Aerosol Spray to Identify Bombing Suspects 191
RedHanded writes "Forensic chemists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed a color-changing spray that can identify people suspected of making or planting bombs. The chemical turns from yellow to bright red when it comes into contact with urea nitrate, an explosive residue that may be left behind on the hands of someone who has handled an improvised device."
Basic hygiene (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe that is what they are looking for - poor hygiene = terrorist?
Perhaps this chemical is the same one which makes the purple cloud of shame in the swimming pool (I know its a legend but still..)
Re:Basic hygiene (Score:4, Funny)
Spraying this substance in the air will show the farts of anyone in the room as a blue haze.
Ha ! Finally some way to track down the lactose intolerant!
Re:Basic hygiene (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Basic hygiene (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Passport? Boarding pass? Good. Now please allow me to pull your finger.
Re:Basic hygiene (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm more worried about, well, me... I use urea nitrate in my tropical orchid mix...
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, sure, whatever you say.
Just don't be offended if I don't shake your hand buddy.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
He has a hand buddy? That's awesome. But yeah, I don't suggest you shake it.
Re: (Score:2)
*Goes to put on more Anti-Sweat Deodorant before heading off to the Airport*
Re:Basic hygiene (Score:5, Informative)
From the article, the "amazing" new molecule is just commercially available p-dimethylaminocinnamaldehyde. The chemistry involved is already well-known. It is used for, among other things, indirectly detecting biotin (by way of the urea in the molecule). Basically you mix your urea-containing compound with a strong acid (sulfuric acid works), which promotes enol tautomerization and makes the normally unreactive nitrogens of the urea reactive toward electrophiles. One of the nitrogens will react with the aldehyde to form an imine, and due to the availability of a quinoid resonance contributor, turn color (red in the case of dimethylaminocinnamaldehyde and yellow in the case of dimethylaminobenzaldehyde).
What's special here, and why this won't result in a thousand false positives from detection of any urea-containing compound, is that urea nitrate is a stable salt and acidic enough on its own to react with dimethylaminocinnamaldehyde without the addition of acid. So a wipe test, drop it in isopropanol, add some of the aldehyde and see if it changes color. It's a fairly elegant application of old chemistry to forensic analysis.
Re: (Score:2)
Complete gibberish to anyone but chemistry majors but a good post nonetheless.
Heart medication (Score:3, Interesting)
You'd be surprised at the rather harmless (explosion-wise anyways) uses many of these chemicals have, and I'm sure the airport guards may be as well. I've heard many cases of funky medications giving weird results in various situations. Did you know that taking
Having RTFA, I'd worry anyway (Score:3, Informative)
That said, looking at the illustration of the mollecules interacting in TFA, it looks to me like their dye binds to just the nitrate anion, and there is no trace of urea to be seen at all there. I.e., what is so funnily coloured is their mollecul
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is why I stay away from certain areas of the mall.
And more importantly, what will happen when someone yells "Security! This man is assaulting people with aerosol spray!" and the airport undergoes lockdown?
Or more feasibly, what happens when the terrorists use the aerosol as an opportunity to walk around the airport spraying people's hands, infecting them with SARS or some other horrifying disease?
Seriously
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sheesh the morons.
Re:Basic hygiene (Score:4, Informative)
From what I know of the chemistry of aldehydes (there's a great icebreaker at parties...), this dye should react with any primary or secondary amine- like regular old urea, ammonia, amino acids, etc. What this group claims, however, is that there is a particular color change reaction for this dye which occurs for urea nitrate which does not occur for other amines.
I think what the article's confusing picture of the dye and urea nitrate interacting is suggesting is that the hydrogen bonds between the nitrate and urea moieties remain intact even after the urea has bonded to the dye, so the nitrate moiety affects the dye complex and the color it appears. I'd still be concerned about false positives, personally, particularly from different amine salts. The color produced might be uniquely identifiable to a spectrophotometer, but for a visual test I'd be worried about anything that turns "reddish" enough to produce a false positive.
