Libyan Rebels advance/Upstreamonline.com

By Dennis Mullin

NEXT STEPS: The rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) is gaining more recognition overseas, and is trying to reorganize itself, in order to avoid a another civil war after Gadhafi  is defeated. The NTC faces many problems beyond the numerous tribal, political and religious divisions. For one thing, there has been no party politics in for 40 years and that cannot be a good thing. There has been no free economy either, which can also cause lots of problems. Add to that an expected three years of poverty (as the economy is rebuilt), and you have a recipe for all sorts of trouble.

OIL OUTPUT: The Military Strategy Page says a basic problem is that the oil industry has been damaged. Currently, only about 100,000 barrels a day are being pumped. Normally, it’s 1.6 million barrels a day, and industry experts believed it will take up to three years to regain that level of production. In the meantime, lots of Libyans will see their standard of living decline, and they won’t be happy about that.

FOOD: The page notes that there are also growing food, energy and consumer goods shortages in Tripoli, especially compared to the rebel capital in the eastern city of Benghazi. There, food is abundant, and much cheaper than in Tripoli. There is no violence or threat of attack. People in Tripoli know all about this, and Gadhafi has to cope with a growing morale problem among his supporters, and the many Tripoli residents who are neutral (a shrinking group), or back the rebels. There are about a million people in Tripoli, and most of them are angry at someone (either Gadhafii or the rebels).

The strongman has apparently lost his effort to maintain the morale of his combat forces. The daily attacks from NATO aircraft, and the growing competence of the rebel fighters has led most government troops to reconsider their loyalties. Desertions are more frequent, and the growing number of casualties is a constant reminder of how bad things are. Food and medical supplies often cannot enter Tripoli, so Kaddafi troops have more wounded to contemplate, and less ammo and weapons to fight with. NATO bombers have concentrated on army vehicles and supplies (especially fuel and ammo). Troops still loyal to the regime now have a much harder time moving, and have to watch their ammo expenditure, lest they run out at a critical moment. More rebels speak confidently of capturing Tripoli within a month.

OTHER ITEMS: Diplomatically, NTC representatives have reopened the Libyan embassy in the United States. Berber-led rebels, advancing from the mountains south of Tripoli, have captured the town of Garyan (population 85,000 and 75 kilometers south of Tripoli). Libyan Interior Minister Nassr al Mabrouk Abdullah fled to Egypt, using his private aircraft, and taking nine family members with him. He arrived on a tourist visa, but is apparently seeking political asylum.

Rebel spokesperson Mahmoud Shammam said over the weekend that that 67-year-old Abdul Salam Ahmed Jalloud, a former close associate of the Libyan leader and prime minister of Libya under  the Gadhafi government for five years, between July 1972 and March 1977, has also defected. Shammam told Al Jazeera, that Jalloud, once the No 2 regime official, had fled to a rebel-held area in the western mountains and was on his way to Europe. Jalloud confirmed the defection by telephone.

Gadhafi forces fired a SCUD ballistic missile from outside Sirte to rebel-held Brega last week. The missile missed, and landed in the desert outside the town, injuring no one. This was the first time regime forces had fired one of their hundreds of SCUD missiles. This is not surprising, as the missiles require at least half an hour to get fueled and otherwise prepared for launch. Trained crews are needed to do this, and there’s always the risk that NATO surveillance will stop you before you fire the missile.

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DETECTORS: A cheap and widely available spice seems to be a solution to diverse problems. The main chemical in the curry spice turmeric, could be the basis for cheap explosives detectors. The curcumin molecule is already well-known in medicine for its anti-cancer and anti-oxidant properties. Now, research presented at the American Physical Society says it could replace more complex solutions to spot explosives like TNT. Lasers are also being brought into play to detect roadside explosives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

SENSING: The spice, as it gathers molecules of explosive material in air, changes in its light-emitting properties that can be measured. This "fluorescence spectroscopy" is already employed in a wide array of sensing and analysis techniques. Illuminating some chemicals causes them to re-emit light of a different color, sometimes for extended periods -- an effect exploited in, for example, glow-in-the-dark materials.

The intensity of this re-emitted light can change if different chemicals bind to the fluorescent ones, and that is how sensing techniques exploit the effect. Now, Abhishek Kumar, of the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and his colleagues happened come across a means of co-opting the curry ingredient's fluorescence properties for explosive detection.

