• FEMA will be aggregator/gateway for CMAS

    FEMA said it will be the aggregator and gateway for the Commercial Mobile Alert System, a voluntary nationwide emergency alert system

  • FEMA announces fiscal year 2008 CEDAP application period

    FEMA is open to applications from state and local emergency services for funding the purchase of emergency equipment; $16 million in funding will be awarded, and the application period ends at the end of the month

  • The larger the organization, the more prepared it is

    Business continuity planning was seen as a priority by 71 percent of U.S. companies, 80 percent of companies had a business continuity plan; as company size increases, so does the likelihood that companies have a continuity plan

  • Stretchy spider silks can be springs or rubber

    Spider silk is stronger than steel and nylon, and more extensible than Kevlar; it would be ideal for personal protective gear for soldiers and law enforcement, and medical applications; “would be ideal” — because we do not yet know how to spin artificial silk; Canadian scientists have interesting ideas

  • EU funds disaster modeling project

    Do people from different countries and cultures behave differently during disasters — for example, when evacuating a burning building? EU-funded research aims to find out whether different disaster-behavior patterns should influence the design of buildings and the fashioning of emergency policies

  • Florida stocks cyanide antidote

    Minute quantities of cyanide in smoke contribute to the death from smoke inhalation of 10,000 civilian and firefighter in the United States each year; Florida emergency services decide that emergency units will now be equipped with cyanide antidote

  • Avian flu by the numbers

    Two Los Alamos National Laboratory theorists have developed a mathematical tool which could help health experts and crisis managers determine in real time whether an emerging infectious disease such as avian influenza H5N1 is poised to spread globally

  • Insurers are warned to prepare for hurricane season

    NOAA updated forecast calls for 12 to 16 named storms between 1 June and 30 November; says Impact Forecasting’s Steven Drews: “insurance and reinsurance buyers must remember that any storm can cause massive destruction”

  • New grants to create fabrics which render toxic chemicals harmless

    New fabrics made of functional nanofibers would decompose toxic industrial chemicals into harmless byproducts; potential applications include safety gear for soldiers and first responders —and filtration systems for buildings and vehicles

  • Grasshopper robot breaks high-jump record

    Researchers develop small - very small: it is 5 centimeters tall and weighs just 7 grams — hopping robot; swarms of such hopping robots could spread out to explore disaster areas, or even the surfaces of other planets

  • Fighting crime in Mexico, gadget at a time

    Security companies are flocking to Mexico’s capital to sell some high-tech peace of mind

  • Power plants open to hacker attack

    Power plants, dams, and many other critical infrastructure assets are controlled by a system called supervisory control and data acquisition, or SCADA; a Boston technology specialist finds serious vulnerability in the system

  • Civilian nuclear facilities in Sichuan confirmed safe

    The Chinese government has identified 32 radioactive sources in the earthquake-devastated Sichuan area - hospitals, research centers, factories, but no power plants; 30 sources have already been located and removed; the two remaining sources have been cordoned off and are being excavated

  • Alarming open-source security holes found

    A programming error introduced serious security vulnerabilities in millions of computer systems; many systems affected

  • Chinese lakes may burst

    Last Monday’s earthquake, and subsequent aftershocks, weaken large dam and raise fears of man-made lake bursting, causing massive floods in the already ravaged region