29 October 2008

A Sticky Challenge

I read about this scientific discovery first in C&E News, and was surprised to find a much more detailed report in the New York Times. And here's the overly dramatic but necessary video from Nature.

The discovery? If you unroll 25 meters of sticky tape at 3 cm/second in a vacuum, it emits enough X rays to create an image on the small squares of film that dentists use.

Even in ordinary office conditions, unpeeling sticky tape can produce flashes of light. So how can we use this in fiction?

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