• First batch of swine flu vaccine shipped

    Connecticut-based company ships first batch — 100,000 doses — of its swine flu vaccine; Protein Sciences Corporation uses insect cell technology to develop the vaccine

  • U Michigan students develop portable device to detect suicide bombers

    Wolverines engineering graduate students develop a small, light, cheap, and effective IED and suicide-bomber detector; the detectors are designed to be part of a wireless sensor network that conveys to a base station where suspicious objects are located and who might be carrying them

  • Using cloth to protect military vehicles from RPGs

    British company shows a newly developed textile which is strong enough to protect battle-field vehicles from RPGs

  • GAO unimpressed with new radiation detectors

    The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommended further testing of next-generation radiation detectors; at more than $800,000 apiece, the new devices cost nearly 300 percent more than the machines in operation

  • Hiding buildings from earthquakes

    The seismic waves of an earthquake fall into two main groups: body waves that propagate through the Earth, and surface waves that travel only across the surface; invisibility cloaks could be used to make buildings invisible to surface waves

  • Method discovered to process encrypted data without knowing its content

    IBM researcher solves thorny mathematical problem that has confounded scientists since the invention of public-key encryption several decades ago; the breakthrough makes possible the analysis of encrypted information — data that has been intentionally scrambled — without sacrificing confidentiality

  • Trust but verify, II

    British and Norwegian scientists ran the first field trials of a device that could solve the problem of reliable verification: a gamma ray detector linked to a hand-held “information barrier”

  • U.K. government: Best cyber defense is cyber offense

    New National Security Strategy document includes, for the first time, a public cyber security strategy; unnamed high government source: “We don’t want to engage in cyber war but we can’t remain a target for criminals to take a pop at”

  • Licensing cybersecurity professionals, II

    Even with all the unanswered questions, some cybersecurity experts are happy just to be having the conversation on the topic; they say that all the focus on cybersecurity will turn more attention on training and certification efforts

  • Iran tests radar-evading UAV

    Commander of the Iranian air force says the service has successfully tested a home-grown, radar-evading UAV; the UAV is intended for both surveillance and bombing missions

  • Army lab find 9,220 uncatalogued vials of Ebola, anthrax, and plague

    U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Fort Detrick, Maryland finds 9,220 unregistered vials of Ebola, anthrax, plague, and other pathogens

  • Licensing cybersecurity professionals, I

    There is a move in Congress to require the Commerce Department to develop or coordinate and integrate a national licensing, certification, and periodic recertification program for cybersecurity professionals

  • Global Security Challenge's final to be held 13 November

    The deadline for submission of entries to the Global Security Challenge open competition is over; now we wait to see the regional winners who will gather in London on 13 November

  • BAE promotes intelligence, security start-ups

    BAE’s inviting SMEs in the intelligence and security sector to come forward with innovative technologies as part of its Investment in Innovation program

  • USAF looks for more discriminating UAVs

    The increased use of UAVs in Pakistan has also increased the number of civilians being killed in attacks on insurgents; one of the main reasons is the fact that the least powerful munition they fire is Hellfire missiles, which are intended to puncture the tough armor of tanks; USAF plans to build smaller, even microscopic drones with smaller weapons that can hunt in swarms and engage targets in the close quarters of urban battlefields