Gizmodo: death ray

Update: Oops, the MEDUSA Mind Control Ray Gun Will Actually Kill You

Jack Loftus — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 10:00:00 EDT

The MEDUSA crowd control ray gun we reported on earlier this month sounded like some pretty amazing—and downright scary—technology. Using the microwave auditory effect, the beam, in theory, would have put sounds and voice-like noises in your head, thereby driving you away from the area. Crowd control via voices in your head. Sounds cool. However, it turns out that the beam would actually kill you before any of that happy stuff started taking place, most likely by frying or cooking your brain inside your skull. Can you imagine if this thing made it out into the field? Awkward!

“Any kind of exposure you could give to someone that wouldn’t burn them to a crisp would produce a sound too weak to have any effect,” said Kenneth Foster, a bioengineering professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Foster knows what he's talking about, too. In 1974 he published the first research on the microwave auditory effect.

Fellow scientist and microwave research author Bill Guy agrees, citing some hard facts to support his conclusions:

Guy says that experiments have demonstrated that radiation at 40 microjoules per pulse per square centimeter produces sound at zero decibels, which is just barely in hearing range. To produce sound at 60 decibels, or the sound of normal conversation, requires 40 watts per square centimeter of radiation. “That would kill you pretty fast,” Guy says. Producing an unpleasant sound, at about 120 decibels, would take 40 million W/cm2 of energy. One milliwatt per square centimeter is considered to be the safety threshold.

Both scientists were in agreement about one other thing too: the MEDUSA just morphed from a crowd-control device into a monstrous weapon. We need more of those, right? [IEEE Spectrum Online]

Death Ray Machine Does What Jesus Could Not

Haroon Malik — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 19:00:00 EST

For this week's retromodo installation, we're looking at the Death Ray Machine, (awesome name). Apparently, the device was put together by a Cleveland scientist, and its abilities were only showcased in a one time display to members of the National Inventors' Congress at Omaha, Nebraska. The Death Ray Machine was witnessed to instantly kill dogs, cats and rabbits once its beam shone on them.

Blood was reported to spill from the deceased, unfortunate test animals, but it was instantly turned to water. Blood to water—not even Jesus could do that. The officials that attended were so in awe of the dazzling power, they prevented any further development until the Death Ray Machine could be put to a useful, defensive purpose by the government. No one knows what became of the Death Ray Machine, but we think it just may be the scariest vaporware ever. [Modern Mechanix via Boing Boing]

Kick-Ass Death Ray on the Way, Uses Antimatter

Charlie White — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 10:15:32 EDT

Those mad scientists are at it again. David Cassidy and Allen Mills, a couple of propellerheads at the University of California, Riverside are using the stuff of science fiction, antimatter, to create gamma ray lasers they say could be a million times more powerful than the lasers we're using to watch Blu-ray discs. It's done by creating an atom called positronium that contains otherwise unstable antimatter particles that are the opposite of electrons, called positrons. This is where things start getting interesting, paving the way to a mofo laser.

When you can magically combine two of those positronium suckers, you get a molecule that sounds like it's made by Sony, called PS2. When PS2 decays, that's when super-powerful bursts of those awesome gamma rays are released, capable of smacking down anything in sight. So this must be that all-powerful and dangerous ray gun running through science fiction stories for the past 100 years. Or is it more like a phaser? Either way, yeah, it's all working with positronium. We're not making this up. [NewScientistTech]

BROTRON: Robots That Aren't Really Robots

Mark Wilson — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 18:40:43 EDT

There is no bigger tease that robot art. It's like hopping inside a Ferrari, hitting the gas and realizing that there is no engine inside. But then you remember: it's owning a Ferrari gets you laid, not driving one. (Or so we understand).

Created by Greg Brotherton, these "robots" are handmade with hammers and steel, because once we grow sick of Apple everything will have rivets and the distinct possibility of cutting your primitive, sissy flesh. Roughly 7 feet in height, these robots weight between 80 and 200lbs. And hopefully, when we do have ~~sex slaves~~ robots they will look at least this awesome (but maybe lack the horns). – Mark Wilson

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