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Robotic car allows drivers to work while driving
The overall cost of road congestion in the United Kingdom to business is likely to rise to £23-24 billion a year within the next fifteen years; increasing public transport capacity may help, but experts believe that, with people unwilling to give up cars, the solution is autonomous vehicles: they make road journeys safer, more efficient, and allow people to do work while on their way to the office
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Mobile consumer devices transmit vital signs
Researchers turn a smart phone into a medical monitor; an app for smart phones, and eventually tablet devices, is turning these mobile devices into sophisticated medical monitors able to capture and transmit vital physiological data
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Behavioral observation as a security method questioned
Agencies in charge of airport security believed they had a good idea: why not add behavioral observation of passengers as an added layer of security on top of the various screening and scanning machines already placed at airports around the United States; experts question the method’s efficacy
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Raytheon expanding its commitment to math and science education
Raytheon Company said it is expanding its commitment to math and science education through a $1 million gift that will help extend the national impact of the Museum of Science, Boston’s Engineering is Elementary (EiE) program; in the past five years, Raytheon has committed more than $60 million to MathMovesU, STEM and education programs
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Environmentalists in arms over border decision
Yesterday, House Natural Resources Committee 26-17 vote to approve H.R. 1505, the National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act; the proposed legislation would waive thirty-six environmental and other laws for U.S. Customs and Border Patrol activities on public lands within 100 miles of U.S. borders; environmentalists are angry
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Food safety grant to fund research on preventing food-borne illnesses
A $1.3 million grant to develop a new food-safety training program for government and industry has been awarded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine
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CSC wins $86 million task order for emergency communications
On Wednesday CSC announced that it had won an $86 million task order from DHS to continue providing emergency priority telecommunication services for the agency
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Electronegativity will simplify chemistry education, allows new research
Researchers at Oregon State University have created a new, unifying method to describe a basic chemical concept called “electronegativity,” first described almost eighty years ago by OSU alumnus Linus Pauling and part of the work that led to his receiving the Nobel Prize
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Registration for CyberPatriot IV competition to end this week
With less than a week left before registration closes, CyberPatriot IV, the National High School Cyber Defense Competition, has more than 850 teams registered; this competition is attracting high school educators across the United States; the structure of the competition provides students hands-on learning while competing virtually against their peers and introduces many to the idea of cyber security as a profession
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Teaching sensors to think for themselves
There is a major problem with sensors: data overload; as sensors gather more and more information, it has become increasingly difficult for human users to separate out what is relevant from what is not; two U Vermont researchers received a grant from DARPA to teach sensors what to look for — and what not to look for
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Defying governor, Mass. officials seek to join Secure Communities
Local law enforcement officials and state lawmakers are increasingly working to circumvent Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick’s decision to opt out of the controversial Secure Communities immigration program; last Wednesday U.S Senator Scott Brown (R-Massachusetts) called on DHS secretary Janet Napolitano to allow the state to join Secure Communities without Governor Patrick’s approval; Under Secure Communities, a detained individual’s fingerprints are automatically scanned and checked against DHS and FBI databases to determine their immigration status
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Safe, efficient cookstoves for earthquake survivors
316,000 people were killed and more than one million made homeless by the 12 January 2010 magnitude 7.0 quake that left the capital city of Port-au-Prince in ruins; many of the displaced Haitians still live in tent cities, where even simple tasks such as cooking are a challenge; scientists hope to find the safest and most energy-efficient way for earthquake survivors to cook
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Self-repairing composites repair cracks in coating of buildings, bridges
Researchers have developed vascularized structural composites, creating materials that are lightweight and strong with potential for self-healing, self-cooling, metamaterials, and more; these artificial microvascular systems can self-repair of materials damage, such as cracks in a coating applied to a building or bridge
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Solar UV disinfects drinking water
More than 800 million people around the world lack access to clean water; the water available for people to drink in many developing countries has not been treated to remove contaminants, including pathogenic microorganisms; half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by people who are sickened by the water they drink; Purdue University researchers have invented a water-disinfection system that uses the sun’s ultraviolet radiation to inactivate waterborne pathogens
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Protecting structures against firebrand attack
NIST engineers have built a device that bellows showers of glowing embers, or firebrands, to test how structures can withstand this destructive aspects of wild fires; in Japan, where the device is now used in a test facility, firebrands are a growing peril that accounts for half of the nation’s ten most costly fires
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More headlines
The long view
Autonomous Vehicle Technology Vulnerable to Road Object Spoofing and Vanishing Attacks
Researchers have demonstrated the potentially hazardous vulnerabilities associated with the technology called LiDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging, many autonomous vehicles use to navigate streets, roads and highways. The researchers have shown how to use lasers to fool LiDAR into “seeing” objects that are not present and missing those that are – deficiencies that can cause unwarranted and unsafe braking or collisions.
Tantalizing Method to Study Cyberdeterrence
Tantalus is unlike most war games because it is experimental instead of experiential — the immersive game differs by overlapping scientific rigor and quantitative assessment methods with the experimental sciences, and experimental war gaming provides insightful data for real-world cyberattacks.
Prototype Self-Service Screening System Unveiled
TSA and DHS S&T unveiled a prototype checkpoint technology, the self-service screening system, at Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) in Las Vegas, NV. The aim is to provide a near self-sufficient passenger screening process while enabling passengers to directly receive on-person alarm information and allow for the passenger self-resolution of those alarms.
Falling Space Debris: How High Is the Risk I'll Get Hit?
An International Space Station battery fell back to Earth and, luckily, splashed down harmlessly in the Atlantic. Should we have worried? Space debris reenters our atmosphere every week.
Testing Cutting-Edge Counter-Drone Technology
Drones have many positive applications, bad actors can use them for nefarious purposes. Two recent field demonstrations brought government, academia, and industry together to evaluate innovative counter-unmanned aircraft systems.
Strengthening the Grid’s ‘Backbone’ with Hydropower
Argonne-led studies investigate how hydropower could help add more clean energy to the grid, how it generates value as grids add more renewable energy, and how liner technology can improve hydropower efficiency.