Coming soon, an X-ray vision gun

Ben Farmer
London Telegraph
Thursday January 17, 2008

The superhero power to see through walls will soon be within the grasp of ordinary mortals, thanks to a new hand-held X-ray scanner.

Inventors hope the gadget could revolutionise police work and Customs searches by allowing officers to seek out contraband, weapons, bombs or hidden people.

The LEXID device sends out low-level X-rays which are collected in a lens based on the design of a lobster's eye.

Rick Shie, senior vice-president of its American inventors, Physical Optics Corporation, said that lobsters' eyes, which are able to see in deep, murky water, use thousands of tiny squares to focus by reflection rather than the bending or refraction of light like human eyes.

Mr Shie said: "The LEXID works by emitting a low-level X-ray and then the lobster eye interprets what is returned and the image is produced on a screen.

"We are still in the research stage but have conducted successful trials and the government is keen to test it. "It can detect bombs, contraband or people and will show up anything within a couple of metres."

America’s Department of Homeland Security is already understood to be interested in the device for use in its war on terror.

While the images produced by the scanner are not crystal-clear, they are sharp enough to reveal a cache of weapons or parts of a bomb.

Full article here.