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Designer pathogensSynthetic biology could be misused to create new weapons
Synthetic biology expands the possibilities for creating new weapons — including making existing bacteria and viruses more harmful — while decreasing the time required to engineer such organisms, concludes a new report by the National Academies of Sciences. Although some malicious applications of synthetic biology may not seem plausible right now, they could become achievable with future advances.
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EpidemicsAn outbreak of Nipah virus in India can help explain the future of infectious disease
India’s Kerala state has just faced an outbreak of Nipah virus. Seventeen people have died so far. That wouldn’t seem so serious, but only eighteen people were infected. To make matters worse, there is no known cure or vaccine for Nipah – all doctors can offer is supportive treatment while the victim’s immune system attempts to fight off the virus, which causes brain damage. Nipah is a near perfect example of an emerging infectious disease. Its history and evolution follow the pattern of almost every new virus.
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EarthquakesIdentifying the site of the next Big One on the San Andreas Fault
Many researchers hypothesize that the southern tip of the 1300-km-long San Andreas fault zone (SAFZ) could be the nucleation site of the next major earthquake on the fault, yet geoscientists cannot evaluate this hazard until the location and geometry of the fault zone is documented. Researchers want to keep an eye on an area located northeast of the margin of the Salton Sea, where the SAFZ meets the newly identified East Shoreline fault zone (ESF).
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Coastal perilAs coastal communities face more frequent, severe disruptions, costly choices loom
Sea levels are rising. Tides are inching higher. High-tide floods are becoming more frequent and reaching farther inland. And hundreds of U.S. coastal communities will soon face chronic, disruptive flooding that directly affects people’s homes, lives, and properties. Long before rising seas permanently submerge properties, millions of Americans living in coastal communities will face more frequent and more severe disruptions from high-tide flooding. As this flooding increases, it will reach a threshold where normal routines become impossible and coastal residents, communities, and businesses are forced to make difficult, often costly choices.
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Climate threatsHow will people move as climate changes?
In coming decades, climate change is expected to displace millions of people through sea level rise, crop failures, more frequent extreme weather and other impacts. But scientists are still struggling to accurately predict how many climate migrants there will be, and where they are likely to go. A new study seeks to address these questions by incorporating climate impacts into a universal model of human mobility. The model also seeks to predict the effects migrants might have on the places to which they move.
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Nuclear weaponsModernization of nuclear arsenals continues
A new report finds that all the nuclear weapon-possessing states are developing new nuclear weapon systems and modernizing their existing systems. Nine states—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea—possess approximately 14,465 nuclear weapons. This marked a decrease from the approximately 14,935 nuclear weapons these states were estimated to possess at the beginning of 2017.
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Man-made earthquakesMexico’s World Cup goal causes artificial earthquake back home
Hundreds of thousands of Mexican soccer fans, jumping in jubilation on Sunday as the Mexican national soccer team defeated the reigning world champion Germany, shook the ground hard enough to set off earthquake detectors. The Mexican seismological agency reported that highly sensitive earthquake sensors registered tremors at two sites in Mexico City, within seven seconds after Hirving (Chucky) Lozano, the speedy left-winger, scored in the 36th minute.
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SpooksIsrael arrests former energy minister on charges of spying for Iran
Israel’s former energy minister has been arrested and accused of spying for Iran. The former minister served three years in jail for trying to smuggle extasy pills into Israel, and then tried his hands in various business ventures in West Africa, where he was recruited by Iran’s intelligence.
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ImmigrationMedical experts alarmed over impact of family separation on children
Lat Thursday, thousands of medical experts and mental health professionals and researchers sent a letter to DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Attorney General Jeff Sessions calling for an immediate end to forced family separation at the border, citing concerns from the medical community over the trauma and potentially long-lasting damage it has on children’s health and well-being. “The United States should follow the “best interests of the child” standard and immediately stop the practice of forced separation. It should not be U.S. policy to traumatize children, especially not as a form of indirect punishment of their parents,” the mental health professionals wrote.
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ImmigrationDetained immigrant children stay in shelters that are already full and aren’t equipped for babies
The U.S. is taking immigrant children away from their parents when foreign families are either caught crossing the border without documents, or if they turn themselves in to seek refugee status. Many of these children are under the age of 4, and some are infants, according to media reports and rights advocates. The administration’s assertions to the contrary notwithstanding, this is a new interpretation of federal immigration law. Family separations like these did occur during the Bush and Obama administrations but were rare. DHS reports that between 19 April and 31 May 2018, 1,995 children were separated from their families. Between October 2016 and February 2018, 1,800 children were separated from their families. As of late May, nearly 11,000 migrant children were in government custody.
