Infrared Fibers Can Protect Against Chemoterrorism 71
Hugh Pickens writes "Although most Americans take the safety of their drinking water for granted, ordinary tap water can become contaminated within minutes, says Prof. Abraham Katzir of Tel Aviv University's School of Physics and Astronomy who has developed a fiber-optic system that can detect poisons such as pesticides in water in amounts well below the World Health Organization safety threshold using 'colors' in the infrared spectrum which distinguish between pure and contaminated water. 'With our naked eyes we can't distinguish between pure water and water that contains a small amount of alcohol or acetone. They're all clear,' says Katzir. 'But we can clearly distinguish between liquids using an infrared spectrometer which can distinguish between "colors" in the invisible infrared spectrum.' Connected to a commercial infrared spectrometer, the fibers serve as sensors that can detect and notify authorities immediately if a contaminant has entered a water reservoir, system, building or pipeline. 'Toxic materials are readily available as pesticides or herbicides in the agriculture industry, and can be harmful if consumed even in concentrations as low as few parts per million,' says Katzir. Cities like New York are especially susceptible to a chemoterrorist threat. With many skyscrapers holding water reserves on the top of the building, a terrorist only needs to introduce poison into a tank to wreak havoc. 'A terrorist wouldn't have to kill tens of thousands of people. Only 50 deaths — as horrible as that would be — would cause nationwide panic,' says Katzir."
the spice must flow (Score:5, Funny)
4 out of 5 assassins prefer chaumurky over chaumas! News at 11.
OOhhhh! OOOOH! (Score:2, Funny)
Another way to protect us all from the terrible imaginary threats - presented to us by the Chingers!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill,_the_Galactic_Hero [wikipedia.org]
Who'll save us?
Re:i just got off the toilet (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Interesting Movie Plot (Score:2, Funny)
"G.R. Dalziel, at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, has written a report chronicling every confirmed case of malicious food contamination in the world since 1950: 365 cases in all, plus 126 additional unconfirmed cases.
[...]
There are very few incidents of people contaminating the actual food supply. People deliberately contaminated a water supply seven times, resulting in three deaths.
Just because we have the budget and the products to buy doesn't mean that's how we should be spending our necessarily finite resources defending the public."
In other news, Prof. Obvious has written a report chronicling every confirmed case of malicius airplane crashing against skycrappers in the world from 1950 to 10/10/2001: 0 cases in all, plus 0 additional unconfirmed cases. His conclusion was, well, obvious: just because we have the budget and the products to buy doesn't mean we should spend them to fight such a highly improbable threat.
Re:Interesting Movie Plot (Score:4, Funny)
In other news, Prof. Obvious has written a report chronicling every confirmed case of malicius airplane crashing against skycrappers in the world from 1950 to 10/10/2001: 0 cases in all, plus 0 additional unconfirmed cases. His conclusion was, well, obvious: just because we have the budget and the products to buy doesn't mean we should spend them to fight such a highly improbable threat.
Yeah, um, Prof. Obtuse seems to have missed three little known cases of this happening just 29 days prior to his cut-off date.