• New Bay Bridge span designed to endure major quake

    Twenty years ago a 250-ton section of the Bay Bridge fell into the water as a result of a 6.9 magnitude earthquake; the new bridge design will be able to withstand the largest plausible earthquake to occur within a 1,500-year period

  • Uganda to conduct Marburg and Ebola vaccine trials

    Ebola and Marburg are viral infections that have a high mortality, killing 90 percent of victims; no effective treatment exists for these highly infectious diseases, which cause extensive internal bleeding and rapid death

  • Asteroid collision: How to defend Earth, II

    Asteroid impacts are much rarer than hurricanes and earthquakes, but they have the potential to do much greater damage; moreover, what if an asteroid hits Earth in the Middle East or the Asian subcontinent? Such an event could be misinterpreted as a nuclear attack — both produce a bright flash, a blast wave, and raging winds; the result may be a nuclear war

  • TSB funds technology development

    The U.K. Technology Strategy Board will award £39.5 million investment to help U.K. businesses develop technologies that address global challenges

  • MIT researchers develop powerful object recognition system

    The new object recognition system could allow computers in the future automatically to search through hours of video footage for a particular two-minute scene; intelligence analysts should be happy

  • Michigan airport turns off Web site over malware risk

    The Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids temporarily pulled its site in response to an unspecified malware threat

  • Lockheed Martin show 360-degree IR sensor for better targeting

    The hand-launched Desert Hawk III is designed to operate in extreme temperatures and high altitudes and has provided the British Army with critical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities in Iraq and Afghanistan; it will now be equipped with an upgraded 360-degree color electro optic (E/O) sensor, providing 10 times continuous zoom capability and aiding in contact identification

  • Better targeting technology reduces civilian causalities

    New technology allows missiles an accuracy of 2 meter — meaning they never miss a target by more than that amount

  • Developing enzymes to clean up pollution by explosives

    Demolitions used in war, or on testing grounds, contaminate the soil; Canadian researchers develop an enzyme that cleans up such pollution

  • Home robots may be hackers' next target

    Home surveillance robots could be turned against their users, researchers say; few people have home robots now, but reliance on them grows for stay-at-home elderly and the sick

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  • 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”