Thankfully for the rest of the free world, scientists have developed a bomb-sniffing briefcase that helps track down those who are responsible for detonating homemade ‘fertilizer’ bombs. Since these crude explosives are made from easily available chemical components like ammonium nitrate, Professor Paul Haddad and his colleagues from the University of Tasmania have developed a fast and portable system for analyzing the composition of blast residues from these explosions in the field. In a nutshell, his team’s briefcase can fingerprint the type of explosive used within 10 minutes, and in turn that information could be used to trace down whoever bought a large amount of the said chemical. This will come to naught if the bomber is of the suicidal variety, but at least a lead is better than none. What you see above is a briefcase filled with bombs.
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