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Worldwide Nuclear Power
For the last twenty years, nuclear power has provided about 16% of the world’s power needs; renewed interest in nuclear energy — energy
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Investigation into Italian mafia's trafficking of nuclear waste
Italian authorities are investigating charges that the Mafia was paid by the national nuclear research center to dispose of nuclear waste; informer says Mafia bought plutonium from the center and sold it to Iraq in the 1980s
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U.S., Mongolia in nuclear smuggling agreement
The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has equipped more than 160 sites — ports, border crossings — around the world with nuclear radiation detection equipment; Mongolia’s airports, border crossings are added to the list
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Satellite images show early stages of Syrian nuclear reactor
On 6 September Israel stealthily destroyed a target deep inside Syria; examination of satellite images taken of the site before it was destroyed leads independent experts to conclude that Syria might have been building a gas-graphite reactor of about 20 to 25 megawatts, similar to the reactor North Korea built at Yongbyon
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DHS to inspect small boats, private jets
DHS is turning its attention to better screening of private boats and planes entering the U.S.; small boat inspection to begin with a pilot program in San Diego
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CalTech researchers develop an electronic nose
CalTech’s Lewis Group researchers develop an electronic nose; it functions much as the mammalian olfactory sense, and may be used for industrial and security-related detection in which an odor or vapor may be the first signal of a malfunction
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Nation states, not only terrorist organizations, consider dirty bombs
Six decades ago the U.S. seriously considered including radiological weapons (“dirty bombs”) in its arsenal; Syria and Iran are doing so today; U.S. should have a dirty-bomb nonproliferation policy
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TSA awards $52 million for piloting different detection technologies
On the TSA’s shopping list: Advanced technology (AT) X-ray, automated explosives detection (auto-EDS) for security checkpoints, bottled liquid scanners, passive millimeter wave, and a cast/prosthetics screening device
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Hot chillies mistaken for chemical attack in London
Venerable Thai restaurant prepares extra-hot bird’s eye chillies as part of a six-month batch of nam prik pao; acrid smoke from the kitchen spreads through the Soho neighborhood, causing people to flee and emergency units to be dispatched
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DARPA works on equipping insects with reconnaissance gear
DARPA hopes cyborg insects with embedded microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) will run remotely controlled reconnaissance missions for the military and law enforcement
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Liquid explosives detection technology is almost here
After the plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airlines with liquid explosives was uncovered in London in August 2006, pressure has grown to find new ways to detect liquids in baggage and on airline passengers and figure out what they are
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DHS awards $33 million for radiation detection demonstrations
DHS wants a tehcnology which will be able to detect radiation from a distance — and determine the direction, flux, energy, and isotope of the detected radiation; three companies win the Stand-Off Radiation Detector System (SORDS) demonstration contracts
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DHS funds nuclear training
One-third of the current U.S. nuclear workforce will reach retirement in the next ten years; DHS joins with NSF to foster the training of the next generation of nuclear workers
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UC Berkeley to examine new methods of screening for nuclear materials
The Academic Research Initiative, a new DHS-NSF project, give a UC Berekeley scientists $1.4 million to develop new methods for screening for nuclear materials
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Smiths, GE call off JV
Smiths and GE thought that bringing their considerable detection know-how and assets together in a JV would create a mighty player in homeland security; but Smiths’s detection unit has been doing very well on its own, so the rationale for a JV was no longer as compelling
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The long view
What We’ve Learned from Survivors of the Atomic Bombs
Q&A with Dr. Preetha Rajaraman, New Vice Chair for the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.