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Hair-Raising Technique Detects Drugs, Explosives On Human Body
sciencehabit writes Scientists have found a way to combine Van de Graaff generators with a common laboratory instrument to detect drugs, explosives, and other illicit materials on the human body. In the laboratory, scientists had a volunteer touch a Van de Graaff generator for 2 seconds to charge his body to 400,000 volts. This ionized compounds on the surface of his body. The person then pointed their charged finger toward the inlet of a mass spectrometer, and ions from their body entered the machine. In various tests, the machine correctly identified explosives, flammable solvents, cocaine, and acetaminophen on the skin.
the way they detect the flammable solvents is by the ignition of them when the spark of static discharge is done
I'm just looking forward to when the TSA hears about this. Pretty soon we'll all be sporting new traveler's hairdos!
Air traveler shocked to find out he was carrying illegal drugs !
This could be combined with automatic electrocution if the test turns out to be positive ;-)
What do you really expect the margin between the maximum safe dose and the minimum unsafe dose to be?
I wonder if they'll detect that super-harmful chemical dihydrogen monoxide?
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.