# X-Ray power - medical vs airport

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-ray-power-medical-vs-airport/187633>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 11, 2003, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-ray-power-medical-vs-airport/187633 "2003-07-11T02:58:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-ray-power-medical-vs-airport/187633/1 "2003-07-11T02:58:54Z")

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Whenever I look to see what is on the screen on the airport security x-rays it seems instant, very clear and bright, and reasonably easy to distinguish between everything, even if the objects aren’t obviously recognisable to my untrained eye.

But medical x-rays seem to always be dark, blurry, take ages to be ready, and often the doctors have trouble distinguishing things from each other.

Why the discrepancy? Why can’t medical x-rays be as useful as airport ones? Maybe it’s something to do with radiation or something…

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**Author:** ![hobbes730](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/97f17d/32.png) [@hobbes730](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hobbes730)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-ray-power-medical-vs-airport/187633/2 "2003-07-11T03:21:52Z")

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I THINK (and this is only a wag) that airport scanners use higher-frequency radiation, which produces much sharper images but is also a lot more destructive to human tissue.