professional chemists....) Some analogous circumstances which arise from noticing a word fragment and extrapolating.....
screw = screwdriver
son = sonogram
hill = hillary
bus = business
I'm sure there are better examples, but hopefully I've made the point.
Be careful of your thoughts; they could become words at any minute...
Sold in tax free: Razor blades, Matches, Vodka in glass bottles, Propane propelled deodorant, etc...
Confiscated in security: Nail scissors, tweezers, liquid volumes exceeding 100ml
Allowed through security (personal experience ): candles, multiple liquid containers at 100ml each, litres of liquids that are inside a sealed plastic bag with a pwetty picture on it... etc..
This is even past the stage of security theater, it is damn obvious its primary purpose is to allow the airports to sell more stuff once you are past the security clearance.