I’m fascinated and repulsed by Military Technology in general. I’m amazed by the number of ways we think up to kill each other. On the other hand, a lot of thought is put into saving just as many lives as are taken.

While still in development, Anti-Radiation Technology seems to be the golden-grail of Military Technology. Rice University is working on a carbon nano-tube based drug that is funded by a grant from DARPA. Little information about how it works is available, but the advances could easily be applied elsewhere.

A more interesting an immediate advance is polymor based gel bandages. Using a common household side by side epoxy syringe, two different compounds are mixed as they are applied to the wound. It’s designed to stick to the skin, but not the wound itself. Future versions might include pain killers or other helpful drugs and could easily be seen in civilian use such as trauma teams. Personally I’d love to have a couple of these around for hiking, or just general purpose use.

DARPA is exploring the possibilities of culturing blood cells to produce large amounts of replacement blood. Most likely this technology will rely and add heavily to the field of cloning, but the possibilities of having a inexhaustible blood supply is not only important to the Military, but would be a revolution in modern medicine too. In view of the instability of long term blood storage and the constant need to replenish supplies who knows what kind of life-saving medical procedures this could facilitate.

T-Rays which have 500 times the wavelength of normal light are being harnessed to replace the standard X-Ray machine. Practical use is still a way away, but certain explosives and other harmful materials absorb X-Rays making them hard to detect. T-Rays are only blockable by certain man-made materials that will no doubt become a controlled product.

Another advance in video security relies on software to increase the resolution of video footage. Motion DSP is releasing this technology to the civilian sector via the Web. Using frame comparison mathematics, missing pixels are combined from one video frame to another. The over all result is a clearer picture and only a marginal increase in file size. Technology like this has already been proven in combat video surveillance operations.

Just in case you weren’t totally scared of Nuclear War, the US Military created man-portable Nuclear Warhead Launchers. They weren’t very accurate or even that useful, but they existed. Usually crewed by a squad of three and mounted on a Jeep or APC, each of the 2100 The Davy Crockett Weapon Systems could be packed into rough terrain to easily lie in wait for the Communist threat. Each had a 10 or 20 ton yield so were relatively underpowered for a Nuclear weapon.

On the other end of the spectrum, certain weapons never go out of style. The good old Bow and Arrow is making a comeback in Kenya. The Ethnic fighting between the Kalenjin and Kisii has gone decidedly low tech in this rural area. But it does lend to the element of surprise between the fighters.

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