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Feds offer to help cities map radioactive sites
Program is intended to create baseline readings in order to later detect dirty bomb attacks; DoE and DHS lend a hand with planes, helicopters, and detectors
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RAE expands its wireless detection offerings
AreaRAE systems, already a hit with the National Guard, receive a tune-up; new sensors can detect hydrogen chloride, hydrogen flouride, and carbon monoxide
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A new approach to chemical detection
Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory use lasers and quartz crystals to create a portable and rugged chemical weapons detection system
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ACRO shows a detector for peroxide-based explosives
Peroxide-based explosives are nearly impossible to identify because they do not contain nitro groups and are colorless; ACRO offers a solution
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PhamAthene signs patent deal for nerve gas treatment
Maryland company firms up its relationship with GTC, a noted seller of goat-produced enzymes
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HHS rejects Hollis-Eden radiation sickness treatment
Problems with Project BioShield continue after HHS decides not to buy company’s Neumune injectable; San Diego start-up’s stock plummets
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Bee Alert Technology offers new explosives detection system
Unlike competitors, company’s approach relies on voice recognition software to identify changes in bees’ buzzing when exposed to particular chemicals; response takes less than thirty seconds; applications in both the homeland security and agriculture industries; portable model in development
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Bundeswehr purchases 22 new iRobot PackBots
Deal fills out German fleet to a robust forty; German soldiers spent eighteen months testing the EOD drones; iRobot continues to dominate the market
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Oak Ridge scientist develops anti-berrylium dust-rag
Special coating seen as a cure for industrial inhalation problems, and technology may eventually aid in large-scale radiation clean-ups; Y-12 National Security Complex conducts tests but needs help bringing it to market;
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Navy begins planning for next generation of EOD robots
Packbot, Talon, and Bombot are doing the job well, but the military wants to build a scalable system from the ground up; wireless communication a major concern due to interference from IED jammers; 2012 proposed production date
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Indiana researchers develop real-life tricorder
Star Trek-inspired mass spectrometer weighs less than twenty pounds; analysis can be done on surfaces outside the vacuum chamber; system detects biomarkers and explosives with ease; two Indiana companies rush into the market
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TraceGuard receives $800,000 in Israeli government funding
The generosity of the Office of Chief Scientist continues; New York-based company to continue work on automated trace extraction technology
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RealityMobile offers off-the-shelf situational control system
Relying on camera phones compatible with Palm OS or Windows Mobile 5.0, RealityVision system offers commanders unparalleled remote access to personnel on the ground
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Technest wins another Army NVESD sensor contract
$4.4 million contract will pay for the development of demining and counterming technologies; deal follows $10 million in earlier contracts with Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate
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iRobot shares suffer, but future looks bright
Company predicts lower-than-expected earnings in 2007; Roomba and PackBot make an unlikely kinship; coordinating networks of PackBots the next big challenge as Helen Grenier looks to develop packs of surveillance droids
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The long view
Truth and Fearmongering: Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository
Is it a good idea to store 77,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste in a repository in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain? Many Nevada politicians say it is a bad idea, but scientists argue that the facts do not support the fears these politicians stoke. These scientists say that Colorado, whose surface rock contains about a billion tons of uranium, should have much more to worry about than Nevada. One scientist says: “If the Yucca Mountain facility were at full capacity and all the waste leaked out of its glass containment immediately and managed to reach groundwater, the danger would still be 20 times less than that currently posed by natural uranium leaching into the Colorado River.”
460,000 Premature Deaths: The Horror That Was Nuclear Weapons Testing
In March 1954, over the Bikini Atoll, the United States detonated a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb —one thousand times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. It was the largest explosion ever set off by Americans, and also the dirtiest. Researchers have now found that, more than sixty years after the nuclear tests the United States conducted in the area, the levels of radiation in several Marshall Island atolls, exceed that found at Chernobyl or Fukushima. The United States also detonated hundreds of atomic bombs in Nevada, and a 2017 study suggested that fallout from the Nevada nuclear testing could have led to between 340,000 and 460,000 premature deaths, mostly Americans and mainly through cancer.
Lawmakers Seek Probe of Controversial Bioweapons Defense System
The Trump administration’s attempt to deploy a scientifically disputed system for detecting airborne anthrax or other infectious agents in terrorist attacks is facing increased scrutiny from a bipartisan group of House members. in a three-page letter, four Democrats and Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee asked the Government Accountability Office to conduct an in-depth scientific evaluation of the new system, called BioDetection 21. Officials from the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, signaled that they plan to open the inquiry.
Can Nuclear Power Be Saved?
Whither nuclear power? That question has become more important as energy policies evolve to emphasize emissions-free “green” energy and an increased electrification of the U.S. economy. Some environmentalists consider nuclear power to be crucial to reducing carbon emissions; others continue to vehemently oppose nuclear power and believe that our energy must come solely from renewable sources. The public, encouraged into hysteria by dramatizations of nuclear-plant accidents such as the film The China Syndrome and HBO’s Chernobyl, is split. Meanwhile, the nuclear-power industry itself is in a parlous state for a variety of tangled reasons.