The US is crowdsourcing homemade bomb recipes to prevent terrorist attacks

You don't need to be a chemist to make triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, the homemade explosive used in the bombs which killed 35 people and injured hundreds more last week in Brussels, according to one expert. Another calls the process "worryingly easy." The recipe can be found on the Internet, the ingredients -- hydrogen peroxide and acetone -- can be found at any drugstore, and can be mixed using regular kitchen equipment. "For the most part, IED components are commercial goods that are not subject to government export licences and whose transfer is far less scrutinised and regulated than the transfer of weapons," said a February report from the London-based Conflict Armament Research group, which traced the origins of more than 700 components recovered from ISIS bomb factories. In an attempt to head off attacks like those in Brussels, Boston, and scores of other places, the United States government has quietly asked the general public -- from credentialed professionals to "skilled hobbyists" -- to find ways of weaponizing "easily purchased, relatively benign technologies."