Comments | gleep: SCI & TECH: CD-ROM Based Laser Spectroscopy

gleep

SCI & TECH: CD-ROM Based Laser Spectroscopy

Nov 03, 2005 14:53

Dr Cameron Jones of Swinburne University is working on an amazing new technology. A normal PC and CD-ROM drive can be turned into a laser spectrometer! It's goal at present is to provide a cheap, fast, easily available method of detecting Anthrax or other bio-terrorism substances ( Read more... )

science, technology, links

Comments 5

anfalicious November 3 2005, 12:33:45 UTC

Pill testers?

gleep November 3 2005, 15:01:06 UTC

That crossd my mind, but I don't know anything about biology, so didn't mention it in the main post. If it can scan for talc and anthrax, maybe it can scan for MDMA :)

anfalicious November 3 2005, 22:56:26 UTC

I'd imagine so. A laser spectograph is a laser spectograph. All you would need would be software that was able to identify the spikes in the graph.

smileyfish November 5 2005, 04:14:58 UTC

At first I thought that was a joke, but then I read on. That's fucking awesome, and has a lot of potential...

gleep November 5 2005, 04:37:58 UTC

Yeah it sounds too good to be true, a joke. But it's true!

It all started with beer too. He spilt beer on a CD, and the bacteria in the beer grew on the CD. When played it distorted the sound in a very unusual way, so he experimented with it.