CtScanner
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TSA will install 40 luggage CT scanners in airports this year
The TSA has been using CT scanners to screen airline passengers' luggage since last year -- early tests of the technology have been taking place in Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport and Boston's Logan International Airport. But now, the agency has shared its plans for CT technology going forward, including expansions into additional airports. American Airlines announced earlier this month that a CT scanner was being set up in New York's JFK airport and the TSA says Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Chicago O'Hare International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport and Washington-Dulles International Airport are among those that will have CT scanners in the near future.
New York's JFK airport will screen luggage with a CT scanner
Some passengers traveling through JFK airport will soon have the contents of their luggage examined through a CT scanner. American Airlines has donated eight of the machines to the TSA, one of which has been installed at JFK, and it's expected to be put into operation in JFK's Terminal 8 security checkpoint later this month. By opting for a CT scanner over the traditional x-ray machines, TSA agents would be able to see contents more clearly and be able to rotate images of passengers' luggage 360 degrees. "What it's capable of doing is detecting a wider range of explosives, which is very important, [as well as] a much lower weight of explosives," TSA Administrator David Pekoske told CBS News. "They're just much better at detection, so you really get better security faster, essentially."
Museums use CT scans to take the mystery out of mummies
Most of us have a rather cinematic view of mummies: a bandaged body rising out of a sarcophagus, stumbling toward whoever just disturbed their slumber. Of course, this could never happen and not just for supernatural reasons. Mummies are wrapped up pretty tight and are just too old and fragile to do anything. In fact, they're often too delicate for scientists to even study them, meaning many human remains have sat in storage for more than a century. However, an exhibit making its way to New York's American History of Natural History today not only takes them out of the warehouse, but also tells us more about the people wrapped inside, thanks to some help from modern technology.
ICYMI: Robot running buddy, mechanical sea life and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-97080{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-97080, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-97080{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-97080").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: A horse-sized, standing CT scanner has been invented to keep your equine pals from being tranquilized before images are taken; a sea urchin mouth was used as inspiration for a robot that could be sent to Mars to collect samples; and NASA engineers and MIT students created a robot for Puma that can be programmed to 'race' training runners. If you're less of a runner, more of an observer, the Kung Fu art of Tobias Gremmier may be more your speed. As always, please share any great tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Toshiba one-ups Philips with AquilionONE CT scanner
Philips' Brilliance iCT sure had a nice run, but no sooner than it hit the spotlight, Toshiba has arrived fashionably late to steal a little thunder. The outfit's $2.5 million AquilionONE outdoes Philips' iteration by doing 320-slices instead of "just" 256, enabling doctors to see the entire heart while making patients hold their breath for merely "a second or two." Put simply, the machine should allow for heart disease to be spotted in its earliest stages without putting individuals through a lengthy tribulation, and the ultra high resolution 3D images it produces will allow medical personnel to quickly determine if there are any problems that need to be dealt with. Currently, the system is being tested at Toronto General's Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, but word on the street has the unit being readily available next summer.[Via Diagnostic Imaging, thanks lmwong]
Philips super high-res CT scanner shows you from the inside
Philips unveiled a new ultra-high-res 256-slice CT scanner called the Brilliance iCT at the Radiological Society of North America yesterday, a unit the company says not only produces higher quality 3D images using less radiation than previous scanners, but does it far more quickly -- a full body scan takes only a minute. The speedup is achieved because the rotating X-ray element spins some 22 percent faster than other models, hitting four revolutions a second at top speed. Getting in and out of the machine that much faster also cuts radiation exposure some 80 percent from a traditional X-ray machine, and Philips says the machine is accurate enough to capture a complete image of the heart in less than two beats. Metro Health in Cleveland is the first off the line with the new gear -- check the read link for a video of it in action.
