A SMART phone that can detect radiation may soon be helping the police to find the raw materials for radioactive “dirty bombs” before they are deployed. The phones will glean data as the officers carrying them go about their daily business, and the information will be used to draw up maps of radiation that will expose illicit stores of nuclear material.
The detector is the brainchild of engineers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California, who developed it in response to the rise in illicit trafficking of radioactive materials (see Graph). Customs officers at ports and airports…
