--- begin forwarded text Delivered-To: clips@philodox.com Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 18:09:33 -0400 To: Philodox Clips List <clips@philodox.com> From: "R.A. Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com> Subject: [Clips] New Screening Tech Misses Nothing Reply-To: rah@philodox.com Sender: clips-bounces@philodox.com <http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,69137,00.html> Wired News Wired News New Screening Tech Misses Nothing By Abby Christopher? Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,69137,00.html 02:00 AM Oct. 11, 2005 PT Bad news for terrorists and drug traffickers: The hunt for narcotics, explosives and biohazards is about to get faster and easier thanks to new research from Purdue University. A new testing method can, for the first time, speedily check objects and people for traces of chemical compounds. The detection technology known as mass spectrometry is already in use by forensic scientists. "Mass spectrometry is one of the most sensitive methods for finding drugs, chemicals, pollutants and disease, but the problem is that you have to extract a sample and treat that sample before you can analyze it," said Evan Williams, a chemistry professor at UC Berkeley. That process can take anywhere from two to 15 minutes for each sample. Multiply that by the number of people in line at airport security at JFK the day before Thanksgiving, and you've got a logistical nightmare on your hands. The research from Purdue, led by analytical chemistry professor Graham Cooks, developed a technique called desorption electrospray ionization, or DESI, that eliminates a part of the mass spectrometry process, and thus speeds up the detection of substances to less than 10 seconds, said Williams. To use it, law enforcement officials and security screeners will spray methanol or a water and salt mixture on the surface of an object, or a person's clothing or skin, and test immediately for microscopic traces of chemical compounds. In the lab, DESI has tested for chemicals at the picogram level -- or trillionths of a gram. This is about 1,000 times less than the minimum amount of material previously required for detection. Cooks also hopes to commercialize a rugged DESI sensor that would weigh as little as 25 pounds and fit into a knapsack. "We have tested it for a wide variety of explosives and the experiments represent several practical conditions such as using mixtures using different surfaces (skin, paper, luggage)," says Nari Talaty, a graduate student on Cooks' team at Purdue. The new technique is "extremely promising for the detection of illicit substances on surfaces," said Herbert Hill Jr., a chemistry professor at Washington State University who is researching ion mobility spectrometry. "With DESI it appears possible to bring the instrument to the sampling site, reducing sampling time and complexity," said Hill. Scientific instrument maker Jeol USA, Oakridge Labs and other academic researchers have also developed their own surface testing techniques using mass spectrometry. Jeol's patented technique uses helium or nitrogen gas to extract and ionize chemicals, and is already being used by the U.S. Army's Chemical and Bio Labs, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. However, it cannot currently detect biomolecules and proteins for biohazards -- an appealing feature of Purdue's system. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' _______________________________________________ Clips mailing list Clips@philodox.com http://www.philodox.com/mailman/listinfo/clips --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'