Word: lasered
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...histories--X rays, ECGs, vaccination records and all--in their hip pockets. Up to 800 pages of such information, including a digitized personal photograph and explanation of insurance coverage, will fit on a credit card-size "LifeCard." Last week Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Maryland announced plans to introduce the laser-encoded card in Columbia and, if all goes well, distribute it throughout the state by 1986. Ultimately they hope to market the LifeCard to insurers around the country. Says Blue Cross Executive Thomas Sherlock: "This card could reduce the number of X rays you receive in your lifetime and give...
...medical memory card is in part the brainchild of Computer Whiz Douglas Becker, 19, of Baltimore, who approached Blue Cross after reading about laser cards in computer magazines. Like the videodisk and compact audio disk, the laser card, which was developed by Drexler Technology Corp. of Mountain View, Calif., depends on laser optic technology, in which a low-power laser beam is used both to burn digital information onto the card and to "read" that information by scanning the surface. Says Becker: "This is a new application for an older mousetrap...
...starters, subscribers and their doctors will fill out detailed medical questionnaires. Either the insurer or a medical facility will then encode the data onto the cards, using a personal computer and a special "read/write" laser device, which Blue Cross hopes to make available to doctors and hospitals for about $1,000. Physicians later use the same equipment to retrieve X rays and other data and record new information. Says Sherlock: "LifeCard will save time, it will save money and, more important, it will save lives...
...bombs cannot be exploded in power plants, and when Lawrence Livermore scientists begin their experiments six weeks from now, they will use powerful laser beams instead. In Nova, under the guidance of more than 50 computers, a pulse of light is whipped around a master oscillator until all of its wavelengths are identical and in phase. The pulse of pure laser light is then split into ten parts, each of which races down its own 460-ft.-long tube equipped with amplifiers, spatial filters and isolators. As it emerges, each beam is focused to about the width of three human...
Critics of the laser fusion program contend that it is five to ten years behind magnetic containment fusion, a technique that uses powerful magnetic fields to contain the reaction. But magnetic fusion, too, still has a long way to go. It has not yet even reached the stage at which the energy produced by the machines equals the energy required to run them. Says Livermore's Emmett: "Fusion is one of the most difficult technological undertakings that man has ever engaged in, and probably one of the most important...