soulxtc
January 31st, 2006, 12:36 PM
The experts discussed a range of potential tools, including... robotic butterflies that can monitor an atomic site while appearing to flutter by innocuously.
How to Listen for the Sound of Plutonium
WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 — In March 2004, the science and technology directorate of the Central Intelligence Agency called a secret meeting of hundreds of the government's top experts in nuclear intelligence to address a problem that had bedeviled Washington for decades: how to know, with precision, when a country is about to cross the line and gain the ability to build an atomic bomb.
The aim of the two-day conference was to reinvigorate the nation's atomic espionage efforts, not with spies on the ground or satellites in space but with a new generation of advanced technologies meant to detect the faintest clues of nuclear activity.
The meeting, said an official who attended, "was to galvanize people to say, 'We recognize this is a big problem and we need to get everybody thinking about it.' "
"There was a hope that, out of this, promising new approaches might be identified," the official continued.
READ ARTICLE (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/31/science/31nuke.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)
How to Listen for the Sound of Plutonium
WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 — In March 2004, the science and technology directorate of the Central Intelligence Agency called a secret meeting of hundreds of the government's top experts in nuclear intelligence to address a problem that had bedeviled Washington for decades: how to know, with precision, when a country is about to cross the line and gain the ability to build an atomic bomb.
The aim of the two-day conference was to reinvigorate the nation's atomic espionage efforts, not with spies on the ground or satellites in space but with a new generation of advanced technologies meant to detect the faintest clues of nuclear activity.
The meeting, said an official who attended, "was to galvanize people to say, 'We recognize this is a big problem and we need to get everybody thinking about it.' "
"There was a hope that, out of this, promising new approaches might be identified," the official continued.
READ ARTICLE (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/31/science/31nuke.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)