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PrivacyPotential threat to speech privacy via smartphone motion sensors
Could smartphone motion sensors be used by cybercriminals to record speech? It is a question that many academic and industry researchers are working to answer in order to ward off this kind of malicious use before it happens. Recent studies suggest security flaws and sensitivities to low-frequency audio signals, such as human speech, in accelerometers and gyroscopes could allow cybercriminals to collect confidential information such as credit card numbers and Social Security numbers as users speak into or near a mobile device.
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GunsBank withheld $1.6 million from top bump stock maker after Las Vegas shooting
In a lawsuit, Slide Fire Solutions, the inventor and manufacturer of the bump stock, accuses Merrick Bank of holding more than $1.6 million of the company’s money “hostage.” The financial institution says it had to hedge its risk in light of threats to Slide Fire’s business arising from the Las Vegas shooting.
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ResilienceHow microgrids could boost resilience in New Orleans
During Hurricane Katrina and other severe storms that have hit New Orleans, power outages, flooding and wind damage combined to cut off people from clean drinking water, food, medical care, shelter, prescriptions and other vital services. Researchers at Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories teamed up with the City of New Orleans to analyze ways to increase community resilience and improve the availability of critical lifeline services during and after severe weather.
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Our picksSeparated at the border; life-saving technologies; relaxed flood plain rules, and more
• Separated at the border from their parents: In six weeks, 1,995 children
• Defense contractors cashing in on immigrant kids’ detention
• Diplomacy won’t stop North Korean hacking, South Korean officials say
• Red-teaming by DHS ‘quietly and slowly’ uncovers agency vulnerabilities
• “Sanctuary cities” could be sued by crime victims if GOP bill passes
• Austin schools leader proposes spending $1.7 million on safety measures
• Three emerging technologies with life-saving potential
• Relaxed rules in flood plain help homeowners, but could have consequences later
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The Russia watchRussia 'live testing' cyberattacks; cyber deterrence; Russia's newest U.S. propaganda effort, and more
• Russia appears to be ‘live testing’ cyberattacks – former UK spy boss Robert Hannigan
• There is now a well-documented example of cyber deterrence
• Russian troll or clumsy publicity hound?
• This man is running Russia’s newest propaganda effort in the U.S.— or at least he’s trying to
• Paul Manafort = evidence of collusion
• At site of U.K. poisoning, doubts about case creep in
• Can Russian hackers be stopped? Here’s why it might take 20 years
• AI startup Clarifai hacked by Russian operatives during Pentagon Maven project, lawsuit claims
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TerrorismPakistan Taliban chief killed in U.S. air strike
Mullah Fazullah, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, has been killed in a U.S. air strike in Afghanistan, an Afghanistan military official has said. Fazlullah was Pakistan’s most-wanted militant. He ordered the 2014 attack which killed 132 children, and the 2012 shooting of schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
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BioterrorismPolice carry out more raids in Cologne, Germany, after biological weapon arrest
Police in the German city of Cologne on Friday searched several empty apartments in a high-rise, following the Tuesday discovery of the highly toxic substance ricin in one of the apartments. On Thursday, police charged a 29-year-old Tunisian man with producing a biological weapon and for “preparing a serious act of violence against the state.”
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CybersecurityConnected cars vulnerable to cyberthreats
Connected cars could be as vulnerable to cyberattack as the smartphone in your hand or the personal computer on your desktop, according to a new study from the U.K.“Connected cars are no different from other nodes on the internet of things and face many of the same generic cybersecurity threats,” the team reports.
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CyberattacksWhy some claim credit for cyberattacks – and some don’t
The decision to claim credit for a cyberattack on a government or institution depends on both the goals of the attack and the characteristics of the attacker, according to a new study, which is one of the first to look into the voluntary claiming of cybersecurity operations. The researchers note that whether or not the originator of the cyberattack wished to claim credit for it, advances in cybersecurity improve the ability of government and law enforcement agencies to track hackers.
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KasperskyKaspersky to halt cooperation with Europe to fight cybercrime
Russia’s Kaspersky Lab says it will no longer cooperate on several European cybercrime-fighting initiatives after the European Parliament moved to ban its antivirus software. The United States and a number of European countries have accused Kaspersky of having ties to the Kremlin and Russian intelligence services. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security last year ordered the country’s agencies using Kaspersky products to remove and replace them with other approved software within 90 days.
