X Rays

The Federal Aviation Administration awarded contracts valued at up to $120 million to three companies for advanced airport X-ray security machines. The companies are PerkinElmer Instruments in Long Beach, a unit of PerkinElmer Inc.; Rapiscan Security Products Inc. in Hawthorne; and Heimann Systems of Pine Brook, N.J.

This remarkable new imaging technique is being developed to enable biologists to view all but the smallest components of living cells. Humans have long had a fascination with things too small to be seen with the naked eye. As long as 3,000 years ago, engravers used glass globes filled with water as magnifiers as they worked so that they could see fine details of their designs. Ancient Romans used crude lenses chipped from rock crystals for the same purpose.

Spinal cord injuries can be ruled out without using X-rays by looking for simple neurological signs, UCLA researchers report in today's New England Journal of Medicine. In a study of 34,069 people suffering blunt-trauma injuries, Dr.

Imagine Dr. Marcus Welby turning on a computer screen instead of staring at a patient's X-ray tacked up on a light board. That's the way it would be across the United States if 12-year-old Olicon Inc. has its way, said Chief Executive Dick Paulsen. The San Clemente-based archivist of radiological imaging says its goal is to give hospitals and clinics a "filmless environment" within the next 10 years. It appears to be gaining on that goal.

The tip proved to be on the mark: A young woman wanted by police on a misdemeanor charge would turn herself in to police the very next day, a confidential informant reported in December, 1986. But the woman's motives might not be all they appeared. According to the informant, the suspect would bring with her a secret cache of hypodermic needles and drugs that she was trying to smuggle to awaiting friends in Orange County Jail.

A woman going through security at Los Angeles International Airport put her month-old grandson into a plastic bin intended for carry-on items and slid it into an X-ray machine. The early Saturday accident -- bizarre but not unprecedented -- caught airport workers by surprise, even though the security line was not busy at the time, officials said. A screener watching the machine's monitor immediately noticed the outline of a baby and pulled the bin backward on the conveyor belt.

Inspections of radioactive material users and X-ray machines--the cornerstone of government efforts to protect the public from the hazards of radiation--are seriously behind schedule in California and there is little prospect that the backlog will soon be eliminated, The Times has learned.

In March, the sky will put on one of its most dazzling shows. It will begin when the moon inches between the Earth and the sun in the middle of the morning on March 18, at first blocking out the edge of the only star in the universe essential to life on Earth. Less than an hour later, just moments before a total eclipse, sunlight will flash through the deeper valleys of the moon, producing brilliant jewels of light.

State officials assured the Board of Supervisors Tuesday that public health in Orange County will be protected in spite of the abrupt transfer to Sacramento in June of the county's long-standing program of inspecting local X-ray and mammography machines. Supervisors agreed to let the state take over inspections but asked for updates every 30 days for the next six months.

How do you tell the age of a Chinese gymnast? Don't bother with those government-issued passports or birth certificates. Go for the X-rays. For all the global hand-wringing over how international gymnastics officials will ever figure out whether three members of the Chinese women's team were old enough to compete, doctors and forensics experts said it's actually not too difficult. The science of determining age is has been honed by decades of treating patients with growth disorders, identifying youthful homicide victims and determining the deportation status of illegal immigrants.