• Mass Shootings: Trends, Effective Prevention, Policy Recommendations

    In the last decade, thousands have been killed or injured as a result of mass violence in the United States. Such acts take many forms, including family massacres, terrorist attacks, shootings, and gang violence. Yet it is indiscriminate mass public shootings, often directed at strangers, that has generated the most public alarm. Now, 41 scholars have contributed 16 articles on the topic to a special issue of Criminology & Public Policy.

  • Glaciers May Offer Safe Sites for Nuclear Waste Storage

    New insights into rates of bedrock erosion by glaciers around the world will help to identify better sites for the safe storage of nuclear waste. The findings of a new research overturn earlier research, showing that erosion rates do not increase with the speed of glacier flow as quickly as previously anticipated.

  • The Iraq War Has Cost the U.S. Nearly $2 Trillion

    By Neta C. Crawford

    Even if the U.S. administration decided to leave — or was evicted from — Iraq immediately, the bill of war to the U.S. to date would be an estimated $1,922 billion in current dollars. This figure includes not only funding appropriated to the Pentagon explicitly for the war, but spending on Iraq by the State Department, the care of Iraq War veterans and interest on debt incurred to fund 16 years of U.S. military involvement in the country.

  • Pentagon Deployment of New, “More Usable” Nuclear Weapon Is a Grave Mistake

    The Pentagon on Tuesday acknowledged that it has deployed a new, sea-based nuclear warhead capability. The move — first reported last week by the Federation of American Scientists — is the first in the Trump administration’s multibillion-dollar, multi-decade plan to replace and expand U.S. nuclear weapons capabilities. Daryl G. Kimball writes that the administration’s stated rationale for the new weapon is deeply flawed, and the decision to field the device only heightens the danger of escalation.

  • London's Latest Terror Attack Shows Harsher Punishment Is Needed

    By The Telegraph

    On Sunday, 20-year old Sudesh Amman, who had been released from prison on 22 January after being jailed for terror-related offense, stabbed two people in a south London store before being shot and killed by the police. Amman served less than half his three-year, four-month sentence for terrorism offenses. The security services had concerns about his behavior, including language that suggested he continued to hold extremist views, but he had to be released under current laws. Calls are growing for changing these laws.

  • “Insider” Knowledge to Enhance Stability Operations in Remote Regions

    U.S. forces operating in remote, under-governed regions around the world often find that an area’s distinct cultural and societal practices are opaque to outsiders, but are obvious to locals. Commanders can be hindered from making optimal decisions because they lack knowledge of how local socio-economic, political, religious, health, and infrastructure factors interact to shape a specific community. DARPA’s Habitus program seeks to provide commanders with “insider” knowledge of local environments.

  • Safe, Effective Shipboard Firefighting

    Fire on board! This is a grave danger for any ship, but especially so when a ship is ostensibly safely docked in harbor – where “normal” firefighters are on duty and have to cope with the special challenges on board a ship. The countless types of vessels and their different structures coupled with the unique aspects of firefighting operations on the water present unusual and difficult operating conditions for traditional firefighters and involve many risks.

  • Longest Drug-Smuggling Tunnel Discovered under U.S.-Mexico Border

    Last week the DEA announced the discovery of the longest drug-smuggling tunnel ever to be found on – or, rather, under — the U.S.-Mexican border. The tunnel was more than 1.3 kilometers long, and it was dug 21 meters below the surface. It is equipped with rail cart system, elevator, high voltage electrical cables, ventilation, and a drainage system.

  • District-Level, Real-Time Crime Centers May Help Police Reduce Crime Levels

    District-level police crime centers that use technology such as remote cameras and analytic tools to support commanders’ strategic decision making may be able to help reduce crime, according to a new RAND report. Examining strategic decision support centers used by police in Chicago, researchers found that the approach was associated with statistically significant reductions in some types of crimes, including robberies and burglaries.

  • Why Are Cops around the World Using This Outlandish Mind-Reading Tool?

    By Ken Armstrong and Christian Sheckler

    The creator of Scientific Content Analysis, or SCAN, says the tool can identify deception. Law enforcement has used his method for decades, even though there’s no reliable science behind it. Even the CIA and FBI have bought in.

  • Building Standards Give Us False Hope. There's No Such Thing as a Fireproof House

    By Geoff Hanmer

    Bushfires have killed 33 people and destroyed nearly 3,000 houses across Australia so far this fire season. Canberra is under threat right now. It isn’t only houses. Significant commercial buildings have been destroyed, among them Kangaroo Island’s iconic Southern Ocean Lodge. In New South Wales alone, 140 schools have been hit. Many require extensive work. Trouble is, Australia’s National Construction Code provides false, and dangerous, hope. The sad truth is that any practical building that is exposed to an intense bushfire will probably burn down, whether it complies with Australia’s National Construction Code or not.

  • Preparing for the Big One: Oregon to Fund ShakeAlert

    With a vision for preparing the state for a large Cascadia earthquake, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced on Monday a resiliency agenda for the upcoming legislative session that would include $7.5 million in funding to the University of Oregon to build out the ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system.

  • Forensic Methods for Getting Data from Damaged Mobile Phones

    Criminals sometimes damage their mobile phones in an attempt to destroy evidence. They might smash, shoot, submerge or cook their phones, but forensics experts can often retrieve the evidence anyway. Now, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have tested how well these forensic methods work.

  • Science Helps Improve Eyewitness Testimony

    As we move through the world, looking at objects and people, we generally trust that we are accurately perceiving what’s out there. But research has shown that part of what we see sometimes originates in our own minds — that our brains fill in blanks in our vision based on our expectations or past experiences. Now science — and the insights it provides about the pitfalls in our vision and memory — is improving the way eyewitness testimony is taken and used.

  • It Is Now 100 Seconds to Midnight

    The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock is now closer to midnight than ever in its history. The Bulletin cites worsening nuclear threat, lack of climate action, and rise of “cyber-enabled disinformation campaigns” in moving the clock hand. December 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the first edition of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, initially a six-page, black-and-white bulletin and later a magazine, created in anticipation that the atom bomb would be “only the first of many dangerous presents from the Pandora’s Box of modern science.”