X-Rays From Sticky Tape?!?!

The New York Times reports on a new study in the current edition of Nature; it seems a new source of X-rays has been discovered. Scotch tape. Yup. Unrolling sticky tape in a vacuum releases a surprising amount of energy, some of it in the form of X-rays! (Extremely cool video here.) My favorite quote: "The researchers suggest that the high charge density generated by peeling the tape could be great enough to trigger nuclear fusion."


The characteristic defining a human 

distinctly apart from an ape
Not opposable thumbs, or intelligent thinking, 

but what we can do with Scotch tape.
Your chimp or bonobo or highland gorilla 

will typically not even care
And orangs and gibbons tear tape into ribbons 

and tangle it into their hair.
It’s humans alone who will try to discover 

what else you can do with the stuff
(As if wrapping presents or fixing a photo 

were not inspiration enough).
A professor of physics at UCLA, 

in a demo both simple and clever,
Showed X-rays emitted when tape is unrolled 

in a vacuum—the coolest thing ever.
Enough were emitted to X-ray a finger—

a medical use may be found;
Or measuring wear of composites; it seems 

that the new applications abound!
The X-rays are different for each brand of tape, 

and they didn’t find any for “duct”;
Which is just fine by me, cos if duct tape gets weapons,
humanity surely is fuct.