• California bill banning use of antibiotics in livestock withdrawn

    The Centers for Disease Control and Preventionreports that 23,000 people die every year from infections that cannot be cured, often due to overuse of antibiotics which creates drug resistant bugs. Last Wednesday, California Assemblyman Kevin Mullin (D-San Mateo) withdrew proposed legislation which would ban the sale of meat and poultry fed on nontherapeutic antibiotics. He lacked sufficient support from fellow legislators.

  • FBI warns healthcare providers about cybersecurity

    The FBI has issued a private industry notification (PIN), warning healthcare providers that their cybersecurity networks are not sufficiently secure compared to the networks of the financial and retail sectors, making healthcare systems even more vulnerable to attacks by hackers seeking Americans’ personal medical records and health insurance data. Healthcare data are as valuable on the black market than credit card numbers because the data contain information that can be used to access bank accounts or obtain prescription for controlled substances.

  • Fairbanks, Alaska UAV test site conducts first flight test

    The Pan-Pacific Unmanned Aircraft Systems Test Range Complex at the University of Alaska Fairbanks was established last year to help the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) develop regulations and certifications for unmanned aircraft operators and equipment. The goal is to integrate them into the National Airspace System. On Monday, an Aeryon Scout mini quadcopter was the first UAV to be tested at the range. The range is the second of six UAV test sites to receive an FAA’s Certificate of Authorization.

  • South Carolina withdraws MOX lawsuit against DOE, NNSA

    The state of South Carolina said Friday that it would not go ahead with its lawsuit against the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in support of the Savannah River Site’s Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility. The dismissal of the lawsuit follows an announcement last Tuesday by the DOE and NNSA that construction will continue on the MOX facility through the end of the fiscal year. The two agencies made it clear, though, that they still plan to mothball the plant.

  • Lawmakers want DOE to reduce run-away costs of S.C. plutonium processing plant

    Lawmakers have given the Obama administration two weeks to submit a plan for reducing the cost of constructing the mixed-oxide fuel conversion (MOX) facility which would convert bomb-grade plutonium into nuclear fuel. The MOX facility at the Savannah River Site, South Carolina was launched to help the United States meet its nuclear arms reduction agreement with Russia, and agreement which called for the two countries to dispose of at least thirty-four metric tons each of weapons-grade plutonium.

  • As fracking activity grows in Mexico, so does the number of fracking-induced tremors

    Mexico has the fourth largest amount of recoverable shale gas in the world, with 681 trillion cubic feet. As fracking activity has increased in the state of Nuevo Leon, so have the number of tremors. Between January and mid-April, forty-eight tremors, some reaching a magnitude of roughly 4.3, were recorded across the state of Nuevo Leon, compared to two tremors in the same period last year.

  • Energy-subsidy reform can reduce carbon emissions, add years to oil exports: study

    Reform of energy subsidies in oil-exporting countries can reduce carbon emissions and add years to oil exports, according to a new study. The study reviews the record of energy-subsidy reforms and argues that big exporters should reduce energy demand by raising prices, and that this can be done without undermining legitimacy of governments that depend on subsidies for political support

  • U.S. military communication satellites vulnerable to cyberattacks

    A new report warns that satellite communication terminals used by U.S. military aircrafts, ships, and land vehicles to share location data, are vulnerable to cyberattacks through digital backdoors. A forensic security review of codes embedded inside the circuit boards and chips of the most widely used SATCOM terminals identified multiple hacker entry points.

  • Doing business with DHS: Ranking DHS’s contracting officers

    Firms bidding on federal contracts often have to deal with changing requirements and shifting deadlines. In order to provide more clarity to the process, a new app ranks the contracting officers at different federal agencies based on how frequently they award contracts, the length of the procurement process, the average dollar value of the contracts awarded, and the officers’ “annoyance factor,” which is based on how often the contracting officer modifies a solicitation after it has been posted and how often deadlines are changed.

  • Lawmakers urge NRC not to exempt shut-down nuclear plants from emergency, security regulations

    Lawmakers are urging the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to halt exemption of recently- shuttered nuclear power plants from emergency-planning and security regulations. The lawmakers are especially concerned about the nuclear waste which will continue to be stored on the grounds of shut-down nuclear plants, saying that the stored radioactive waste continues to be a security threat whether or not the plant itself is still operational.

  • Switching from cattle fields to “carbon farms” to tackle climate change

    Changing cattle fields to forests is a cheap way of tackling climate change and saving species threatened with extinction, a new study has found. The main use of land in communities the western Andes of Colombia is cattle farming, but a new study found farmers could make the same or more money by allowing their land naturally to regenerate. Researchers report that under carbon markets designed to stop global warming, these farmers could get paid to change the use of their land from growing cows to “growing carbon” — receiving around $1.99 per ton of carbon dioxide the trees remove from the atmosphere.

  • Russia may launch crippling cyberattacks on U.S. in retaliation for Ukraine sanctions

    U.S. officials and security experts are warning that Russian hackers may attack the computer networks of U.S. banks and critical infrastructure firms in retaliation for new sanctions by the Obama administration, imposed in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Cybersecurity specialists consider Russian hackers among the best at infiltrating networks and some say that they have already inserted malicious software on computer systems in the United States.

  • Innovative U.S. cybersecurity initiative to address cyberthreats

    Cyberattacks on computer networks around the world reached 1.7 billion in 2013, up from 1.6 billion in 2012. The administration’s 2012 Enhanced Cybersecurity Services(ECS) program, launched to protect the private sector from hackers by letting approved companies access classified information on cyber threats and sell cybersecurity services to critical infrastructure targets, is still in its early stages fourteen months after its launch.

  • Wetland preservation is good business

    A recently published study is making the case for wetland preservation by highlighting the economic incentives that such preservation could provide to urban centers.Infrastructure investment in urban waterfronts could soon be seen as one of the best economic decisions a city could make. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that “$1 million invested in coastal restoration creates 17.1 jobs, compared to just 8.9 jobs for every $1 million invested in oil and gas development.”

  • With bugs in the system, how safe is the Internet?

    It seems hardly a week goes by without a major cyber security flaw exposed that could be exploited across millions of Internet and mobile connected devices. There is always the danger that people become complacent as more and more security threats are reported so it’s important to be aware of the risks and take note of any advice. In addition to frequently changing passwords, patching our software with updates as often as they are available, and being careful about what Web sites we visit, we must also demand more products that are fit for purpose, just as we do with the safety standards of physical consumer products. We should expect companies to understand the value of the business they do with us, and of our data that they hold in trust. Boards and CEOs need to care about this as much as they do about their brand.