Business continuity

Swine flu vaccine is not going to be ready for a while yet
Even if the World Health Organization declares the current swine flu to be a pandemic, vaccine will arrive too late for many
- Read more
UCI awarded $45 million for infectious disease research
Research facility receives finds to improve detection, treatment, and vaccine development
- Read more

Personal air-purification system to fight epidemics
London-based Tri-Air develops a personal air-purification system — it may be attached to one’s belt — which simulates the natural purification properties of fresh air; it creates airborne cascades of hydroxyl radicals, which naturally occur outdoors, to destroy microbes that could include viruses
- Read more
SAIC to deploy tsunami monitoring system for Thailand
The Thai government has awarded SAIC a contract to produce and deliver a sea-based system that can warn against the threat of a tsunami; the new system will replace the current NOAA Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting Tsunamis (DART) buoy system in the Bay of Bengal, which was provided to Thailand in 2006
- Read more

Swine flu spread justifies treating it as a pandemic
The spread of the swine flu justifies treating it as an epidemic; researchers calculate that, in Mexico, on average, each person who contracts flu passes it on to between 1.4 and 1.6 other people; whenever this number — called the reproductive number — is more than 1, it means that a disease is transmissible
- Read more
New Orleans channel may have exacerbated post-Katrina floods
Witness for the prosecution: New Orleans residents sue the U.S. government over a channel dug by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; computer models show that channel may have exacerbated post-Katrina floods
- Read more

Computer simulation of swine flu worst case in U.S. projects 1,700 cases
Computer simulation of worst-case swine flu epidemic in the United States projects 1,700 cases in four weeks from now; affected locations largely correspond to major transportation hubs in the country
- Read more
Travel ban will not meaningfully slow spread of epidemic
Computer modelers say that travel restrictions will do more harm (economic damage) than good (slow the spread of the flu); prevention and treatment are better measures
- Read more

Lancet: Pandemic closer but not inevitable
Prestigious British health journal said “The world has moved closer towards a pandemic, but it is not yet inevitable”
- Read more
Experts: Levees will not save New Orleans from Katrina-like storm
National Academy of Engineering panel says that even the strongest levees and flood walls cannot be guaranteed to save New Orleans from another hurricane like Katrina
- Read more

NIST in new password management policy
NIST offers, and opens for public comment, new password policy for government and private organizations
- Read more
WHO: Swine flu could become pandemic
The growing number of swine flu in Mexico, and the spread of the disease in the United States, lead the World Health Organization to declare the virus “a public health emergency of international concern”
- Read more

Swine flu kills 60 in Mexico, spreads to U.S.
Sixty people in Mexico have so far died of swine flu, and the World Health organization says the disease has spread to the United States; disease regularly hits pigs but rarely affects humans
- Read more
Using a long tether to deflect threatening asteroids
An asteroid-tether-ballast system could effectively alter the motion of an asteroid to ensure it missed hitting Earth; the tether, though, is on the long side: between 1,000 kilometers to 100,000 kilometers
- Read more
Seismologist predicts earthquake in south Iran at the end of the month
A Chinese seismologist who relies on unusual cloud formations as a predictor of earthquake says that at the end of the month a powerful earthquake will shake south Iran; debate about basing emergency policy on such predictions intensifies in light of similar predictions before the earthquake in Italy two weeks ago
- Read more

More headlines