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The Russia connectionFrom Nord Stream to Novichok: Kremlin propaganda on Google’s front page
On 24 May, an international team of investigators announced that a Russian anti-aircraft missile was directly responsible for the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17). Initial analysis of social media reactions to these announcements indicated that Kremlin outlets were struggling to effectively counter the new evidence implicating Moscow in the downing of MG17. However, over the next week, conspiracy theories and disinformation narratives from Russian propaganda outlets found a foothold on an impactful and unlikely medium: Google’s front page.
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The Russia connectionWas there a connection between Russian Facebook propaganda and a foiled terrorist attack in Kansas City?
On 18 April, a jury convicted three Kansas men of conspiring to use “weapons of mass destruction” against an apartment complex where many of the residents were Somali refugees. They were arrested before they were able to carry out their bomb plot in 2016. All three were known to be very active on Facebook, where they called themselves “Crusaders.” Experts wonder whether the divisive and polarizing ads which Russian disinformation specialists ran on Facebook during 2016 motivated the three to plan the attack.
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The long view
TerrorismTerrorism cost EU countries $212 billion between 2004 and 2016
The European Union (EU) countries lost around €180 billion ($212 billion) in GDP terms due to terrorism between 2004 and 2016, according to a new study. According to the study, changes in economic behavior could be the reason behind the observed negative effects on economic growth, as people and companies change their purchasing, saving and investing behaviors following terror attacks. The UK (€43.7 billion) and France (€43 billion) suffered the highest economic losses in GDP terms due to terrorism.
The Russia connectionRussia’s active measures architecture: Task and purpose
Russia’s latest iteration of the Soviet-era tactic of “active measures” has mesmerized Western audiences and become the topic de jour for national security analysts. In my last post, I focused on the Kremlin’s campaign to influence the U.S. elections from 2014 to 2016 through the integration of offensive cyber hacking, overt propaganda, and covert social media personas In this post, I focus on the elements of Russia’s national power that execute active measures abroad.
The Russia connectionRussia’s corruption, influence “a matter of national security”: U.K. Parliamentary panel
“Dirty” Russian money is undermining Britain’s efforts to stand up to the Kremlin and supports President Vladimir Putin’s campaign “to subvert the international rules-based system,” a British parliamentary report says. “The scale of damage that this ‘dirty money’ can do to U.K. foreign-policy interests dwarfs the benefit of Russian transactions in the City,” Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Tugendhat said today (21 May) ahead of the release of the report. “Over the years, Moscow has turned from being a corrupt state to an exporter of instability. Russian corruption and influence has become a matter of national security,” he added.
Cyberspace & the lawCyber and international law in the 21st century
“Cyber space is not – and must never be – a lawless world. It is the U.K.’s view that when states and individuals engage in hostile cyber operations, they are governed by law just like activities in any other domain,” said the U.K. Attorney General Jeremy Wright, QC MP, on 23 May 2018, setting out, for the first time, the U.K.’s position on applying international law to cyberspace. “What this means is that hostile actors cannot take action by cyber means without consequence, both in peacetime and in times of conflict. States that are targeted by hostile cyber operations have the right to respond to those operations in accordance with the options lawfully available to them and that in this as in all things, all states are equal before the law.”
Cyberspace & the lawFailing to keep pace: The cyber threat and its implications for our privacy laws
“The time has come — indeed, if it has not already passed — to think seriously about some fundamental questions with respect to our reliance on cyber technologies: How much connected technology do we really want in our daily lives? Do we want the adoption of new connected technologies to be driven purely by innovation and market forces, or should we impose some regulatory constraints?” asked NSA General Counsel Glenn Gerstell in a Wednesday presentation at Georgetown University. “Although we continue to forge ahead in the development of new connected technologies, it is clear that the legal framework underpinning those technologies has not kept pace. Despite our reliance on the internet and connected technologies, we simply haven’t confronted, as a U.S. society, what it means to have privacy in a digital age.”
BiosecurityBiosecurity: Do synthetic biologists need a license to operate?
Advances in gene editing technology and the drop in costs make it possible for individuals to perform more sophisticated molecular biology experiments in private spaces. This hobby attracts a variety of people and has been hailed as a way to democratize genetic engineering. A few recent stunts raise concerns about what are the hazards of individuals with gene-editing capabilities.