Re:Basic hygiene (Score:4, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Six/ [wikipedia.org]
Indicator tests are nothing new by the way, and they're not inherently useless, as long as you realize that they tend to be non-specific, and usually react with a whole range of compounds. If you have a sample that you know may contain either substance A or B, and you know only substance B reacts with your color spray, then the reagent is a quick and reliable way to tell the difference.
If on the other hand you start spraying it on people who may have been in contact with any number of substances, and then accuse anyone with a positive reaction of terrorism, innocent people are going to end up in jail.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Basic hygiene (Score:5, Interesting)
bomb makers or... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Yet another excellent reason to wash your hands when you go to the toilet...
...actually, let me clarify that. A good reason to wash your hands after you go to the toilet.
Washing them when you go is disgusting.
Re:bomb makers or... (Score:4, Funny)
No it's not. It's multi-tasking!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Urea is present in sweat, almost certainly in enough quantity to trigger this test. Besides, urea nitrate _is_ a fertilizer. See here [roguesci.org].
not wash,
You're likely to accumulate a similar quantity of buildup of nitrates on your hands handling an explosive compared to handling fertilizers. The test is almost certainly designed to catch people who have washed their hands after handling the explosives, so is likely to be very sensi
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
great (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a good thing... (Score:4, Insightful)
First silly string, now spray paint? (Score:3, Funny)
Alternative use: Detecting IEDs themselves. (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if a light spray of this stuff would make a hidden IED stand out as a bright red spot?
And perhaps with red trails marking how it arrived and where the people who delivered it went when they left?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:First silly string, now spray paint? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
It is most useful when rushing a stronghold then it is with the conventional IED buried in the street and set off by a remote somewhere.
Talk about residue... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In additi
Congratulation! (Score:5, Insightful)
Mission accomplished!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As for false positives, it isn't likely to be a problem. The stuff shows who the likely people are not who the person is. If you have a legitimate reason for the chemicals on you, you get to go. If you don't, then they look to see why you have it.
It sounds like your pissed because they have found
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're an American, and you hang out at the range, and the local scumbags decide to make that illegal, suddenly, having gone plinking or hunting is a crime
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Swat doesn't get called unless there is a barricade, ongoing threat of life or hostage situation. Cities don't have swat teams on standby to assist at traffic stops. They have cops on patrol that come off patrol when the swat team is called. Sometimes they go back and get their gear and sometimes their gear is loaded on a truck waiting for them on the scene. Swat forces havn't been abused in over 50 years so what makes you all the suddent think they will
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Then you'd better quote some of this other "law," because local SWAT teams, no matter how they're equipped, have fuck-all to do with posse comitatus. That was enacted specifically to prevent federal troops - Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines - from engaging in the enforcement of federal law on US soil. It has nothing to do with their equipment or their training, and everything to do with who's giving the orders.
Re: (Score:2)
A bouncer at a club in Virginia Beach (I was going to college nearby
Re: (Score:2)
Or they want to exercise a plain old search warrant.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/26/AR2006012602136.html [washingtonpost.com]
"""
But police officials acknowledged that the tactical team, using bulletproof vests, high-powered weapons and other police tools, serves nearly all of the warrants after an investigation has found probable cause to seize evidence
"""
Re: (Score:2)
Swat doesn't get called unless there is a barricade, ongoing threat
Like some moron that caught by 'To Catch a Prevert'?
If you do something and they make it illegal, and then commit that illegal act, suddenly you can get hassled by the cops. So what, your doing something illegal. Now there are ways to contest unjust laws and unconstitutional laws. If you think the answer is to just violate the law instead of taking care of it properly, then you deserve what you get.
That is the way to contest the law.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure what your saying here.
No, you challenge it in court. that is the way to contest it without breaking the law.
Yep, that's my point. There are reasons why things we already have availible isn't used i ways the parent described. There isn't any reason to think it would be different with this.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure what your saying here.
