• DARPA unveils details of Transformer TX flying car

    DARPA is inviting proposals for flying car and accompanying technologies; in addition to being a capable ground vehicle, the TX should be able to lift off and land “without forward motion” and thereafter climb at least one unit upward for every six moved forward at sea level, or a minimum of 1:10 at higher altitudes; it should cruise in forward flight mode at speeds “representative of a light single-engine aircraft” and be able to achieve altitudes of 10,000 feet

  • Violence in Mexico increases sharply as a drug cartel coalition is trying to destroy Los Zetas

    Drug-fueled triangle of death engulfs Rio Grande region; Mexico’s Gulf, La Familia, and Sinaloa drug cartels have formed an alliance in order to destroy Los Zetas — a group of mostly former and AWOL Mexican soldiers who began as a security and hit squad for the Gulf cartel, but last year broke from its employer

  • Northrop Grumman unveils latest version of Wheelbarrow UGV

    Northrop Grumman’s Wheelbarrow unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) was first used by British Army bomb disposal teams during “The Troubles” in Ireland in the 1970s; since then it has gone through a number of design upgrades to extend its capabilities and meet changing military and first response needs; the company has just unveiled the latest version of this veteran robot

  • Five full-body scanners to be used in Chile to catch drug traffickers

    Chile is deploying full-body scanner at border crossing along its border with Peru to prevent drug smuggling; during a 1-year test period, two million people were scanned, and 51 kilograms of cocaine, carried by 42 different border-crossers, seized

  • U.S. federal authorities fear surge of homegrown extremism

    DHS officials and lawmakers have been warning for months that law enforcement agencies are unprepared to deal with what they say is a mounting threat. Experts note that Michigan, in particular, is vulnerable because of its growing number of anti-government militia groups and the attractiveness of its large Arab-American population to radical Muslim groups

  • How do you quickly evacuate 70,000 sports fans from a stadium attacked by terrorists?

    Sports fan do not like to stand in a slow moving, snaking line to get into a stadium for a big game; they do not like inching forward in a long, snaking line to get out of the stadium at the end of the game; imagine what would happen if a bomb were to explode, or a chemical agent released, in stadium packed with 70,000 spectators; DHS Science & Technology Directorate is working in a solution

  • NYC takes extra measures to protect subway from terror

    The New York City’s subway system is a porous, 24-hour-a-day system with 468 stations and an average of 5 million riders a day; NYC security officials insist the city remains the nation’s No. 1 terror target, and they devote extra resources to protecting Wall Street, the Empire State Building, Brooklyn Bridge. and other high-profile potential targets; their biggest worry — spurred by the recent bombing in Moscow and a foiled plot in New York — is the subway

  • Mexican smugglers clone Border Patrol vehicles to evade detection

    There is a new twist in the on going war along the U.S.-Mexico border: Mexican smugglers now use “cloned” Border Patrol vehicles to smuggle drugs into the United States; there is an added danger here, as Mexican drug cartels have launched an assassination campaign against U.S. law enforcement personnel along the border; driving a Border Patrol look-alike vehicle allows the assailants to get closer to their targets without arousing suspicion

  • Mexico to disconnect millions of cellphones to fight crime

    In a desperate effort to curb crime, the Mexican government moves to disconnect 30 million unregistered cell phones; the government wants to be able to track cell phone calls and messages, so it passed a law requiring that cell phone users register their phones by sending in their personal information; most of Mexico’s 84 million mobile phones are prepaid handsets with a limited number of minutes of use; these units can be easily bought in stores and either discarded or have call minutes added to them; many have registered their phones, but as of last Thursday, 30 million had not

  • Security concerns hobble World Cup; FIFA fears games played in empty stadiums

    It looked like a good idea — hold the first World Cup tournament in Africa; FIFA, the world soccer governing body, selected South Africa — ignoring suggestions that rampant crime and violence in the country would deter soccer fans from coming; now, in a stunning admission, FIFA says 500,000 tickets are still unsold; professional event organizers say the number is much higher; in the United Kingdom, only 67,654 World Cup tickets have been sold — fewer than the number of fans who typically attend a Manchester United home game

  • Underwear sensors to monitor soldiers' health

    Biomedical health sensors may soon be embedded in soldiers’ underpants; researchers find that printing sensors directly on the elastic waist of underwear offered the necessary tight direct contact with the skin, allowing for continuous monitoring of soldiers’ vital signs

  • Duke University team develops nuclear terrorism detection tool

    If terrorists detonate a nuclear bomb or a dirty bomb in a city, first responders rushing to the scene would have to sort out the thousands of victims exposed to the harmful effects of radiation to see who needs more immediate attention and who can wait; current tests for radiation poisoning take a number of days to complete, which is too slow; Duke University researchers develop a device which uses genomic technology to capture molecular snapshots of genes or patterns of genes that are “turned on” or “turned off” in the body’s response to radiation; this allows emergency crews to determine the severity of radiation poisoning in under 30 minutes

  • India to build a hunter-killer UAV fleet; UAVs will come from Israel

    India is set to augment its fleet of reconnaissance UAVs with killer-hunter UAVs; the Indian military has been impressed with the effectiveness of the UAV campaign against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and wants to adopt the same approach to India’s problem with Muslim terrorists; Israel, which sold India the intelligence-gathering drones, will be the source of the attack UAVs as well

  • TV operators say FCC's broadband plan is a threat to homeland security

    The National Association of Broadcasters, a group that represents TV broadcasters, says that what it regards as the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) anti-broadcast, pro-broadband prejudice is a threat to homeland security: in the event of a national disaster, broadband service will overload and shut down because it is not meant to accommodate everyone’s data-communications needs at once

  • Uranium-mining nations ignore UN-mandated measures on nuclear terror

    In the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks and the 2004 uncovering of the Pakistan-based A. Q. Khan nuclear smuggling network, the United States pushed Resolution 1540 through the UN, which required states to impose strict security measures on nuclear materials and report on the progress they have made in this regard; many states have not bothered to report — almost all them in Africa; especially worrisome is the situation in Niger, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Malawi, and the Central African Republic