Posted on 03/03/2005 3:20:24 AM PST by snarks_when_bored
Maximum pain is aim of new US weapon
* 19:00 02 March 2005
* Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition
* David Hambling
The US military is funding development of a weapon that delivers a bout of excruciating pain from up to 2 kilometres away. Intended for use against rioters, it is meant to leave victims unharmed. But pain researchers are furious that work aimed at controlling pain has been used to develop a weapon. And they fear that the technology will be used for torture.
"I am deeply concerned about the ethical aspects of this research," says Andrew Rice, a consultant in pain medicine at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, UK. "Even if the use of temporary severe pain can be justified as a restraining measure, which I do not believe it can, the long-term physical and psychological effects are unknown."
The research came to light in documents unearthed by the Sunshine Project, an organisation based in Texas and in Hamburg, Germany, that exposes biological weapons research. The papers were released under the US's Freedom of Information Act.
One document, a research contract between the Office of Naval Research and the University of Florida in Gainsville, US, is entitled "Sensory consequences of electromagnetic pulses emitted by laser induced plasmas".
It concerns so-called Pulsed Energy Projectiles (PEPs), which fire a laser pulse that generates a burst of expanding plasma when it hits something solid, like a person (New Scientist print edition, 12 October 2002). The weapon, destined for use in 2007, could literally knock rioters off their feet.
Pain trigger
According to a 2003 review of non-lethal weapons by the US Naval Studies Board, which advises the navy and marine corps, PEPs produced "pain and temporary paralysis" in tests on animals. This appears to be the result of an electromagnetic pulse produced by the expanding plasma which triggers impulses in nerve cells.
The new study, which runs until July and will be carried out with researchers at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, aims to optimise this effect. The idea is to work out how to generate a pulse which triggers pain neurons without damaging tissue.
The contract, heavily censored before release, asks researchers to look for "optimal pulse parameters to evoke peak nociceptor activation" - in other words, cause the maximum pain possible. Studies on cells grown in the lab will identify how much pain can be inflicted on someone before causing injury or death.
Long-term risk
New Scientist contacted two researchers working on the project. Martin Richardson, a laser expert at the University of Central Florida, US, refused to comment. Brian Cooper, an expert in dental pain at the University of Florida, distanced himself from the work, saying "I don't have anything interesting to convey. I was just providing some background for the group." His name appears on a public list of the university's research projects next to the $500,000-plus grant.
John Wood of University College London, UK, an expert in how the brain perceives pain, says the researchers involved in the project should face censure. "It could be used for torture," he says, "the [researchers] must be aware of this."
Amanda Williams, a clinical psychologist at University College London, fears that victims risk long-term harm. "Persistent pain can result from a range of supposedly non-destructive stimuli which nevertheless change the functioning of the nervous system," she says. She is concerned that studies of cultured cells will fall short of demonstrating a safe level for a plasma burst. "They cannot tell us about the pain and psychological consequences of such a painful experience."
"I am deeply concerned about the ethical aspects of this research,"
If he's really concerned he wouldn't have done the research.
Or was his hand out accepting money while whining? Like the suicide bomber's families?
Neat stuff! Too bad about the whiners.
A good example why much of Britain is lost in la-la land.
I personally favor the use of 50 caliber machine guns, precisely because the long-term physical and psychological effects of being hit by machine rounds are are well known, and have been throughly documented during the twentieth century.[/sarcasm]
Talk about persistent pain.
.....sounds like the 'idea' aircraft/helo 'hiJack' or Watercraft 'pirate' weapon?
/busses,tanks,trains and trucks?
After....Superbowl...crowd control?
Re: Non lethal weapons. I would like to see a gas developed which would render an adversary's army useless but not dead and not injured.
True. Liberals like Dr. Schmoe here are already suffering psychological effects. Simply tell the poor bed-wetters that the device will only ever be used on conservatives (like the group of Republican yuppies that stormed the attempt to close the Florida recounts in 2000) and they will withdraw all objections.
Re: Non lethal weapons. I would like to see a gas developed which would render an adversary's army useless but not dead and not injured.
I think the Germans used that technology against the French in WWII.
These guys want to see blood. How ghoulish!
It concerns so-called Pulsed Energy Projectiles (PEPs), which fire a laser pulse that generates a burst of expanding plasma when it hits something solid, like a person …
Set phasers on stun.
Anyway, whenever you develop a technology that renders the use of an army useless, warfare will be conducted y other means.
For example, somebody might load up an old car with high explosives and drive it into a crowded market and blow it up. That sort of thing.
Um, I think you missed the point. The quote you reference was from a UK scientist commenting on the ethics of the research, not from one of the Florida scientists themselves.
They let this guy be a scientist?
Let's run through this little exercise, shall we?
Say you're a angry, illiterate hippie (or looter or rioter or whatever) running around setting things on fire, vandalizing, and causing havoc. The authorities show up and tell you to disperse, but you and your pals feel misunderstood and/or violent, and decide to keep the rampage going. The authorities inform you that if you don't disperse, you're going to
(a) be hit with some kind of fancy ray gun that hurts pretty bad, and hasn't been proven to be free of long term side effects.
or
(b) be shot.
I'm guessing that 10 out of 10 angry, illiterate hippies will pick (a).
It concerns so-called Pulsed Energy Projectiles (PEPs), which fire a laser pulse that generates a burst of expanding plasma when it hits something solid, like a person …OK, I’m no particle physicist – but wouldn’t a burst of plasma burn the heck out of a person? As I understand it, plasma consists of a collection of free-moving electrons and ions - atoms that have lost electrons. This state is maintained only at higher energy levels. If the energy level drops below a certain point, the plasma returns to the state of a neutral gas. What am I missing?
Not sure. My guess would be that the duration of the plasma burst would be too brief to cause a burn (or a severe burn, anyway). But that's just a guess.
That was the movie "The Shape of Things to Come", a film based on a story by HG Wells. In some ways this movie is an amazingly prescient film about the potential horrors of a WWII-style global war on steroids; in other ways it was a silly load of socialist/globalist clap-trap.
The organization that eventually ended the war and took over the world was called "Wings Over the World" and was made up of pilots and scientists who had survived the global war. They used the 'Gas of Peace' to force surviving communities into submission to the new order.
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