• Climate change: Our greatest national security threat?

    The climate century is here: the earth is warming, humans are to blame, and we must take immediate action now to prepare for climate change’s massively disruptive consequences. Mark Nevitt writes in Just Security that No longer can climate change be categorized solely as an environmental issue—it is a grave threat to national security. Indeed, it may be the threat. While there are many national security challenges facing the nation and the world, climate change is an aptly described “super wicked” problem that exacerbates and accelerates already existing threats.

  • Sensing earthquakes in a new way to help improve early warning systems

    Every year earthquakes worldwide claim hundreds or even thousands of lives. Forewarning allows people to head for safety and a matter of seconds could spell the difference between life and death. Researchers demonstrate a new earthquake detection method — their technique exploits subtle telltale gravitational signals traveling ahead of the tremors. Future research could boost early warning systems.

  • Novel compact antenna for communicating where radios fail

    A new type of pocket-sized antenna could enable mobile communication in situations where conventional radios don’t work, such as under water, through the ground and over very long distances through air. The 4-inch-tall device could be used in portable transmitters for rescue missions and other challenging applications demanding high mobility.

  • Knife-crime assault data to help forecast fatal stabbings

    Knife crime data from a 12-month period could be used to help forecast the London neighborhoods most likely to suffer a fatal stabbing the following year, according to latest research.

  • Studying Perry Mason to combat “innocence fatigue”

    Forensic science historian Professor Ian Burney is studying the influence of Erle Stanley Gardner, creator of renowned TV attorney Perry Mason, in a bid to reveal the roots of the fascination with stories about wrongful criminal conviction. Burney hopes the study will help better understand some of the challenges facing today’s worldwide “innocence projects.”

  • Israeli air strike destroys Iranian missile production, storage facility in Syria

    Satellite images released Sunday by ImageSat International (ISI) showed the impact of an airstrike, blamed on Israel, on a missile base in Syria on Saturday evening that reportedly killed Iranian personnel. Israeli analysts say that recent Israeli air strikes in Syria probably would not have passed without public Russian comment had Israel and Russia not reached an understanding designed to reduce possible friction and improve early warning between Israeli and Russian armed forces operating in Syria.

  • As Russia expanded its Arctic Sea presence, U.S. observers see veiled threat

    Some U.S. military officials and legislators have expressed concern that Washington isn’t paying enough attention to Russia’s military entrenchment in the region. They say the Department of Defense Arctic Strategy, last updated in 2017, largely got overlooked in the more all-encompassing National Defense Strategy, the main U.S. military strategy document signed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

  • It is safer to be a cop today than 50 years ago

    There is no doubt that policing is a dangerous profession. But is it safer to be a cop today than it was fifty years ago? Yes, according to a study that analyzed police officer deaths (felonious and non-felonious) in the United States from 1970 to 2016.

  • Detecting, analyzing suspicious activity in surveillance footage

    Traditional surveillance cameras do not always detect suspicious activities or objects in a timely manner. Researchers developed a hybrid lightweight tracking algorithm known as Kerman (Kernelized Kalman filter).

  • Do armed guards prevent school shootings?

    The presence of guns in schools is a fact of life for millions of American children. Forty-three percent of public schools had an armed law enforcement officer during the 2015-2016 school year. Does increasing armed school security could reduce deaths from active shootings or deter the attacks in the first place? Experts say the data is not encouraging. Guns have stopped some mass shootings — but not usually in schools.

  • Firearm deaths surges in school-age children

    Firearm-related deaths in school-age children are increasing at alarming rates in the United States where homicide rates are about 6- to 9-fold higher than those in comparably developed countries. This epidemic poses increasingly major clinical, public health and policy challenges.

  • Crowdsourcing speeds up monitoring of earthquake

    Data produced by Internet users can help to speed up the detection of earthquakes. Fast and accurate information is essential in the case of earthquakes: Epicenter location, depth and magnitude are minimum requirements to reliably estimate their possibly catastrophic consequences.

  • Polymers help minimize fuel explosions and fires from accidents and terrorist acts

    When an act of terrorism or a vehicle or industrial accident ignites fuel, the resulting fire or explosion can be devastating. On Tuesday, scientists described how lengthy but microscopic chains of polymers could be added to fuel to significantly reduce the damage from these terrifying incidents without impacting performance.

  • Turning incident scenes into virtual 3D models

    When officers arrive at a crime or crash scene, they have to spend a lot of time looking for evidence, processing it, taking photos of it, and documenting. To help make this process more efficient, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has teamed up with the Israeli Police to invest in a new tool.

  • Improving canine detection of explosives

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has awarded $564,988 in funding to Auburn University for two research and development (R&D) projects designed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of canines trained to detect explosives.