• "Gravity tractor" could deflect asteroids, protect Earth

    Spacecrafts have a weak gravitational pull; new NASA study says that if an asteroid was menacing Earth and was more than one orbit away from the potential impact, then deploying such a space craft — in effect, a gravity tractor — near the approaching asteroid would deflect the threatening object and save Earth

  • New simulation tool for handling hazardous situations

    Irish, Israeli companies develop new simulation tool which immerse trainees in a scene which has been designed for them; new tool will help first responders and law enforcement familiarize themselves with situations before they occur

  • Boeing chooses Qinetiq for Vulture program

    Vulture is a pseudo-satellite system aiming to provide operational advantages in terms of persistent intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and communications

  • Security research

    Imperial College London launches the Institute for Security Science and Technology; new outfit will research techniques for preventing identity theft to safeguarding transport infrastructure, energy supplies, and communication networks

  • TSA testing shoe scanning technology

    he Transportation Security Administration is testing show scanning machines from L2 Communications; this is a step toward eventually allowing passengers to keep their shoes on when they go through the security checkpoint

  • Breakthrough: First commercial quantum cryptography chip

    The future of (at least theoretically) completely secure communication nears as Siemens and two European research centers claim to have developed the first quantum cryptography chip for commercial use

  • New device puts an end to luggage hell

    Two Israelis develop an electronic tag which allows passengers “talk” with luggage as it arrives on thebaggage carousel; device can also be used to track kids and family members in a mall

  • Army's Future Combat System on fast track

    The U.S. Army may be stretched, but it is moving ahead at fast pace on its futuristic Future Combat System; also, the Army’s Brigade Combat Team modularity will be 70 percent complete by the end of 2008 — the largest organizational transformation since the Second World War

  • U.K. UAV competition

    The U.K. Ministry of Defence is holding its Grand Challenge, which calls for the design of a platform with a high degree of autonomy that can detect, identify, monitor, and report a comprehensive range of military threats in an urban environment

  • U.K. says country is a good place for scientific research

    U.K. government body releases a reference work showing major research infrastructures, including light sources, research ships, innovative laboratories, and social data sets

  • Midwest floods to create record dead zone in Gulf of Mexico

    Each year, an influx of nutrients — mainly nitrogen — which come from fertilizers flushed out of the Mississippi basin creates dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico — zones where there is not enough oxygen to sustain life; the summer’s Midwest floods flush record levels of nutrients into the Gulf, creating a dead zone the size of New Jersey

  • New way to purify water

    Water-attracting materials seem to repel impurities, thus leaving a layer of pure water near their surface; making tubes from these particle-excluding materials would allow for a new way to purify water — if, for now, in relatively small quantities

  • New, quick method for identifying food-borne diseases

    European researchers have developed a system which prepares samples and performs DNA tests on the salmonella and campylobacter bacteria in a portable and cost-effective chip

  • Better picture of what lies beneath the Earth's surface

    A tool which measures minute changes in the planet’s gravity field from the air allows a cheaper alternative to seismic surveying

  • NASA's UAV helps fight California wild fires

    Fire crews are fighting more than 1,700 blazes that have blackened 829,000 acres of California this fire season; they need all the help they can get — and NASA extends such help by lending the state a modified Predator UAV