TCAP has had the cops using swat teams to take down the perverts they entrap, even though they are, as a rule more pathetic than they are dangerous.
No, you challenge it in court. that is the way to contest it without breaking the law.
You have to show standing- this means you can't protest the law until you're punished for breaking it.
Re: (Score:2)
Look at how they go after certain provisions of laws today. As soon as they are passed and signed into law, someone is starting the challenging process. I would admit that a good majority of laws are challenged because people were arrested for violating them. But it doesn't make it the only way to get stand
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You don't think that a terrorist would be able to obtain a plastic bag to hold their bomb?
Re: (Score:2)
As for false positives, it isn't likely to be a problem.
Without knowing the false positive rate, you can't say anything about if it's a problem or not. If the rate is even 1 in 10,000, this is going to be a useless test. Airports have 10s of thousands of people going through them each day. What are you going to do when you have multiple false positives every day?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You do realize that your 1 in 10,000 rate would only be one or two false positives a day in an airport that sees 10s f thousands of people. But I don't think this is the
Re: (Score:2)
You do realize that your 1 in 10,000 rate would only be one or two false positives a day in an airport that sees 10s f thousands of people.
Only smaller airports see that level of traffic and the USA has many airports. It is a ludicrous figure for a nation that used to preach "innocent until proven guilty".
Comparing a nation with a real terrorist problem like the Philippines which has three "major"[1] airports (probably only NAIA reaches >10k passengers a day) - the Davao City airport terminal has been bombed twice[2] since 2003 and NAIA domestic terminal bombed once. I'll leave out the SuperFerry bombing a few years back which was blamed
Re: (Score:2)
Innocent until proven guilty doesn't mean that you will go scott free until someone catches you red handed. It means that there needs to be a reason why they are looking at you and you need to be adjudicated before punished.
I don't know where you think your going with this but it isn't making the effect you might think it is. if there are 1
Re: (Score:2)
It means that there needs to be a reason why they are looking at you and you need to be adjudicated before punished.
Which means that they need PC before spraying you down. Being in the airport isn't really enough. You seem to be advocating a blanket policy, which isn't justified by the threat and would screw airports even more.
if there are 10 false positives a day, it wouldn't be that troublesome either. Why? Because no one it suggesting using this stuff as definitive proof of wrong doing.
No, you jus
Re: (Score:2)
Lol.. I'm advocating nothing of the sorts. If anything, I'm only saying I can see where it would be helpful as one more part of an ongoing investigation. You know, 900 people walk through the gate but security stops 50 of them because they look mean, look like arabs or look like some one they can
Re: (Score:2)
You might ask, why do you think that? And I would answer with, you don't need to listen to government propaganda to find this out. Al Qeada releases video often saying what they would be looking to do.
Whoopty do. Al Queda isn't enough of a threat to justify half the shit done in its name. They've managed one (admittedly very well done) terrorist attack and killed a few thousand. That's a month's worth of driving deaths. If we implemented the locking doors in cockpits, that'd be enough to stop repeats - w
Re: (Score:2)
Lol.. So should we take down the metal detectors and all because the deaths arising from shootin
Re: (Score:2)
Lol.. So should we take down the metal detectors and all because the deaths arising from shooting in public places like court houses or hijacked airplanes are far less then the number of people that Die from car accidents?
Don't be a jackass. I'm saying that the security reaction to 9/11 is almost wholly innefective and that it should be scrapped. I'm also saying that Al Queda is a pissant.
The idea is to not let the death occur in the first place is there is something that could be done to stop them. No
Re: (Score:2)
You do realize that your 1 in 10,000 rate would only be one or two false positives a day in an airport that sees 10s f thousands of people
The 1 in 10,000 number is just a dumb number I made up. It's totally irrelevant to whether this is a good test or not.
Anyway, my point is really that even a 1/10,000 rate is poor evidence the person has done anything wrong. It's not even enough evidence to strip search someone when you're getting several people at each airport every day. What are you going to do at the
Re: (Score:2)
As for false positives, it isn't likely to be a problem. The stuff shows who the likely people are not who the person is. If you have a legitimate reason for the chemicals on you, you get to go. If you don't, then they look to see why you have it.
