Sticky Science A finger's x-ray taken with a tape-powered device. The sticky tape setup is in the background.
Image: Carlos Camara, Juan Escobar and Seth Putterman
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It may sound bizarre—or like some kind of high school science fair project, but it's not: Researchers have discovered that peeling adhesive tape ejects enough radiation to take an x-ray image. If they stick, the findings could set the stage for a less expensive x-ray machine that does not require electricity.
Lead researcher Carlos Camara, a physicist at the University of California, Los Angeles, reports in Nature today that his team captured x-rays of a finger on film (positioned behind it) by using a simple tape-peeling device (placed in front of it).
How is that possible? It turns out that radiation is released when tape is ripped from a surface. The reason, says Camara: electrons (negatively charged atomic particles) leap from a surface (peeling off of glass or aluminum works, too) to the adhesive side of a freshly yanked strip of tape, traveling so fast that they give off radiation, or energy, when they slam into it.
The result of this process when recorded by radiographic film is a fuzzy x-ray of the finger bone of physicist Seth Putterman, who runs the lab in which it was made.
"We have high hopes that this can be a very inexpensive alternative source of x-rays good enough to take x-ray images," Camara tells ScientificAmerican.com.
Conventional x-ray machines require expensive electrical components to create a beam of high-energy electrons that is aimed at a metal target. Camara envisions an x-ray device in which the adhesive tape could be peeled by a hand crank—and rolled back up for use again. He notes that researchers reused the same roll of tape many times without any change in x-ray quality. Unfortunately, he says, whether via the traditional method or the tacky one, it still requires the same amount of radiation to create an image.
Worried about radiation from the tape dispenser on your desk? Don't. In both a conventional and the experimental x-ray machine, electrons travel unhindered by air molecules through a vacuum chamber; that allows them to produce the higher energy needed to make x-rays. Normal air, comprised of nitrogen and oxygen and other gases, slows the electrons to a pace that is so sluggish there is only enough energy left to produce a faintly visible, benign blue light.
Don't believe us? Check out the property called triboluminescence yourself by peeling tape in the dark.
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9 Comments
Add CommentCheck out coconut oil, too. When I scoop a chunk of coconut oil that is solid with a polycarbonate spoon in the dark, light is emitted. I haven't tried it with a different type of spoon yet, but it might just be the coconut oil in solid form being separated and not have anything to do with the spoon. I kind of wonder about the sound, too, but I can't be sure if it's the scraping of the solid coconut or the electrical looking discharge causing the some of the sound.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are videos of this experiment here:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.nature.com/nature/videoarchive/x-rays/
awww... .heck... so that winter when I was employed wrapping christmas gifts, .... I was probably exposed to 10,000 times the amount of x-ray radiation then one is supposed to have... I should worn a lead suit.... dammit.... I hate that when that happens....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs someone who has processed rolls of photographic film in a darkroom on many occasions, I'm not surprised at this radiation connection: When peeling the tape that holds the film from the film spool, you often see faint sparks. While not enough to affect the film, I've wondered about the origin of this 'energy'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisoh..things are not like what you think`` this little device could be that serious?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI first started reading Scientific American in Grade one at Norgate Elementary School in North Vancouver BC. It was a way for me to escape the madness of my peers who thought I must have been retarded since I only spoke dutch.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisE=mc2 was the first thing I thought and spoke in english at the same time.............
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeat That McGiver! Ha ha ha!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisif you can do this kind of X rays, then probably you could get an X ray polaroid for field medics or paramedics, and probably the device could be compact enough to fit into an ambulance!
It is fascinating to hear from such developments.
Thank you for sharing the video on x-ray production. I have been a Radiologic Technologists for 40 years and I found it facinating. I did worry the scientist; remember what happened to Mrs. Roentgen after helping her husband in his studies. I hope they are wearing dosimenters.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for sharing.