Friday, May 13, 2005

Anti-matter in use today

Info: Antimatter

It may sound like science fiction (and still is if you are thinking of Warp Drives) but antimatter is in use today. Positron emission tomography (PET) scans utilize a form of extremely short-lived radioactive isotopes (essentially antimatter) to measure the emission of positrons from the brain.
That's a lot of gobbledy-gook, but the point is, antimatter is NOT completely science fiction. It's real and getting more real all the time.
But this post is really about a neat little story I saw on Livescience.com. It's called "Power of the Future: 10 Ways to Run the 21st Century" and essentially spotlights the most likely fuel sources for the coming century.
Maybe not-so-surprisingly antimatter was on the list. Along with several old-pals, including petroleum and nuclear, but with new uses and technologies high-lighted. It's pretty surprising what they can do with a lump of coal these days...
Of course, given what we know about human nature and our ability to constantly innovate, all 10 may be replaced by Mr. Fusion next Christmas.

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