A large number of Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles are already in the field, protecting American soldiers; the U.S. military wants to upgrade the vehicles with new suspension systems; to make sure the new suspension system works, the military wants to put the retrofitted MRAPs through their paces on an off-road course that more closely resembles Afghanistan’s mountainous terrain

UGVs encounter one problem UAVs do not: obstacles; different UGVs offer different solutions top overcoming obstacles — some slither, snake-like, over the obstacles, while other robots carefully climb over the obstacle; the Hopper can leap over 25 feet in the air to clear an obstacle

By putting the backs of the crew toward the center of the crew compartment, the new design concept moves the crew away from the outside walls to reduce the likelihood of injury from side blasts, provides better visibility for the crew to monitor their surroundings, and allows blast-resistant seats to be frame mounted

Security experts are split over whether inside-the-body suicide bomb is a serious threat; the French say they may not take any chances, and warn that security measures at airports may become more intrusive

The 1984 Oregon outbreak of Salmonella enterica Typhimurium sickened 751 people and sent 45 to hospitals; the attack was launched by a mystical cult which tried to take over the remote Oregon county

A terrorist in Saudi Arabia tried to kill the Saudi antiterror chief by carrying explosives inside his body; experts say there are “tremendous implications for airport security with the potential of making it even more complicated to get on to your plane”

An al-Qaeda’s follower stuffed his bum with explosives and blew himself up next t the Saudi antiterror chief (the chief was only slightly injured); how serious is this new bum-bombers threat? Experts are divided: some say the arse-blast method poses a new threat to air travel, while others argue that the kaki-kamikaze is nothing to get anyone’s bowels in an uproar about

Fujitsu runs a patching site for Sun Microsystems’ Solaris Unix variant; the company asks end-users to fill out a survey before downloading the latest patch, and the first question asks whether the customer would be using the patch to build WMD; even if you admit to building a nuclear bomb, Fujitsu allows you to download the patch; either Fujitsu targets really honest terrorists, or the company wants to use the information in its advertising (as in: “5% of our customers are terrorists who use our software to build weapons of mass destruction”)

The Israeli military offers the world’s first training courses aimed to train infantry teams specially dedicated to using small robots in combat; more and more Israeli military units now have robot specialists — the same that every platoon has specialized radio operators, machine-gunners, and missile handlers