• How high is the risk of civilization-killing asteroids?

    Planetary bombardments: scientists at a planets meeting discuss the risks of an asteroid colliding with Earth; researchers are worried about asteroid Apophis, which will come uncomfortably close to Earth on 13 April 2029; one scientist said that “It’s 10 times more likely that an unknown asteroid will slam into us from behind while you’re looking at Apophis”

  • Imagining new threats -- and countering them

    DHS air transport security lab is in the business of imagining new threats — then developing the technologies to counter them; their dream? To build a “tunnel of truth” in each airport lined with hidden sensors, scanners, and rays; passengers would get zapped and sniffed as they passed, and would not need to take off their shoes, toss their liquids, or anything else

  • Using a giant light-gas gun to blast object into space

    Former scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) launch a company dedicated to, well, launching objects into space by using a giant gun; with a barrel 1.1-kilometers long, it uses compressed hydrogen gas to fire projectiles weighing 450-kilogram at six kilometers per second

  • Raytheon to export new ray gun

    Skin-heating Silent Guardian has attracted negative commentary from its earliest development days, and repeated requests for it from U.S. commanders overseas have thus been denied; foreign governments do not have such qualms

  • IBM's wants to make food smarter

    Big Blue offers systems for tracing the raw materials of food products through “an increasingly complex global supply chain”

  • New DARPA director seeks to deepen relations with universities

    Under the Bush administration, the relationship between DARPA, the Pentagon’s research arm, and leading U.S. universities became strained; the new director has embarked on a tour of university campuses to re-energize the government-academia cooperation in defense research

  • Penny-size nuclear battery developed

    Small nuclear battery, intended to power various micro/nanoelectromechanical systems, provides power density that is six orders of magnitude higher than chemical batteries

  • Day of charged-particles engine nears

    A Texas rocket company tests world’s most powerful ion engine; the engine uses radio waves to heat argon gas, turning it into a hot plasma — a state of matter in which electrons are no longer bound to atomic nuclei; magnetic fields then squirt the superheated plasma out the back of the engine, producing thrust in the opposite direction

  • Strap-on UGV kit

    Now you can turn you car into a UGV (unmanned ground vehicle): A retrofit from a Utah company allows you to turn your car into a UGV in about four hours

  • Indonesian experts: Dense soil, light materials vital for sturdier buildings

    In the wake of last Wednesday’s devastating earthquake in Indonesia, experts call for more care in choosing sites for new buildings and communities; key factor: the stability of the soil; “If you build the foundation 20 to 30 meters deep, then you need very dense soil,” an expert said

  • Princeton, Rice researchers develop new sensor for nitric oxide

    Researchers develop new nitric oxide detector; the sensor could now be incorporated into a portable, shoe-box-sized system ideally suited for mass deployment in large-scale unattended sensor networks

  • New advanced sensors developed

    Queen’s University Belfast researchers use Raman spectroscopy, which involves shining a laser beam onto the suspected sample and measuring the energy of light that scatters from it to determine what chemical compound is present; they mixed nanoscale silver particles to amplify the signals of compounds

  • U.S. military jets, vehicles to run on biofuels and animal-corpse grease

    Honeywell says the U.S. Air Force will buy 400,000 gallons of algae/weeds/corpse-fat jet fuel, and the U.S. Navy will take 190,000 gallons

  • Smiths Detection, AeroVironment show chemical-sensing UAV

    UAV technology combined with chemical sensors and advanced algorithms allow rapid aerial chemical detection and tracking

  • Wearable textile antenna for soldiers, first responders

    Finnish company demonstrated that an antenna can be built using textiles that can be worn and used for personal satellite communication