CURUMIN-BASED: "If you have a gram of TNT... and you sample a billion air molecules from anywhere in the room, you'll find four or five molecules of TNT -- that's the reason they're so hard to detect," he told the BBC. “The US State Department estimates there are about 60 to 70 million land mines throughout the world; we need a very portable, field-deployable sensing device which is cheap, very sensitive, and easy to handle," he said. A curcumin-based mine detector could outperform the animal version

Mr Kumar's team -- including physicist Jayant Kumar and engineer Pradeep Kurup of the university -- was investigating the use of curcumin for biological applications, trying to make it easily dissolve in water, when they hit on the idea of making use of its optical properties. " have mainly looked at its biological applications, treating cancer and Alzheimer's and so on, but nobody has looked at making optical devices out of them," he told BBC.

SIDE GROUPS: The team's first trick was to use a chemical reaction to attach "side groups" to the curcumin that preferentially bind to explosive molecules. But curcumin's helpful optical properties only worked when it was dissolved in a liquid; when evaporated to a solid, it clumped together and the fluorescence stopped.

They then hit on the idea of using a polymer called polydimethylsiloxane, which is thick and viscous at room temperature, spinning the mixture on glass plates to make extremely thin films. The idea would be to use an inexpensive light source -- the team uses LEDs -- shone on to the thin films, detecting the light they then put off. In the presence of explosives, the light would dim.

FALSE ALARMS: By using an array of sensors, each sensitive to slightly different colors of light, a range of different materials could be detected, and, crucially, reduce the risk of false alarms. In tests, the films can currently detect explosive levels down to 80 parts per billion, but Kumar said that for high-sensitivity applications like mine detection, they needed to increase the sensitivity further, by adjusting the chemical groups attached to curcumin.

The team, which is funded in part by the US Army Research Laboratory and the National Science Foundation, is already in discussions with a company to develop the technique into a portable detector device.

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LASERS: UK scientists claim to have developed laser technology that is also able to sense hidden explosives. The technology could help to detect landmines and roadside bombs and to improve airport security. The team from University of St Andrews produced a laser by "pumping" a type of plastic called polyfluorene with photons from another light source. They found the laser reacted with vapors from explosives such as TNT. The work was published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials and also reported by the BBC. Graham Turnbull, a physicist at the University of  St Andrew's in Fife, UK, is one of the authors of the study. He explained that the researchers created a mechanism able to sense TNT-like molecules frequently used in explosives at extremely low concentrations -- less than 10 parts per billion.

PLASTIC FILM: "Floating above a landmine in Iraq or Afghanistan, there's a very weak, dilute cloud of vapors of explosive molecules that the bomb is made from," said the Dr Turnbull. "A small number of these TNT-like molecules comes into contact with a plastic film that the laser is (produced) from, interacts with the light-emitting molecules in the laser and switches off the light emission." The scientist explained that this interaction of TNT-like molecules with the polymer chain provides a totally new way to stop the laser from working.

Ifor Samuel, Dr Turnbull's colleague and a co-athor of the study, said that once developed, such mechanisms could sense any kind of explosive device - including roadside bombs -- a major issue in Iraq and Afghanistan. "This technology is important because polymer lasers, since they're made of plastic, could be made very easily and because it's a very new property for a laser to have," he said.

ADVANCES: The plastic laser approach could also detect lower concentrations of explosive. This sort of technique has been looked at in the past. But this is the first time researchers have used a polyfluorene plastic laser, said Dr Turnbull. This allows the detection of much lower concentrations of explosive vapors, he added. The scientist believes that one of the ways to use this type of laser would be to have it on a robotic, perhaps remotely controlled, vehicle that would be able to "sniff around" in a mine field, looking for vapor clouds.

"On a dusty road in Afghanistan there are relatively few things that might give you a false positive and it certainly could have potential in that area. Essentially it's making an artificial nose for a robot dog," said Dr Turnbull. He also suggested using the system as a means to improve airport security, to detect explosive vapors coming from people's luggage. One of the selling points of plastic lasers is that they're expected to be relatively low cost, as polyfluorene is widely available, added the scientist.