OK, the first millimeter of skin is our tissue target then. It would have been nice if the nature of the cancer in the cluster had been included - anything not involving the epidermis may well be a direct consequence of the common employment of the group, but I would start my search for the culprit by eliminating the scanners, unless their cancers are in the first millimeter.

BTW, the Johns Hopkins paper DID indicate there was a SIGNIFICANT exposure risk (even based on the 'wrong' standard) posed by these scanners... You just have to be upstairs somewhere, not on the ground level.

Don't get me wrong - I am in no way a fan of scanners, I just hope people will pay attention and think while they are reading. Then if a real objection arises, they will not have wasted time and spent their credibility on non-issues.

OP says that the letter says it "questions whether it is even safe to stand near an operating scanner, let alone inside one."

Um, helps to read the fine linked document, which has been partially redacted, but still says "Individual effective dose per screening (frontal and rear) of a subject is , less than the 10 urem (0.10 uSv) limit. Further down a standard (NCRP 1993) is quoted which "recommends that members of the general public receive less than 1 mSv (0.1 rem) per year."

So, if these numbers are compared (who knows if they are reproducible) you are considered safe up to about 10,000 scans per year (1 mSv / 0.10 uSv).

The document does indicate there is a potential danger from X-ray beam overshoot "above and behind" the scanner. Yes, but note in the diagram this area BEGINS at 13.8 FEET above the ground, and RISES IN A CONE!!! So, you may be at risk if you're about 14 feet tall (or work in an office on the second floor?) standing behind the machine...

You know those WiFi-sensitive T-Shirts from ThinkGeek? Maybe it's time for something that responds to X-radiation...

When I >need something like a PDF reader, even for Windows, I often go to freshmeat.net first. There are many more solutions there that are functional in Windows than you might think.

In this case, I typed "PDF suite" into a Wikipedia search box, and ended up on the Foxit Reader page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxit_Reader) which contains this sentence:

"Foxit Phantom PDF Suite is a complete suite of PDF editing and creation software." complete with a link to their web site.

In general, though, it is not trivial to determine who can be trusted, and to determine where an obscure application came from.

Interesting. I had a 1986 Ford Taurus wagon that had the mechanics thinking it needed a new cpu module, and I swear that it they showed me something flat, black and squarish under the hood. I thought it was on the forward side of the engine block, but that was a long time ago, and my memory has more holes than swiss cheese.

Did anybody stop to consider the possibility of collateral damage? Aside from beloved portable electronics, what about a hostage with a pacemaker? We don't want to disable that device do we? And to penetrate the body of the car (which side of the engine block are these microprocessors located on, anyway?) they're probably generating a pretty significant pulse.

What about residences or businesses down range??

My cable provider is Cox, and they are in the process of moving to some kind of switched digital provisioning system, with the consequence that CableCards don't work any more. So to get any non-clear content, one now either needs a DVR or cable box. They evidently have a workaround device for Tivo, but this is not going to help me use my CableCard in my TV.

I can't tell if anyone in a low-modded comment suggested this, but how about the Hauppauge HD-PVR? http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html Have yet to buy one, mainly because I don't think the machine I'm using is fast enough to keep up, but it looks like it should work until component video connectors go away.

Despite over 700 replies to this point, I don't think anyone mentioned West End theatres http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_End_theatre/ or alternatively http://wikitravel.org/en/London/West_End/. It's been a while since I was in London, but we discovered that a half-hour before showtime, there were deeply discounted tickets available to shows trying to fill the house. We had a great time going to whatever was available. Definitely worth a shot, since as everyone else has noted, you should try not too plan too much, and just go for it. Have a great trip!

Actually, the levels >were over dangerous levels. Admittedly, not fatal. Fun fact: they first identified the problem when a patient (victim?) reported losing his hair after the scan. The follow up LA Times article today says that when the hospital contacted the 206 patients, 80% reported losing hair after their scans. That's pretty serious exposure.

Oh, another fun detail: the dose administered IS DISPLAYED ON THE FRONT PANEL AFTER THE SCAN!!! In 18 months, nobody ever questioned why the level was so high. If the machine delivers the dose according to the program, it must be right, evidently...

I completely agree, except that mine is a Palm III xe. I find reading books with this device slightly annoying, but it is always there, and the convenience outweighs any annoyances. It has a backlit screen, and is completely silent, so I can read in the dark, wee hours without disturbing bedmates. Of course, I'm pretty much stuck with DRM-free content, but I find that to be an advantage, not a disadvantage. I finally voted "Have a non-Kindle ebook reader", since I believe that eBook == DRM, is that wrong?

Silly me. I read the question, and assumed there would be responses about specific institutions.

My daughter is a senior at the University of Redlands. As far as I know, they have no official support for Linux, but she has been aggressively pro-Linux since high school (I made sure I sent her off to school able to dual-boot to WinXP, but on the rare occasions when that might be useful, I have to remind her she can). There have been a couple of situations in which she has needed help from the campus IT folks, and there has always been someone Linux-savvy available.

And her on-campus networking experience has been uneventful. While we helping her move back in last weekend, one Windows user complained to me about the spyware the campus network requires him to run - my daughter does not seem to need that, her system "just works". Her main complaint about the campus network is that they throttle the dorm traffic pretty severely...

I know I could take a Kindle into the 'executive reading room', but just seems so wrong.

I seem to remember in the early days of the web, there was a graphics format called GIF. Somebody like Unisys held a patent on the format, but initially didn't seem to care that most Web users didn't realize there was a patent. Then, one day, Unisys woke up, changed their attitude and announced that licenses would be needed from now on - several thousand dollars? Almost overnight, PNG was born. So, I guess in a sense, IBM has a point - patents lead to open source development. However, they neglect to mention that in cases like ReportLab (makes a Free/Paid Support PDF generator library in Python) a sudden change in licensing policy might result in innovation at the expense of existing innovators.

Patents are a valuable part of a thriving commercial system, and there are obvious benefits from patent law. But I think there are also significant benefits from patent-free zones. The trick is to figure out how to maintain the balance to ensure fairness, and enable benefits from both patented innovation and patent-free innovation.