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A comment on Australians Scour Desert for Dangerous Radioactive Capsule Smaller Than a Penny. Parent comment

Re:Australians Scour Desert for Dangerous Radioactive Capsul... by eternityforest on Sunday January 29, 2023 @07:28PM (#34574338)
What we really need is a government scheme for realtime detection built into phones. There are plenty of research papers, hard to believe it's truly impossible to make a consumer grade Bluetooth mini LIBS or at least a scintillation counter in a phone, or a microscope that can look at dust in the air to find asbestos, etc.

I've even heard of work on realtime virus detection.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Australians Scour Desert for Dangerous Radioactive Capsul... by waste_monk on Monday January 30, 2023 @01:48AM (#34576599)
There are various Geiger counter apps that work by taping something over the camera such that it's blacked out, and then measuring excitement of the CMOS sensor by gamma rays.

These apps have been found to work but only for gamma, sensitivity isn't great, I have seen it described as an "am I already screwed?" detector app.

[ Parent | on HN ]