A bleeding-edge bit of gear from NASA has helped save the lives of four people in Nepal--NASA’s FINDER (Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response) managed to locate the trapped people by using microwave radar that is specially designed to zero in on human heartbeats.
These path-breaking prototype devices have been created by NASA in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate. Barely the size of a suitcase, they are sensitive enough to detect a heartbeat through 30 feet of debris or 20 feet of concrete or from 100 feet away in open air. The device is also capable of differentiating between a heartbeats of an animal versus that of a person, enabling rescuers to focus their efforts of freeing trapped people as opposed to a household pet that happens to be in the same debris, for example. |
