• Walden University offers M.S. in Emergency Management

    The school says that this new online master’s degree program emphasizes key skills related to creating and implementing disaster prevention and response plans

  • Digital images used to prevent bridge failures

    A new/old method has been developed to assure the safety of hundreds of truss bridges across the United States; researchers have been testing the use of a thoroughly modern version of an old technique — photographic measurement or “photogrammetry” — to watch the failure of a key bridge component in exquisite detail

  • Scientists study how nature cleans uranium from aquifer

    A small town in Colorado was the site of uranium ore processing in the 1940s and 1950s, producing yellowcake; when the mills shut down, the mill tailings — a crushed rock byproduct of ore processing — were left behind on the north bank of the river; the tailings were hauled away in the 1990s, but a large amount of uranium that seeped out of the tailings remains as a contaminant in the aquifer and is slowly being released into the Colorado River

  • App-enabled robocopters to bring supplies to Marines

    Marines running low on ammo may one day use an app on their digital handhelds to summon a robotic helicopter to deliver supplies within minutes; the Navy officials in charge of the program are seeking researchers who will develop threat- and obstacle-detection and avoidance systems, as well as autonomous landing capabilities that can operate across different types of aircraft

  • Helping UAVs to land safely in an emergency

    One obstacle to the wider use of UAVs in domestic missions such as law enforcement is the fact that UAV flight plans are set pre-flight, and if something goes wrong and they need to land they have no way to determining where the safest landing spot is; in most cases they just drop; engineers are developing a system which will allow UAVs sense and avoid other traffic and determine appropriate landing spots should the need arise

  • Military seeking high-pressure materials without high-pressure processes

    Military missions place tremendous stress on the materials used for defense weapons, vehicles, and other applications; applications range from stronger armor, to lighter weights which allow for faster propulsion, to greater resiliency in aerospace, ground, and naval platforms

  • New material for building thermonuclear fusion reactors

    Two European projects – ITER and DEMO — propose development of fusion reactors that are economically viable; this work depends on the development of new structural materials capable of withstanding damage by irradiation and elevated temperatures resulting from the fusion reaction

  • On-demand emergency responder training

    New service allows fire, police, EMS, and military to provide their training video library through an on-demand delivery to any television; the service allows responders to select a video through a graphical menu on the television screen and then play, pause, restart, rewind or fast forward the video

  • UMD, Lunarline partner on cybersecurity

    The University of Maryland Cybersecurity Center will partner with Lunarline Inc. on cybersecurity education, research, and technology development

  • Depleted gas reservoirs used for carbon storage

    One way to keep CO2 from accumulating in the atmosphere is to bury (or “sequester”) it under ground; a demonstration project in Australia verified that depleted natural gas reservoirs can be used for geologic carbon sequestration; the carbon sequestration approach involves pumping CO2 deep underground for permanent storages

  • Tails help leaping lizards – and robots – stay in control

    A new study examined how lizards manage to leap successfully even when they slip and stumble; the researchers found that lizards swing their tails upward to prevent them from pitching head-over-heels into a rock; the research pushed the boundaries of control in robotics in an area researchers call inertial assisted robotics

  • U.S. faces new wave of invasive species

    New study warns that the earlier onset of spring, warmer winters, economic globalization, and increased trade with emerging economies in Asia and Africa will see the United States face a significant new wave of invasive plant introductions; at least forty-two emerging U.S. trade partners – among them Thailand, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Argentina, and several in equatorial Africa — are poised to export new nursery plant varieties to the United States

  • Texas drought – no end in sight

    Residents across Texas are continuing to struggle with one of the state’s worst natural disasters in history; far from a singular event, Texas is experiencing a crippling drought with record low rainfall for the 2011

  • Researchers: new forms of torture leave “invisible scars”

    Use of torture around the world has not diminished but the techniques used have grown more complex and sophisticated; a new study suggests that these emerging forms of torture, which include various types of rape, bestiality, and witnessing violent acts, are experienced by people seeking asylum in the United Kingdom

  • Using bacteria to detect toxins in water

    Biologists and bioengineers at UC San Diego have created a living neon sign composed of millions of bacterial cells that periodically fluoresce in unison like blinking light bulbs; because bacteria are sensitive to many kinds of environmental pollutants and organisms, the scientists believe this approach could be used to design low cost bacterial biosensors capable of detecting an array of heavy metal pollutants and disease-causing organisms