• Detailed studies of U.S. disaster preparedness offer recommendations

    Critical care panel tackles disaster preparation, surge capacity, and health care rationing; some recommendations require largely greater budgets; other pose profound ethical and moral questions

  • The economics of cyber - and infrastructure -- security

    New book explores the economics of protecting cyberspace; the book “links our nation’s critical infrastructures across public and private institutions in sectors ranging from food and agriculture, water supply and public health, to energy, transportation and financial services,” says one of the authors

  • China lacks earthquake early-warning system

    Earthquake alerts are still in their infancy and few nations deploy them; China is one of the many countries which is yet to do so; such systems offer but a few seconds warning of a coming quake, but these few seconds may be enough to save many from death or injury

  • Doctors develop a list of those allowed to die in a catastrophe

    Physicians, government agencies draft a grimly specific list of recommendations for which patients would be treated - and which would not — during a pandemic

  • U.S. hospitals could not handle terror attack

    Inquiry into the disaster preparedness of hospitals in several major U.S. cities conclude that they are — and will be — incapable to handle even a modest terrorist attack in those cities; one reason for for the lack of hospitals’ capacity: the Bush administration’s cuts in Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals overwhelm emergency rooms with patients suffering from routine problems, leaving no capacity to absorb and treat disaster victims

  • Secrets of bubonic plague bacteria's virulence revealed

    Bubonic plague has killed more than 200 million people during the course of history and is thus the most devastating acute infectious disease known to man; scientists are closer to understanding bacteria’s virulence

  • National level exercise begins In May

    The National Exercise Program (NEP) of FEMA will conduct National Level Exercise 2-08 (NLE 2-08) — a combined functional and full scale exercise — from 1 through 8 May

  • Scientists search for clues to Reno earthquake

    The shaking in Reno is unusual because the intensity of the quakes has increased over the past few weeks; generally, earthquakes tend to occur and are followed by smaller aftershocks

  • Cybersecurity agenda for the next president

    Cybersecurity is not a technical issue, but a matter of culture, education, and self-interest; government cannot regulate information technology security, and industry cannot do the job by itself

  • What Is Keeping Your COO Awake at Night?

    An HSDW conversation on Cybersecurity with Tim Kelleher, vice president of enterprise security, Unisys

  • U.K. faces wave of data security breaches

    The state of personal data security in the United Kingdom is not good; in the last six months, nearly 100 incidents of data security breaches by government agencies and private sector companies were reported

  • China may have back door into U.S. military computer networks

    A technological sleeper cell: The Chinese have manufactured counterfeit Cisco routers and switches and offered them at exceedingly low prices; U.S. vendors upgrading or replacing U.S. government IT systems used these counterfeit devices — and the FBI and other government agencies are now worried that the gear offers the Chinese undetectable back-doors into highly secure government and military computer system; the FBI investigates

  • South Korean avian flu situation worsens

    In less than two weeks, South Korea has confirmed eleven cases of the deadly H5N1 strain, which had been contained in the southwest of the country, some 200 miles south of Seoul

  • Forecast: The Big One is coming

    Geologists say that there is a 99.7 percent chance a magnitude 6.7 quake or larger will strike by 2037; California is one of the most seismically active regions in the world, where more than 300 faults crisscross the state

  • Scientists create first successful avian flu virus antibodies libraries

    Libraries were developed using samples from survivors of the 2005-6 bird flu outbreak in Turkey; antibody libraries hold the promise for developing a therapy to stop a pandemic in its tracks and provide treatment to those infected, as well as pointing the way toward the development of a universal flu vaccine