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I am a scientist by trade and I have been concerned by the anti-science attitude which prevails in general and by the ignorance and aversion of scientific topics by many people in particular. Unfortunately this ignorance extends even to the media and many journalists are ignorant of technology they are writing about. An example is the article which Janet Paterson posted (thanks for your very useful work). The excerpt below says that a CAT scanner does not use "dangerous" X-rays. Well it isn't so. The foundation of a CAT scanner is a narrow X-ray beam which sent through the body and made to scan. The change of the X-ray intensity at the other side of the body is then used to re-construct with a computer an image of the parts scanned. In the early days the CAT scanner was used primarily to scan the brain which could not be imaged satisfactorily using ordinary X-rays. The MRI scanner works on a very different principle and it does not use X-rays, but then its not a CAT scanner. snip Ledley's 1973 invention of the computed tomography scanner (CT) allowed doctors to see inside the body for the first time without surgery or dangerous X-rays. snip K-F Etzold cg Carline 72/4