At 10:37 AM 8/27/2009, you wrote:
But - if this putative device could be well-engineered, due to DoE (ARPA or
maybe DARPA) involvement - then the advantage of having it mass-produced and
all tied into a USB port for data-logging on the PC makes a ton of sense...
so that additionally there could essentially be many overlapping tests -
[...]
Well - these are the wishful things that are only available in an advanced
society where $2 trillion recklessly spent on 8 years of unnecessary war are
shifted away from that, and into productive ventures.
Sure. That's why it has to start with something very simple. No
custom ICs. I can handle some electronics design, but we might be
talking about a single interface board, something that could also be
bought off-the-shelf, usable as-is. If it's off-the-shelf, it can be
purchased in small quantities as the project ramps up, whereas if it
is original design, there will be many complications.
But if original design seems needed, it can certainly be done. It's
not *that* expensive.
First, the basics, what are the experimental configurations?
Co-dep struck me as probably the most amenable to a cheap and reliable version.
But the most interesting to me, in fact, is the bacterial
transmutation one. The key to that one is identifying someone who
will do the Mossbauer spectroscopy. It's possible to buy one of those
thingies, but there goes the capitalization....
There are also unanswered questions, such as whether or not the
radiodurans culture was a special strain. I didn't find much of a
clue in the published stuff, though there was a reference in one
paper to a particular strain, I think....
