• How to protect Times Square -- and other highly traveled areas

    New Yorkers were lucky that a T-shirt vendor notices the suspicious SUV left by Faisal Shazad in Times Square, but there are ways to improve on luck in trying to secure highly traveled areas; more coordinated CCTV system, blast-mitigation, and more call boxes are a few of the measures

  • Karachi airport screeners stop man wearing therapeutic vibro-shoes

    Pakistani airport security screeners stop a man wearing therapeutic vibro-shoes; X-ray operators were alarmed to note batteries and circuitry built into the soles of his shoes, but the gadgetry is meant to deliver soothing foot massage, not to explode a bomb

  • Non-toxic cleaners for terrorist attacks

    Traditional chlorine- and lye-based cleaning agents are potentially hazardous and can react with chemical weapons and other materials in the environment to form new toxic substances; military researchers non-toxic, ultra-strength cleaners that could be used in the aftermath of a terrorist attack; the peroxide-based “green” decontaminants are tough enough to get rid of nerve gas, mustard gas, radioactive isotopes, and anthrax

  • New sensor speeds water analysis

    New sensor creates a single procedure for in-situ monitoring of chlorinated hydrocarbons in water, obviating the need for laboratory-based technologies for the analysis of water contaminants, which are time consuming, labor intensive and expensive

  • Taliban uses poisonous gas in attack on Kabul girls school

    The Taliban continues its violent campaign against girls’ education in Afghanistan; the Taliban’s latest tactics; poisonous gas attacks on girls’ schools, aiming to scare students and teachers; in mid-April the Taliban attacked three girls’ schools in northern Afghanistan; yesterday, the Taliban attacked a school in the middle of Kabul; twenty-two students and three teachers were hospitalized

  • Planned security network for Lower Manhattan would not have identified bomber

    New York City plans to install a protection system in Lower Manhattan which will consist of surveillance cameras, license plate readers, and chemical sensors; the system will be able to record and track every vehicle moving between 34th and 59th Streets, river to river; because neither the S.U.V. used in the attempt last Saturday nor the license plate on it had been reported stolen, it would not have raised any immediate red flags

  • EU to lift ban of on-board liquids by 2013

    EU airports will be required to install new technology at checkpoints capable of detecting liquid explosives; the goal is to lift the ban on liquids taken on board by 2013; U.S. TSA has begun discussions with software companies about upgrading existing screening equipment so that it can detect liquid explosives

  • Source of radioactive poisoning in India found; nuclear watchdog seeks explanation

    Indian investigators find source of the cobalt-60 which poisoned several scrap-metal facility employees (one of them died last week): Delhi University bought a gamma irradiation machine from Canada in 1970 for use in experiments by chemistry students; the machine, which had not been used since the mid-1980s, was sold at an auction in February; scientists say that although the radioactive substance in the machine had decayed, it was of high intensity

  • Hiding explosives in plain sight: Searchers thrown off by multiple targets

    Researchers find that one strategy a terrorist might adopt is to carry explosives on his body - and liquid jell in his luggage; screeners would likely spot the jell, ask the passenger-terrorist to discard it - and, subconsciously influenced by “satisfaction of search,” move on to screen the next passenger; the research suggests that security might be improved if the screeners worked in a space where they could not see how many travelers were waiting in line and therefore did not feel pressure to hurry with the searches

  • DHS IG identifies weaknesses in airport passenger screening

    DHS IG inspects the operation of advanced passenger scanning technologies in sixteen unnamed U.S. airport, and reports: “We identified vulnerabilities in the screening process at the passenger screening checkpoint at the eight domestic airports we conducted testing”

  • Detecting sweaty, smelly security threats

    DARPA wants to be able to detect, track, and even positively identify them from a distance — and do so using nothing more than the heat and sweat that emanate from a person’s pores; DARPA envisions myriad civilian applications for the technology, including “identifying and tracking persons from the scenes of various crimes”

  • Taliban suspected in poisonous gas attacks on female Afghan students

    The Taliban is suspected in three separate poisonous gas attacks on girls schools in northern Afghanistan; eighty-eight girls were admitted to hospitals with what doctors describe as symptoms associated with “unknown gasses”; the Taliban banned education for women during its rule from 1996 to 2001, and girls education is still a controversial issue in Afghanistan today

  • How much radiation can the human body take?

    Radiation doses are measured in sieverts; each year we receive an average of 2.4 millisieverts from natural sources such as radon; the threshold for an early death is around 2 sieverts, and death is highly likely at 6 sieverts

  • Scent of a man: Odor-killing machine for hunters may aid terrorists

    A Texas-based company has developed a device for hunters which eliminates human odor, thus allowing hunters to get much closer to their prey unnoticed; trouble is, the same device may be used by terrorists to destroy the odor of explosives, thus allowing them to evade bomb-sniffing dogs at airports

  • Laser decontamination for post-chemical attacks, accident clean-up

    Many building materials — like cement and brick — are extremely porous; getting contaminants off surfaces like these is difficult, since they can inhabit cracks and pores; cleaning up chemical-contaminated structures can be difficult, costly, and time-consuming; what if terrorists attacked an urban center with chemicals? Researchers say the answer is to use laser to decontaminate an area after a terrorist attack or an industrial accident