• Manned planes beating drones as the more capable tool in war on drugs

    In the never-ending war on drugs, U.S. Navy planes are showing that technology does not necessarily mean improvement, as manned planes are outmaneuvering unmanned drones in catching cocaine smugglers traveling by sea; in 2011 the manned planes caught an average of $30 million of cocaine per day, and during the last five years they have detected more than 853,000 pounds of cocaine

  • Researchers move a step closer toward universal flu vaccine and therapies

    Researchers describes three human antibodies that provide broad protection against Influenza B virus strains; the same team had previously reported finding broadly neutralizing antibodies against Influenza A strains; the work is a key step toward “universal” vaccine and therapies against flu

  • Futuristic blended wing body aircraft passes flight test

    Boeing took another step forward in exploring a revolutionary concept — the blended wing body (BWB) — which one day could offer breakthroughs in flight; the X-48B, an unmanned research aircraft which is a scale model of a heavy-lift, subsonic vehicle that forgoes the conventional tube-and-wing airplane design in favor of a triangular aircraft that effectively merges the vehicle’s wing and body, proved during a flight test program that a BWB aircraft can be controlled as effectively as a conventional tube-and-wing aircraft during takeoffs and landings, as well as in other low-speed segments of the flight regime

  • Wastewater key to addressing growing global water shortage

    Parched cities and regions across the globe are using sewage effluent and other wastewater in creative ways to augment drinking water, but four billion people still do not have adequate supplies, and that number will rise in coming decades

  • Water sustainability flows through complex human-nature interactions

    The fate of water in China mirrors problems across the world: water is fouled, pushed far from its natural origins, squandered, and exploited; China’s crisis is daunting, though not unique: two-thirds of China’s 669 cities have water shortages, more than 40 percent of its rivers are severely polluted, 80 percent of its lakes suffer from eutrophication — an over abundance of nutrients — and about 300 million rural residents lack access to safe drinking water

  • Concerns about U.S. grid grow along with demand for power

    The U.S. grid is stretched to capacity and severely outdated; some experts fear that blackouts in the past years in New York, Boston, and San Diego will become more frequent in the near future unless a multi-billion dollar overhaul is worked out

  • Immediate, in-the-field identification of hazardous materials

    Soldiers in war zones, and law enforcement and first responders on the scene will soon have the ability to collect and immediately analyze trace amounts of potentially dangerous chemical, explosive, or biological agents with the help of a surface swabbing device developed and prototyped by a Maine-based technology company with the help of the University of Maine researchers

  • New detection device for forensic and security applications

    A new biological sampling and detection device could soon be used by first responders in the forensic and security sectors; the patented technology allows for rapid sampling of up to eight targets simultaneously, testing powder, liquids, or surfaces directly and has applications across the forensic and security areas

  • World facing increasingly challenging water situation

    New measure developed for sustainability of global groundwater water supply points to overuse of water in Asia and North America; approximately 1.7 billion people, most residing in Asia, live in areas where groundwater resources or groundwater-dependent ecosystems are under threat

     

  • USDA’s proposed chicken safety inspection policy could mean trouble for consumers

    The federal government has come up with a new proposal to examine chickens for contaminates and diseases, and the proposal has some people concerned and others outright scared; the proposal would reduce the number USDA food safety inspectors at poultry plants from four to one – and rely on plant’s employees to do safety inspections instead

  • Drones used by police, firefighters raise privacy concerns

    DHS is accelerating the use of unmanned drones by police and firefighters around the country with the intent of detecting fires, radiation leaks, and other potential threats, but Congress and privacy advocacy organizations think the se of drones raises several privacy issues

  • Wynyard Group takes New Zealand Police forensics solution global

    Developed in 2007, New Zealand Police technology called EVE (Environment for Virtualized Evidence) allows enforcement officers rapidly to analyze seized electronic goods such as mobile phones, PCs, and other storage devices for evidence and intelligence

  • July flooding in China causes $8.3 billion of economic losses

    Insurance industry faces agriculture losses from China to the United States in July 2012: flooding caused more than $8.3 billion in economic losses across China during July, while the worst drought in decades worsened across much of the United States; severe weather also prompted widespread damage in parts of the United States and Europe

  • Rising temperature reduces economic activity

    It is relatively straightforward to see how droughts and hot weather might hurt agriculture, but a new study shows that hot spells have much wider economic effects; the study finds that higher temperatures substantially reduce economic growth in poor countries: every 1-degree-Celsius increase in temperature in a poor country, over the course of a given year, reduces that country’s economic growth by about 1.3 percentage points

  • California’s hydropower is vulnerable to climate change

    Fifteen percent of California’s electricity comes from hydropower, a cheap and relatively clean energy source; .about 75 percent of this hydropower comes from high-elevation units, located above 1,000 ft.; with most of them located in Northern California and the Sierra Mountains; if California loses snowpack under climate warming, these high-elevation reservoirs might not be able to store enough water for hydropower generation in summer months when the demand is much higher