Tech

**Lights, Camera, Ka-Boom!**

Cheap, lightweight cameras could help protect mass transit, but would they survive a big costly blast?

That was the question on the minds of Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) scientists and managers watching from behind three feet of reinforced concrete.

**"30 seconds…"** came the countdown voice in an adjacent room.

Car doors are usually assembled from several sections of sheet metal which are welded together by laser. The laser beam moves over the slightly overlapping sheets and melts them in a spot measuring several tenths of a millimeter, producing a so called full penetration hole that closes again when the laser beam moves on. It is most important for the laser output power to be set correctly – if it is too low the strength of the welding connection is reduced because it does not extend over the full cross section of the metal sheets, if it is too high the laser cuts right through them.

The possibility of remote monitoring for chronically ill patients will soon become a reality. Now, researchers in South Africa and Australia have devised a decentralized system to avoid medical data overload. They describe the peer-to-peer system in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology.

WASHINGTON, March 5—A freak wave at sea is a terrifying sight. Seven stories tall, wildly unpredictable, and incredibly destructive, such waves have been known to emerge from calm waters and swallow ships whole. But rogue waves of light -- rare and explosive flare-ups that are mathematically similar to their oceanic counterparts -- have recently been tamed by a group of researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Health professionals send genes and healthy cells on their way through the bloodstream so that they can, for example, repair tissue damage to arteries. But do they reach their destination in sufficient quantities? Scientists of the PTB have developed a highly sensitive measuring method with which the efficiency of this therapy can be investigated: Small magnetic particles which are situated on the planted gene or on the planted cell can with the aid of an external magnetic field be specifically directed to the location of the damage.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Despite the increased popularity of geek culture – movies based on comic books, videogames, virtual worlds – and the ubiquity of computers, the geek's close cousin, the nerd, still suffers from a negative stereotype in popular culture. This may help explain why women and minorities are increasingly shying away from careers in information technology, says Lori Kendall, a professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.