• Pulling CO2 from air feasible, if still costly, way to curb global warming

    Emerging techniques to pull carbon dioxide from the air and store it away to stabilize the climate may become increasingly important as the planet tips into a state of potentially dangerous warming; lower-cost technology is a stumbling block so far

  • You want to report a pothole? There’s an app for that

    The city of Boston offers residents a new app – Street Bump – which will automatically report potholes they encounter; all the driver has to do is install the app and place the smartphone on the dashboard or in the cup holder; the app uses the phone’s motion detector and GPS locator to report potholes

  • Temperature rise, CO2 follow each other closely

    The greatest climate change the world has seen in the last 100,000 years was the transition from the ice age to the warm interglacial period; new research indicates that, contrary to previous opinion, the rise in temperature and the rise in the atmospheric CO2 follow each other closely in terms of time

  • Per capita CO2 emissions in China reach EU levels

    Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2)  increased by 3 percent last year; an estimated cumulative global total of 420 billion tons of CO2 has been emitted between 2000 and 2011 due to human activities, including deforestation; scientists suggest that in order to limit the rise in average global temperature to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, cumulative CO2 emissions in the period 2000–50 cannot do not exceed 1,000 to 1,500 billion tons

  • New method for detecting, measuring bridge damage

    Researchers have created a bridge health index, which is a rating system that more accurately describes the amount of damage in a bridge; the health index can extend beyond bridges and apply to other structures, such as gas pipelines, dams, buildings, and airplanes

  • Cutting massive power use at big data companies in a flash

    Big data needs big power; the server farms that undergird the Internet run on a vast tide of electricity — Google, for example, uses enough electricity in its data centers to power about 200,000 homes; now, a team of engineers has a solution that could radically cut that power use — a new type of memory in companies’ servers that demands far less energy than the current systems

  • Explaining 2011 extreme weather events

    2011 will be remembered as a year of extreme weather events, both in the United States and around the world; NOAA says that every weather event that happens now takes place in the context of a changing global environment; a comprehensive annual report – State of the Climate in 2011 — provides scientists and citizens with an analysis of what has happened so organizations and individuals can prepare for what is to come

  • Changing climate to lead to fewer, but more violent, thunderstorms

    Researcher predict that for every one degree Celsius of warming, there will be approximately a 10 percent increase in lightning activity; this could have negative consequences in the form of flash floods, wild fires, or damage to power lines and other infrastructure

  • Just-the-facts climate change Web site wins World Bank award

    The World Bank award a prize to a Web site built to be the antidote to the many myths circulating online about climate change, myths which cause misplaced apathy or alarm; the site also reveals how responding to climate change presents a world of opportunities for individuals and entrepreneurs

  • Sharp increase in cyberattacks on U.S. critical infrastructure

    The number of reported cyberattacks on U.S. critical infrastructure increased sharply – from 9 incidents in 2009 to 198 in 2011; water sector-specific incidents, when added to the incidents which affected several sectors, accounted for more than half of the incidents; in more than half of the most serious cases, implementing best practices such as login limitation or properly configured firewall, would have deterred the attack, reduced the time it would have taken to detect an attack, and minimize its impact

  • Infrastructure security market to reach $32.55 billion in 2012

    The global infrastructure security market, in terms of government spending, will reach a value of $32.55 billion in 2012; a new report says that spending on bolstering the cyber aspects of infrastructure security has little utility by itself unless the physical integrity of the infrastructure is also appropriately safeguarded

  • More effective radiation detection of cargo, baggage

    A new technique for radiation detection that could make radiation detection in cargo and baggage more effective and less costly for homeland security inspectors; the novel detection method relies on spectral shape discrimination (SSD), taking advantage of a new class of nanoporous materials known as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)

  • B612 Foundation unveils first privately funded deep space mission

    A private group plans to launch its own space telescope and place it in orbit around the sun; the mission will collect information about Earth-threatening asteroids, but also look for asteroids that may contain valuable raw materials for mining

  • Seismic sensors seek source of Spokane quakes

    It has been a decade since a swarm of relatively mild earthquakes shook up parts of Spokane, Washington; now, armed with the right tools, scientists want to find out what was at fault

  • First-of-its-kind CO2 sensor network deployed in Oakland

    The City of Oakland will be ground zero for the first urban sensor network to provide real-time, neighborhood-by-neighborhood measurements of carbon dioxide and other air pollutants; the prototype network, being installed by chemists at the University of California, Berkeley, will employ forty sensors spread over a twenty-seven square-mile grid