• Post-Ike ideas for defending Galveston include extending sea wall

    Texas A&M oceanographer proposes extending Galveston’s seawall to the island’s West End, building a similar structure along Bolivar Peninsula, and constructing massive Dutch-like floodgates at the entry to Galveston Bay; oceanographer says his proposed wall and gate system could repel most surges

  • Mathematicians provide new insight into tsunamis

    The number and height of the tsunami waves hitting the shoreline depends critically on the shape of the initial surface wave in deep water; from this it is possible to work out whether a “trough” or a “peak” is the leading wave

  • NYPD wants to expand anti-terror program to midtown

    NYPD wants to duplicate in midtown the measures under way near Ground Zero; these measures will allow allow police to do everything they do downtown — scan license plates, monitor surveillance video cameras, and use radiation and bioterrorism detectors — between 34th and 59th streets, from river to river

  • GAO: TSA lax on U.S. security of commercial trucking, buses

    Billions of dollars have been invested in improving air travel security; critics charge that ground transportation security has been treated as an after thought; there are more than a million U.S. companies which help transport 65 percent of the daily freight across the United States; busing companies carry 775 million passengers a year, more than the airline industry; GAO says both trucks and buses operate virtually free of security restrictions

  • Soldiers' helmets serve as sniper location system

    Commodore researchers develop a networked helmet that help soldiers and first responders fighting in a hazardous urban environment pin-point and display the location of enemy shooters in three dimensions and accurately identify the caliber and type of weapons they are firing

  • New device locates people in danger

    University of Pittsburgh researchers develop a tracking device that can pinpoint within a few feet the locations of people inside burning buildings or other structures where there is an emergency

  • New ideas for deflecting Earth-threatening asteroids

    As scientists use better equipment to make more accurate observations of space, they find more Earth-threatening objects loitering in Near Earth Orbit; a debate is growing as to the best method to deal with this threat

  • Better bullet-proof vests with advanced fiber weaves

    Manchester University researchers say that bullet-proof vests used to protect the lives of police officers could be further improved with advanced fiber weaves

  • Disease maps may help turn Zimbabwe's health crisis around

    The government of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe destroyed the country’s health care system and shut down water treatment facilities; the result has been an uncontrolled cholera outbreak; international aid organizations launch a Web site to help the poor people of Zimbabwe find disease-related information — because their government not only would do nothing to curb the epidemic, it also conceals crucial information from the citizenry

  • U.K. to train workers in counter-terrorism

    Home Office says 60,000 U.K. workers will be trained in counterterrorism so they can assist in responding to terror incidents; the trained workers will augment the existing force of 3,000 dedicated counterterrorism police officers

  • North Dakota EMS employees use disaster money for booze

    Nearly $200,000 of the roughly $810,000 the Bismarck, North Dakota-based EMS group received between 2004 and last year to help produce a plan to fight bioterrorism and other mass disasters was used on “unallowable or questionable” items

  • New Madrid fault system may be shutting down

    Researchers find that the New Madrid fault system, which includes parts of Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Kentucky, is shutting down; major earthquake in the region may be avoided

  • New York City is especially vulnerable to rise in sea level

    Although low-lying Florida and Western Europe are often considered the most vulnerable to sea level changes, the northeast U.S. coast is particularly vulnerable because the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is susceptible to global warming

  • U.K. looking for a single search and rescue helicopter fleet

    The U.K. Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Transportation are planning to acquire one helicopter for both military and domestic search and rescue missions; the single SAR fleet of aircraft will succeed the existing service in 2012

  • Cost of bioterror false alarms, anthrax hoaxes rises

    The U.S. government has spent more than $50 billion since the 2001 anthrax attacks to beef up U.S. defenses against biological attacks; there has not been another attack so far, but the cost of hoaxes and false alarms is rising steeply