• Improving Strategy for Social Media Communications During Wildfires

    In the last 20 years, disasters have claimed more than a million lives and caused nearly $3 trillion in economic losses worldwide. Specifically examining wildfires, researchers contradict existing crisis communication theory that recommends Disaster relief organizations (DROs) speak with one voice during the entirety of wildfire response operations.

  • Not the Usual Suspects: New Interactive Lineup Boosts Eyewitness Accuracy

    Allowing eyewitnesses to dynamically explore digital faces using a new interactive procedure can significantly improve identification accuracy compared to the video lineup and photo array procedures used by police worldwide.

  • Finland: Pipeline Leak Likely Caused by 'External Activity'

    Damage to an underwater gas pipeline and telecommunications cable connecting Finland and Estonia may have been a deliberate act, according to Finnish authorities.

  • Israel’s War on Hamas: What to Know

    Israel will seek to eliminate the threat posed by the Palestinian militant group for good, but its campaign in Gaza could draw in other adversaries, including Hezbollah and al-Qaeda.

  • What Role Did Russia Play in Hamas's Attack on Israel?

    Russia’s ties to Hamas are well-documented, as are its ties to Hamas’s main backer, Iran. For some observers and commentators of the ongoing bloodshed in Israel, that in itself is cause for blaming Moscow, accusing it of having a direct hand in the spiraling violence. That’s not correct, said Hanna Notte, a Berlin-based expert on Russian policy in the Middle East.

  • Attitudes Toward Political Violence

    Research reveals a complex mix of attitudes, concerns, and beliefs about the state of democracy and the potential for violence. A small segment of the U.S. population considers violence, including lethal violence, to be usually or always justified to advance political objectives.

  • Hamas Assault Echoes 1973 Arab-Israeli War – a Shock Attack and Questions of Political, Intelligence Culpability

    The parallels were striking – and surely not coincidental. Exactly 50 years and a day after being taken completely off guard by a coordinated military attack by its neighbors – Egypt and Syria – Israel was again caught by surprise. The invasion of southern Israel by Hamas militants on 7 October 2023 will probably be even more traumatic for Israelis than the 1973 war was because while in 1973 it was members of the military bearing the brunt of the surprise assault, this time it is Israeli civilians who have been captured and killed, and on sovereign Israeli territory. In this crucial respect, then, this war is unlike the one in 1973.

  • Hamas Attacks Israel

    While I am always wary of predicting the course of a war, we can be reasonably sure of one thing. The political backlash within Israel will be harsh and will go beyond inquiries into the intelligence failure. Not yet, for the country will come together as the fighting continues and partisan differences will be put aside. But once the dust settles. Not only has the coalition’s policies on judicial reform left Israeli society deeply divided, something of which Hamas will have been well aware, but also its active support of extremist groups stirring up trouble in the West Bank and Jerusalem meant that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were diverted to protect them. This is one explanation for the empty guard posts and thin lines of defense on the border with Gaza, which affected the ability to respond to the attacks.

  • Scorpius Images to Test Nuclear Stockpile Simulations

    One thousand feet below the ground, three national defense labs and a remote test site are building Scorpius — a machine as long as a football field — to create images of plutonium as it is compressed with high explosives, creating conditions that exist just prior to a nuclear explosion. The Sandia injector is key to validating plutonium pit performance.

  • Chi-Nu Experiment Concludes with Data to Support Nuclear Security, Energy Reactors

    The Chi-Nu project, a years-long experiment measuring the energy spectrum of neutrons emitted from neutron-induced fission, recently concluded the most detailed and extensive uncertainty analysis of the three major actinide elements — uranium-238, uranium-235 and plutonium-239.

  • Why You Received a National Emergency Alert on Your Phone — and What the Cold War Has to Do with It

    The U.S. wireless providers that participated in the federal alert program sent alerts to their customers on Wednesday around 2:18 p.m. Eastern Time. The Emergency Alert System and the more recent Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) has its roots in the early days of the Cold War, when there was a concern that the president would need a means to directly communicate to the American people in the event of an imminent Soviet attack on the United States involving nuclear weapons. 

  • States Vary in Firearm Ownership, and the Storage and Carrying Habits of Owners

    Keeping a firearm in the home sharply increases the risk for injury and death. Researchers find firearm owning communities in five states are diverse, with risky behaviors more common in some than others.

  • Mobile Positioning-Based Population Statistics Make Crisis Management More Effective

    Human and economic losses inflicted by disasters are still growing in the world in spite of technological advances. A recent case study from Estonia shows that mobile positioning data can play a key role in improving the availability of emergency assistance, reducing the risk to human life and health in crisis situations.

  • Simultaneous large wildfires will increase in Western U.S.

    Simultaneous outbreaks of large wildfires will become more frequent in the Western United States this century as the climate warms, putting major strains on efforts to fight fires. This trend threatens to stretch firefighting resources.

  • Researchers Blow Whistle on Forensic Science Method

    Like fingerprints, a firearm’s discarded shell casings have unique markings. This allows forensic experts to compare casings from a crime scene with those from a suspect’s gun. Finding and reporting a mismatch can help free the innocent, just as a match can incriminate the guilty. But a new study reveals mismatches are more likely than matches to be reported as “inconclusive” in cartridge-case comparisons.