What's in the Bag? 3-D Scanners for Airports

Pretty soon, your bags may get scanned, just like your brain does.

Now, when you check your bag in at the airport, it gets zapped by X-rays in a CT (computerized tomography) scan, a relatively crude device. It takes an average of seven 2-D pictures, or "slices," of the bag, and from those images, the systems make guesses about what's inside.

But a new CT scanner, adapted from medical technology, takes tens of thousands of slices -- and assembles a 3-D depiction of what's inside your luggage. That should mean fewer false alarms about bag-borne bombs or knives. Scanner-maker General Electric figures the CTX 9800 will eventually let airports process checked bags twice as quickly, from about 450 bags an hour now, to more than 900.