New Homeland Security Laser Scanner Reads People At Molecular Level

cbs ^ | 7/11/12 | staff

[Marine_Uncle]

Time will tell. If people are complaining about loosing their arms, say like seeing what was a hand, now just a smoldering cinder... Star Wars anyone :) ....
Don't worry. You won't feel a thing. Seriously. You wouldn't feel anything. Not even a puff of air, or slight pinch on the skin most likely. Where thinking about a very "skinny" beam, with quite low power, mostly likely in a controlled pulse mode. Very well controlled. You don't get hurt by the insertion of a misquote's little beak. Think a beam a thousandth or less the diameter of that beak, being only applied to your surface skin for a a micro second. Your nerve endings wouldn't even pick up the energy transfer most likely.

[PMAS]

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[Marine_Uncle]

RE: "how would this be any good at finding a knife in my pocket? does it penetrate ??"
No. Read my very brief explanation to Ernest in post #15.
There is no magic. I'll add. Think of it this way. A very short pulse of laser energy is focused on let us say your wrist. The laser beam is extremely very short in duration so it would not destroy hardly any tissue on your skin surface.
But would ionize various types of molecules located at your skin surface in that tiny area of space. The energy that would be produced at very precise frequencies would then be sensed by a "sniffer unit" place close to the area the beam was directed at.
The sniffer is a one or more types of what we call spectrometers. They within the bounds of the type they are can detect certain types of molecules within a range, as well as the type of radiation emissions given off in the form of say infrared, through visible through ultraviolet radian bands.
The detector will then analyze the sample it takes into it's chamber. And then display perhaps on a little tape ticker or now adays, on a little hand held computer display the type of materials found on that person's wrist. So if you where dealing lets say in chemicals relating to drugs, or explosives, just two examples, it would give you a readout as to what type of compounds where found.
Hope that helps a bit in envisioning what this type of device could afford police and security agencies.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Will rubbing my body with uranium baby powder help matters any when I go to the airport?

[higgmeister]

Don't MRI's work that way

MRI = magnetic resonance imaging

MRI electromagnetic fields are in the RF range of tens of megahertz (often in the shortwave radio portion of the electromagnetic spectrum)radiated within the coil itself.

Megahertz is a measurement of time equal to one million hertz or one million cycles per second.

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Laser = light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation

Lasers appear to range from the Infrared light spectrum at 1540 nm (nanometer) through visible light into the Ultraviolet spectrum of 238 nm (UV-C)

A nanometer is a measure of distance equal to one billionth of a meter.

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one nanometer is approximately equal to .3 hertz

one megahertz is approximately equal to 300 meters

[Right Wing Assault]

which can be used 164-feet away

But it won't work at 165 feet? That's what happens when some moron writer converts 50 meters to feet. At least they didn't write 164.04199475065616797900262467192 feet.

[Marine_Uncle]

Thanks. Understand.

[SunkenCiv]

It runs on beans, it runs on laser beans.