BiosecurityGrowing concerns about DIY gene editing
There is a growing concerns regarding the rising popularity of do-it-yourself (DIY) gene editing. From the horsepox de novo synthesis to public stunts at conventions where biohackers injected themselves with HIV treatment, it is becoming difficult to ignore why these actions are dangerous.
BiothreatsClade X pandemic exercise: Preventing the worst outcomes in future pandemics
The outbreak of a moderately contagious and moderately lethal novel pathogen precipitated a catastrophic end to the scenario in Clade X, the day-long pandemic tabletop exercise hosted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. The scenario opens with the present-day outbreak of a new, serious respiratory disease in Germany and Venezuela. Clade X quickly causes widespread, worldwide anxiety as case counts and deaths mount. Within a year, 150 million people die from the disease—15 million in the United States alone.
PandemicsLittle-known virus could become the next global pandemic
A little-known virus discovered twenty years ago could become the next global pandemic. A recent outbreak of Nipah in South India has renewed interest in the virus, which has a mortality rate of up to 70 percent and has no vaccine or cure. “Emerging infections have resulted in the most devastating infectious diseases that humanity has ever faced. These include HIV, tuberculosis, measles and smallpox. History has taught us that emerging infections can be major threats,” says Stanford University epidemiologist and Nipah expert Stephen Luby.
BiosecurityBolstering the body’s defenses against public health, national security threats
Military service members, first responders, and civilian populations face severe threats from pathogens with pandemic potential, toxic chemicals, and radioactive materials, which can all quickly and powerfully overwhelm the body’s innate defenses. And though significant public and private investment has been focused on the development of traditional medical countermeasures such as drugs, vaccines, and biologics to guard against the worst effects of these health threats, current countermeasures are often limited in their effectiveness and availability during emergencies. PREPARE aims to develop new class of generalizable medical countermeasures that safely and temporarily tune activity of protective genes.
GunsRAND to help oversee high-quality research on gun violence
Every day in the United States, close to 100 people are killed by guns, and for every death, two more are injured. The gun-related murder rate in the U.S. is 25 times higher than the rate in 22 other high-income nations. About two-thirds of gun deaths in the United States are suicides. The RAND Corporation has been selected to help oversee a philanthropic fund that will support high-quality research on issues related to gun violence.
Energy securityWe can get 100 percent of our energy from renewable sources: Scientists
Is there enough space for all the wind turbines and solar panels to provide all our energy needs? What happens when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow? Won’t renewables destabilize the grid and cause blackouts? Scientists say that there are no roadblocks on the way to a 100 percent renewable future.
EarthquakesQuestions raised about the predictive value of earthquake foreshocks
No one can predict when or where an earthquake will strike, but in 2011 scientists thought they had evidence that tiny underground tremors called foreshocks could provide important clues. If true, it suggested seismologists could one day warn people of impending temblors. A new study has cast doubt on those earlier findings and on the predictive value of foreshocks, and instead found them to be indistinguishable from ordinary earthquakes.
Apocalypse tomorrow?Alien apocalypse: Can any civilization survive climate change?
In the face of climate change, deforestation and biodiversity loss, creating a sustainable version of civilization is one of humanity’s most urgent tasks. But when confronting this immense challenge, we rarely ask what may be the most pressing question of all: How do we know if sustainability is even possible? Astronomers have inventoried a sizable share of the universe’s stars, galaxies, comets, and black holes. But are planets with sustainable civilizations also something the universe contains? Or does every civilization that may have arisen in the cosmos last only a few centuries before it falls to the climate change it triggers?
Climate risksEconomic models significantly underestimate climate change risks: Experts
Policymakers are being misinformed by the results of economic models that underestimate the future risks of climate change impacts, according to a new study. The researchers say that “mounting evidence” that the “integrated assessment models” used by economists “largely ignore the potential for ‘tipping points’ beyond which impacts accelerate, become unstoppable, or become irreversible.” As a result “they inadequately account for the potential damages from climate change, especially at moderate to high levels of warming,” due to rises in global mean temperature of more than 2 Celsius degrees.
HurricanesFuture hurricanes: Stronger, slower, wetter
Scientists have developed a detailed analysis of how twenty-two recent hurricanes would be different if they formed under the conditions predicted for the late twenty-first century. While each storm’s transformation would be unique, on balance, the hurricanes would become a little stronger, a little slower-moving, and a lot wetter.