We’ve Been Scanned, Captain.
Every time my 3 year old, $80 HP Scanjet starts up, it sounds like…I
don’t know what. I’d say it sounds like an airplane about to take off,
but that isn’t quite right. It’s a low-pitched hum that slowly escalates
as it moves underneath the paper or photo I happen to be scanning. I can
honestly say, I’ve wondered what it would be like to be scanned like
that. Certainly, my imagination has been fueled by Star Trek TV
series–"We’re being scanned, Captain" reports Commander Spock as a
white beam flashes through the Bridge.
As I watched my Mom be scanned in a Magnetic Resonance Imaging chamber,
twice this weekend, I had real life sounds and a picture of what "being
scanned" really looks like. It was amazing as the kindly technicians at
a local hospital looked at my Mom’s brains, seemingly from the inside
out. Of course, the reason for an MRI, even two, isn’t exploration of
unknown space, a prelude to dealing with other space-faring races. The
reality is a bit…noisy, frightening, and feels not at all like
exploration.
News z: mguhlin@gmail.com (Miguel Guhlin - www.mguhlin.net)