Baby receives pat-down at Kansas City airport

Discussion in 'Chemistry' started by Cifo, May 11, 2011.

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  1. Cifo

    Cifo Day destroys the night, Registered Senior Member

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    Baby receives pat-down at Kansas City airport


    urine + bacteria → ammonia + nitrates

    Nitrates are components of explosives, so maybe the equipment was sniffing for nitrates. Make sense?
     
    Cifo, May 11, 2011
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  3. Asguard

    Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    Because people have never used babies in crimes before?

    There is a wall full of women at work caught stealing stuff from the stores by hiding it in the child's pram
     
    Asguard, May 11, 2011
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  5. adoucette

    adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Except the key point is the child’s stroller alarmed during explosives screening and if you didn't check out kids or grandmothers or people in wheelchairs for explosives when that happened then they would become an easy way to get explosives past security.

    The point is anyone trying to get explosives through security is actually likely to try to use someone you least expect to be a threat.

    Arthur
     
    adoucette, May 11, 2011
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  7. Trippy

    Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    I seem to recall hearing in a lecture many moons ago that sniffers look for certain ratios of C:N

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    and make the determination of explosives versus non explosives (i've also seen various ways and means of bypassing these detectors discusses, as well as ways of causing them to trigger false positives.

    Keeping that in mind, I can see two possible explanations here.

    First: Nitrates, and Urea are natural components of Urea. Nitrate levels are affected by diet, for example, eating a ham sandwich can raise the levels of Nitrates in your urine significantly. Urea Nitrate is a home made explosive that has many of the same charactersitics in terms of explosive power as ANFO explosives and has been used in IED's in various locations around the world. So if the kids nappy was full enough, and the kid was say dehydrated, and had ham recently (so the urine was strong) this might have been enough to trigger the an overly sensitive detector (also consider that nappies leak).

    Second: something unsual (but not nececssarily insidious) in the plastic in the stroller triggered the detector (might simply have been that someone got the proportions of the melamine and resins wrong).
     
    Trippy, May 11, 2011
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  8. Asguard

    Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    I don't get it, I was swabbed with one of those things and I had a lighter in my pocket at the time and it never went off
     
    Asguard, May 11, 2011
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  9. Trippy

    Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    And?

    Even if you had pissed yourself after chowing down on Maccaroni Cheese and Ham, I still would be surprised if you set one off with a lighter in your pocket made from Acryllonitrile styrene resin.
     
    Trippy, May 11, 2011
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  10. Asguard

    Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    No its not the plastic lighter that facinated me. I acidently pushed the button on it so there was gas all over my pocket. Yet it didn't register? Why not?

    I'm asuming amonium nitrate isn't the ONLY. explosive in the world
     
    Asguard, May 11, 2011
    #7
  11. Trippy

    Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Neither Naptha or Butane have enough Nitrogen in them (ordinarily, they don't have any in them).

    As I said, as I understand it, most of these detectors are keyed on the ratios of the elements present (C:N

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    ) because most explosives have a lot of Nitrogen, and a lot of Oxygen in them (for a given amount of carbon).
     
    Trippy, May 11, 2011
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  12. Cowboy

    Cowboy My Aim Is True Valued Senior Member

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    This.

    It's not like the kid was waterboarded. I'm pretty sure that nobody actually believed that the baby was a terrorist. For a terrorist, hiding your weapon amongst a baby's stroller and blankets is smarter than wearing your own suicide vest or whatever.
     
    Cowboy, May 12, 2011
    #9
  13. Vengeful Rebel

    Vengeful Rebel Registered Senior Member

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    The government is going to do whatever they want, whenever they want. If that means abusing passengers traveling though airports - then they are going to do it.
     
    Vengeful Rebel, May 24, 2011
    #10
  14. adoucette

    adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    BS

    Nearly 800 million passengers flew safely in the US last year.
    Having flown ~100 times a year myself for the last 10 years, through most all major US airports, and I have never been abused even once.
    The system is working.

    Arthur
     
    adoucette, May 24, 2011
    #11
  15. alberteinsteinx9

    alberteinsteinx9 Registered Member

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    terrorists aren't smart enough to use baby piss as an explosive. The last time they blew something up, i.e. 9/11, they used airliners and jet fuel. Baby piss is not an explosive.
     
    alberteinsteinx9, Jul 3, 2011
    #12
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