Testing of the future?

[static_mind]

Hey
I wasnt sure where to post this but I thought it was really intresting. I saw on TV about a new idea that had been invented in America to help all the paranoids and rest assured they were safe when dealing with there mail. It was a system that was designed to scan white powders for traces of Anthrax to talc.

The system was ingenous. A small scrapeing of powder is placed on a CD with a drop of water and baked in any oven at 75.c for 15min. Then the CD is placed into a CD rom. A program on the computer then reads the IR from the lazer and analysises the material. It shows a graph of the peaks and verifys what the powder is.

Now this is where I beleive harm reduction could really advance. If that program had be set to dected drugs and adultrants one could very accuratly know whats in there pill. The program works with ANY cd rom drive.

I duno where to take the topic from here but hopefully the right people see it in the know

 

[Vet]

Question

Wouldn't baking a CD at 75 C warp it so badly it wouldn't go into the CD drive?

Have you tried this?


Vet

 

[Cowboy Mac]

I saw this also, it was shown on ABC's Catalyst program. Enlighten are aware of it but it isn't as fast as something like an ion scanner which can give a result in 20 seconds (as you need to bake the CD before it can be analysed).