Funny story... once I got put on a watch list for having trace amounts of TNT on one of my sandals. We're talking old worn-in dirty hippie leather sandals here . . . with trace amounts of TNT on them. Someone at some point probably thought the same exact thing about the little machine that sniffs around your stuff at the airport, but what happened to me is that I had absolutely no clue whatsoever how the TNT got on my sandals, much less a legitimate reason for it.
I don't think anyone's pissed off about a
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, in theory. Also, in theory, you can wear gloves to prevent your fingerprints from being left at the scene of a crime. Yet, in a lot of cases, they're found anyway.
Hopefully, it is not a (Score:4, Funny)
(captcha: enrage)
That is why... (Score:5, Insightful)
The fixation on the detection of nitrate and related chemistry is a bit of a blind spot in explosive detection technology.
Re: (Score:2)
While I would agree that it would create a blind spot in the detection, we are having serious problems with a certain types of IEDs right now. Even if we are 10% closer to detecting and punishing those behind the stuff, that is 10% further then yesterday. And I think that is a good thing.
That depends. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Uh, 1995 when the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City was destroyed by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing [wikipedia.org]
More Griess Test Nonsense (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
I am against this... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
GSR? (Score:2)
You Know You've Read Slashdot Too Long... (Score:5, Funny)
...when your first thought is the effect on the rights of the bomb makers.
Re:You Know You've Read Slashdot Too Long... (Score:4, Insightful)
marking spin (Score:4, Insightful)
"that can identify people suspected of making or planting bombs."
Bullshit. Using the spray may detect a chemical, (not people) which then people may use to suspect one another.
Big difference.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would you even need a spray to identify people suspected of making or planting bombs? If they're already suspected, then surely you know which people you suspect! Why is precise writing so hard for professional writers??? How about this -- It identifies people who have been in recent contact with certain types of possible explosives residue.
"Tubthumping" parody (Score:2)
Why, that should have been from the "pissing-the-night-away" department. Any Chumbawamba fan should have thought of it.
"I get blown up, I get up again,
And you're never gonna keep me down
I get blown up, I get up again,
And you're never gonna keep me down..."
I like their other test... (Score:3, Insightful)
How many of these substances are there? (Score:2)
Makes me wonder why they're bothering to develop more when they're not coming into widespread use.
I'm just waiting (Score:2, Funny)
Is it red? Is it red?
Is it- BOOM!
At your better supermarkets... (Score:2)
Just spray in the air and terrorists fade away like bad gas.
New, from Ryan Industries.
False Positives (Score:2)
Now you don't need a bomb to cause disruption (Score:2, Insightful)
Red Handed (Score:2, Funny)
(Although on that note, I did not scroll through ALL the responses for this story)
Kidney Failure and Urea Nitrate (Score:2)
As someone who has had kidney failure (now had transplant) I happen to know that there is an increase in Blood Urea Nitrate as it cannot be cleaned out by the failed kidneys.
This will escape through sweat glands and will show up as a positive test for "explosive residue". hmm somewhat stuck there. Honest, I'm on dialysis guv.
p.s. Osama Bin Laden also has kidney failure. How they going to cope with that one!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Now that I think about it, I wonder if the very strong anti-gun agenda in the UK is a backlash from Guy Fawkes, or just the more recent American Revolution. If only there was a way for all our rights being taken away to create some sort of polarizing backlash in the same
Re: (Score:2)
Careful there
What I was referring to was "incrementalism"
Re: (Score:2)
I really hope you know that all terrorists have a political agenda. Even the Oklahoma bomber had some sort of a message (albeit very silly and racist). al-Quaida certainly had/has a political aim, not killing all the infidels as some simple people on your side of the pond try to twist it.
As a post here some time a go pointed out, the more horrific the deed, the more people tend to ignore the political
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"IT was ME!"
(liar liar)