- Joined
- May 17, 2005
- Messages
- 12,258
- Reaction score
- 2,693
Outside of being great for inspecting the babes, they are pretty useless at threat detection.
(media while it lasts)
Naked body scanners are useless
- Thread starter FluffyMcDeath
- Start date
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2005
- Messages
- 1,707
- Reaction score
- 447
Um, which part of "Security Theatre" wasn't clear?
Of course they're useless. As are the TSA, in fact, no, the TSA are worse than useless as their reputation is getting to the stage where it's putting people off going to the US for holidays.
Of course they're useless. As are the TSA, in fact, no, the TSA are worse than useless as their reputation is getting to the stage where it's putting people off going to the US for holidays.
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2011
- Messages
- 3,692
- Reaction score
- 863
The evidence that terahertz radiation damages biological systems is mixed. "Some studies reported significant genetic damage while others, although similar, showed none," say Boian Alexandrov at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and a few buddies. Now these guys think they know why.
Alexandrov and co have created a model to investigate how THz fields interact with double-stranded DNA and what they've found is remarkable. They say that although the forces generated are tiny, resonant effects allow THz waves to unzip double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication. That's a jaw dropping conclusion.
And it also explains why the evidence has been so hard to garner. Ordinary resonant effects are not powerful enough to do do this kind of damage but nonlinear resonances can. These nonlinear instabilities are much less likely to form which explains why the character of THz genotoxic
effects are probabilistic rather than deterministic, say the team.
This should set the cat among the pigeons. Of course, terahertz waves are a natural part of environment, just like visible and infrared light. But a new generation of cameras are set to appear that not only record terahertz waves but also bombard us with them. And if our exposure is set to increase, the question that urgently needs answering is what level of terahertz exposure is safe.
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24331/
Alexandrov and co have created a model to investigate how THz fields interact with double-stranded DNA and what they've found is remarkable. They say that although the forces generated are tiny, resonant effects allow THz waves to unzip double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication. That's a jaw dropping conclusion.
And it also explains why the evidence has been so hard to garner. Ordinary resonant effects are not powerful enough to do do this kind of damage but nonlinear resonances can. These nonlinear instabilities are much less likely to form which explains why the character of THz genotoxic
effects are probabilistic rather than deterministic, say the team.
This should set the cat among the pigeons. Of course, terahertz waves are a natural part of environment, just like visible and infrared light. But a new generation of cameras are set to appear that not only record terahertz waves but also bombard us with them. And if our exposure is set to increase, the question that urgently needs answering is what level of terahertz exposure is safe.
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24331/