• Small bridge sensors will give early warnings of anomalies, weaknesses

    University of Maryland researchers devised a lightweight, low-power, wireless, credit card-sized sensor that will detect weaknesses in bridges and other infrastructure before they can turn into calamities; the sensors would detect anomalies in the structure of even the most inaccessible parts of bridges and send alerts via cellular frequencies to its human masters. Among the things it would measure would be stress loads, vibration, temperature and the creation and growth of cracks

  • New levee design, construction materials tested in Louisiana

    Since Katrina, attention has been riveted on $14 billion worth of federal projects to rebuild the deficient hurricane levee system so it can better defend from surges out of lakes Borgne and Pontchartrain; the Army Corps of Engineers plans to start experimenting with a new construction method, which relies on a mix of lime and clay to build the test levee higher without widening the levee base; this method of raising existing river levees can be done faster than a standard raising and will not require buying additional land to expand the base; mixing lime and clay and water will not produce concrete, which has a measured strength of 3,000 pounds per square inch, or psi, the mixture will have a strength of 80 to 120 psi — substantially greater than the 3 to 5 psi of a compacted clay levee

  • DisastersDisaster response experts call for "red-helmet brigade"

    Experts say that the world need to be better prepared to respond to natural disasters such as the Pakistan floods of the Haiti earthquake; they say that an organization such as the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs should establish a special response unit to set up a computerized database that identifies all available assets routinely needed in an emergency — emergency personnel, medical personnel, water, non-perishable food stuffs, extraction machinery, temporary shelters, and field hospitals; some supplies could be held in locations around the world, ready to be dispatched as soon as disaster assessment experts working for a central command and control center arrive on the scene of a catastrophe