Explosives

News

Navy GREMLIN Will Hunt Underground IEDs Like An Acoustic Truffle Pig

2:00AM February 1, 2012 | Andrew Tarantola

EOD personnel would have a hell of a lot easier time if people would stop burying their IEDs. But since that’s obviously not going to happen, Office of Naval Research is funding the development of an ordnance detection system that “sees” through the ground with sound waves. More »

Science

Scientists Can Make Bomb Detectors With Inkjet Printers

12:30AM November 1, 2011 | Adrian Covert

When properly designed, explosives detection sensors are really expensive. But researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a cheap, ammonia-detecting sensor that can be manufactured with an inkjet printer and some paper. More »

News

Man Planned To Destroy Pentagon With Remote Aeroplanes

6:14AM September 29, 2011 | Sam Biddle

So what do you do when you’ve graduated university and sitting around Massachusetts? Conspire to blow up the two greatest symbols of American global power: the US Capitol and Pentagon. With a giant, C-4-laden toy plane. More »

Science

Laser Can Detect Roadside Bombs From A Distance

4:20AM September 20, 2011 | Kristen Philipkoski

Scientists have a new laser sensor they say can detect roadside bombs, the cause of more than half the soldier deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq. More »

Geek Out

How Not To Air Your Grievances With The Banking Industry

10:20AM August 26, 2011 | Andrew Tarantola

Glenn Neff is not a happy camper. How do I know? Because he was just arrested driving a Jeep with a home-brew fireworks auto-cannon and plans to large amounts of shoot rockets at Capitol Hill. So yeah, just a bit pissed. More »

Geek Out

Astrolite: The Liquid Land Mine

1:30AM August 19, 2011 | Andrew Tarantola

In efforts to develop high-energy rocket fuel during Vietnam, researchers found the fuel they’d developed was a little too powerful, consistently destroying the rockets they powered. After some refinement, the researchers dubbed it Astrolite — the air-scatterable liquid land mine. More »

News

A Toy Truck Saved The Lives Of Six Soldiers

9:20AM August 5, 2011 | Casey Chan

Staff Sgt Christopher Fessenden is alive right now thanks to a toy truck. Seriously. The toy truck was always sent ahead of him in Afghanistan to look for roadside bombs. Last week, it ran into a tripwire and exploded. More »

Geek Out

How To Defuse A Bomb

1:00PM August 4, 2011 | brent rose

Yesterday afternoon a young woman from Mosman in Sydney had a bomb strapped to her freaking neck in what seems to have been an extortion attempt. Terrifying. Thankfully, it turned out not to be explosive, but it made us wonder…how exactly would the pros safely defuse a bomb? More »

Geek Out

Hand Lemo-nades

7:00AM June 27, 2011 | Jack Loftus

Sadly, you cannot make lemonade from lemons by pulling the pin on these incendiary pieces of fruit to make them explode. They’re inert, you see, and just a side project for tinkerer Chris Myles. More »

Geek Out

Anatomy Of A Perfect Bank Heist: Smoke Bombs, Police Scanners

8:40AM May 4, 2011 | Adrian Covert

Crime Magazine has a great excerpt from the upcoming book Wanted: Gentleman Bank Robber, recounting the time when infamous bank robber Leslie Ibsen Rogge knocked off two spots in a single day, making use of police scanners and smoke bombs in the process. More »