SCIENCE AT THE EDGE SEMINAR Friday, 21 January 2011 at 11:30am Room 1400 Biomedical and Physical Sciences Bldg. Refreshments at 11:15 Speaker: David Lambert Delphi Corporation (and Adjunct Professor of Physics and Astronomy, MSU) Title: New Technology to Stop Drunk Drivers from Driving Abstract: Recent advances make it practical to check every driver's blood alcohol concentration. An infrared measurement system with sufficient speed and accuracy is described. It uses a puff of the driver's exhaled breath. The system draws in ambient air, and compares the time-varying concentrations of ethanol vapor and exhaled breath to determine the driver's blood alcohol concentration. The calculated accuracy, in 1 s, is 400 times smaller than the legal intoxication limit in the U.S. The system appears practical. Should technology be used to eliminate drunk driving?