Radiation Apps

 

Americans are rightly worried about radiation nowadays, after the alarming events at Japan’s nuclear reactor complexes. Some individuals are avoiding milk and are self-prescribing iodine tablets “just in case”. Now, researchers at the Purdue University in Indiana are working on a program to turn your cell phone into a radiation detector.

The program makes a lot of sense. Cell phones are ubiquitous, and the circuitry to detect radiation can easily be fitted onto a cell phone. Combined with the GPS capabilities already prevalent in cell-phones, you have a lightweight, small-sized radiation detector deployable in the millions.

The eventual objective is to establish a country-wide consumer-based network of radiation sensors that can detect radiation in the air. The radiation could emanate from dirty bombs or nuclear weapons. But it could also originate from nuclear reactor accidents such as experienced in Japan. The phones would be sensitive enough to recognize and track even small amounts of radioactive material.

Two Purdue researchers, Jere Jenkins and Ephraim Fischback, demonstrated last November the phones’ ability to pick up small radiation sources by using volunteers equipped with the sensors. The volunteers were told to stroll through the Purdue campus in West Lafayette, where a small sealed source of weak radiation had been hidden by the researchers. Whenever a sensor went past the source, it uploaded its findings along with GPS coordinates. By combining the readings of many sensors, researchers were able to narrow down the location of the radioactivity. Eventually, the precise location was found, 15 feet from one volunteer. The dose was very small, nothing near a harmful level.

This opens up many hypothetical scenarios. Parents who are worried that milk has been contaminated by radioactivity could scan a carton of milk before drinking from it. A radioactive cloud would be easily detected by thousands of cell-phone users as the cloud passed overhead. You would be able to test drinking water, perhaps even rain water, for radiation.

Think of the possibilities for national security. Cars or trucks carrying dirty bombs might be detectable by passersby, who could alert authorities. Officials have already thought about putting detectors in weigh stations, but then reasoned trucks with dirty bombs would probably bypass the stations. However, it would be much harder to bypass a nationwide network of specially-equipped cell phones. Laptops too could be included in the network. A whole new avenue of radiation detection sits on the horizon, waiting to be exploited.