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Using spooks’ software to select wine
Delectable is a mobile application that allows users to explore wines by using technology currently employed to locate terrorists and prevent bank frauds. The application is considered to have the world’s largest database of wine, providing information on more than two million wines and offering users an option to purchase selected wines.
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USDA plans to expand private meat inspection scheme despite criticism
The USDA’s plan to expand a pilot program which shifts responsibility from government inspectors at meat processing plants to private or company-employed inspectors has faced skepticism and criticism. The pilot plan was supposed to be evaluated, but the USDA Inspector General reported that the department has yet to study the effectiveness of the plan in improving food safety and efficiency in the plants. Critics say the replacement of government inspectors has led to an increase in the number of instances of contaminated meat in the U.S. plants which have adopted the plan – and also in the Canadian and Australian meat plant where the scheme has been implemented.
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October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month
This October marks the tenth National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM), an effort to educate millions of people each year about the importance of online safety and security. During the month, leaders from the public and private sectors will come together to advance its universal theme that protecting the Internet is “Our Shared Responsibility.”
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Canada addresses environmental concerns over Keystone XL
Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper sent a letter to President Barack Obama last month offering to participate in joint efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in order to win approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline. Harper’s offer may allow Obama to approve the project without having to confront environmental groups.
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Calculating the energy required to store wind and solar power on the grid
Renewable energy holds the promise of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. There are times, however, when solar and wind farms generate more electricity than is needed by consumers. Storing that surplus energy in batteries for later use seems like an obvious solution, but a new study from Stanford University suggests that might not always be the case.
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New systems improve voice recognition
Graduate students and researchers at the University of Texas Dallas have developed novel systems that can identify speaking voices despite conditions that can make it harder to make out a voice, such as whispering, speaking through various emotions, or talking with a stuffy nose.
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Senior U.S., Canadian government officials to gather at US/Canada Border Conference
For two days on 12-13 September, Detroit’s renovated Cobo Center will be host to a gathering of U.S. and Canadian border security officials and industry professionals meeting to discuss a myriad of important issues relating to border protection and facilitation of legitimate trade and travel between the United States and Canada.
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Top Five most awesome robots
In the last decade, robots have often been employed on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, usually to seek out hidden bombs. More and more of these the robots are now being adopted by first response agencies to help in search-and-rescue operations in the wake of disasters. The growing interest in – and usefulness of — robotics have also inspired a series of competitions and challenges, some of which are directed at high-school and college students, to encourage budding scientists to go into the field of robotics.
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FDA to require imported food to be inspected at the source
Each year about forty-eight million Americans get sick, some 128,000 are hospitalized, and about 3,000 dies from foodborne illnesses. Companies importing food into the United States will be held to higher safety and health standards if new proposed rules by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are passed. Under the proposal, the FDA would require importers to inspect food abroad before the food reaches American ports.
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Shale gas threatens U.S. nuclear power industry
The U.S. nuclear industry is facing a new enemy, and it is not anti-nuclear peacenicks. It is the shale gas boom, which on Tuesday claimed yet another victim when Entergy Corporation said it would close its Vermont Yankee reactor ahead of schedule. It is the fourth U.S nuclear plant to be closed this year, as utilities have concluded that investing in refurbishing older reactors is no longer economically viable.
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Sandy Task Force issues sixty-nine rebuilding recommendations
The Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, appointed by President Obama and chaired by Housing and Urban Development secretary Shaun Donovan, last week release its much-anticipated report, in which it lays out sixty-nine policy recommendations for improving areas affected by Hurricane Sandy last October. The report stressed the importance of investment in new and better construction to withstand increasingly dangerous storms and surges caused by climate change.
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Aquifer supplying a third of U.S. irrigated groundwater depleting quickly: study
The High Plains Aquifer of Kansas — also called the Ogallala Aquifer — supplies 30 percent of the U.S. irrigated groundwater. New study finds that if current irrigation trends continue, 69 percent of the groundwater stored in the High Plains Aquifer will be depleted in fifty years.
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Post-Sandy infrastructure must be more resilient: Sandy Task Force
The task force appointed by President Barack Obama, charged with developing a strategy for rebuilding areas damaged by Superstorm Sandy, has urged coastal communities to recognize that owing to climate change, storms are going to be more frequent and more destructive, and that floods are going to occur more frequently. The best way to prepare for the more extreme weather ahead is to build a more robust and resilient infrastructure that can withstand the more demanding challenges.
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ASIS Annual Seminar and Exhibit “the epicenter for security education and technology”
ASIS Annual Seminar and Exhibit, which will take place 24-27 September in Chicago, may well be the epicenter for security education and technology, says Geoff Craighead, ASIS president. With a show floor spanning 230,000 sq. feet, attendees from more than eighty countries, more than 200 education sessions, and a variety of ways to connect with colleagues and strengthen business relationships, ASIS 2013 is the place to be.
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New reactor design makes nuclear power competitive with natural gas
San Diego-based General Atomics has applied for funding of several hundred millions from the U.S Department of Energy to commercialize a nuclear reactor which, the firm claims, could cut the cost of nuclear power by as much as 40 percent. The new design replaces water with helium as a coolant, allowing the plant to operate at higher temperatures, thus increasing the efficiency of the power plan and reducing the amount of waste needing storage.
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More headlines
The long view
Ransomware Attacks: Death Threats, Endangered Patients and Millions of Dollars in Damages
A ransomware attack on Change Healthcare, a company that processes 15 billion health care transactions annually and deals with 1 in 3 patient records in the United States, is continuing to cause massive disruptions nearly three weeks later. The incident, which started on February 21, has been called the “most significant cyberattack on the U.S. health care system” by the American Hospital Association. It is just the latest example of an increasing trend.
Chinese Government Hackers Targeted Critics of China, U.S. Businesses and Politicians
An indictment was unsealed Monday charging seven nationals of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) with conspiracy to commit computer intrusions and conspiracy to commit wire fraud for their involvement in a PRC-based hacking group that spent approximately 14 years targeting U.S. and foreign critics, businesses, and political officials in furtherance of the PRC’s economic espionage and foreign intelligence objectives.
European Arms Imports Nearly Double, U.S. and French Exports Rise, and Russian Exports Fall Sharply
States in Europe almost doubled their imports of major arms (+94 per cent) between 2014–18 and 2019–23. The United States increased its arms exports by 17 per cent between 2014–18 and 2019–23, while Russia’s arms exports halved. Russia was for the first time the third largest arms exporter, falling just behind France.
LNG Exports Have Had No Impact on Domestic Energy Costs: Analysis
U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) exports have not had any sustained and significant direct impact on U.S. natural gas prices and have, in fact, spurred production and productivity gains, which contribute to downward pressure on domestic prices.