How current airport bomb detectors operate-plus a look at the next generation of scanning technologies.
As of December 31, 2002, every bag checked onto a U.S. flight must first be run through a bomb detector. More than 1,060 explosive-detection systems and 5,300 trace detectors are currently used for luggage. These systems employ x-rays and computer tomography to scan for suspicious shapes and object densities. But the U.S. Transportation Security Administration is considering alternative devices-including some for passengers-that will identify the chemical signatures of explosives. Two technologies have successfully passed early tests.
To read the entire article you must log in:
Most of our content — all daily news, blogs, and videos — is free. Magazine stories are paid. To read this story, you must have a subscription or you must use a reading credit. Registration to Technology Review is free and entitles registrants to three free reading credits.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
This document is part of the “How-To Guide for Most Common Measurements” centralized resource portal. This tutorial provides a detailed guide for measurement and device considerations to take temperature measurements using thermocouples. Get an introduction to thermocouples, which are inexpensive sensing devices widely used with PC-based data acquisition systems. Also review some specific thermocouple examples and learn how thermocouples work and ways to integrate them into a data acquisition measurement system.
View full PDF >
Listen to story > 
On Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Feed