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Assessing landslide risk
Researchers develop new technique for assessing areas most at risk from landslides
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Midwest floods threaten IT infrastructure
More than 100 blocks in the Cedar Falls’s downtown are underwater and 3,900 homes have been evacuated; companies must cope with the threat of rising water to IT infrastructure
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Flood protection call for utilities
Twelve months after the devastating U.K. floods a government agency says much more must be done to tackle the vulnerability of buildings such as power stations and hospitals to flooding
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Botnet cyberattack costs Japanese company 300 million yen
There is a new type of blackmail in Japan: Hackers use botnets in denial-of-service attacks on companies’ computers — ending the attacks only when hefty ransom is paid
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FEMA will be aggregator/gateway for CMAS
FEMA said it will be the aggregator and gateway for the Commercial Mobile Alert System, a voluntary nationwide emergency alert system
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FEMA announces fiscal year 2008 CEDAP application period
FEMA is open to applications from state and local emergency services for funding the purchase of emergency equipment; $16 million in funding will be awarded, and the application period ends at the end of the month
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Breakthrough: Reading fingerprints even after they are gone
The name is Bond, John Bond (of Leicester University, that is): Researchers at Leicester develop a fingerprints visualization technique which would allow reading a fingerprint even after the print itself has been removed; new method would allow solving decade-old unsolved cases
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Stretchy spider silks can be springs or rubber
Spider silk is stronger than steel and nylon, and more extensible than Kevlar; it would be ideal for personal protective gear for soldiers and law enforcement, and medical applications; “would be ideal” — because we do not yet know how to spin artificial silk; Canadian scientists have interesting ideas
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EU funds disaster modeling project
Do people from different countries and cultures behave differently during disasters — for example, when evacuating a burning building? EU-funded research aims to find out whether different disaster-behavior patterns should influence the design of buildings and the fashioning of emergency policies
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OSHA issues guidance regarding storage of face masks, respirators
OSHA requests comments on proposed guidance on workplace stockpiling of respirators and face masks for pandemic influenza
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Florida stocks cyanide antidote
Minute quantities of cyanide in smoke contribute to the death from smoke inhalation of 10,000 civilian and firefighter in the United States each year; Florida emergency services decide that emergency units will now be equipped with cyanide antidote
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Iranian-born U.S. citizen charged with nuclear smuggling
The Iranian-born engineer worked for seventeen years at Palo Verde nuclear plant, about fifty miles west of downtown Phoenix, the largest U.S. nuclear plant; he loaded software onto his laptop, and took the laptop to Iran
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But will it work, Sir?
There are many different combat and defensive techniques, and each has some merit, some application, some innovation; the question that must be asked is: will this technique work when the ultimate test arrives and it must be used in real time?
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New grants to create fabrics which render toxic chemicals harmless
New fabrics made of functional nanofibers would decompose toxic industrial chemicals into harmless byproducts; potential applications include safety gear for soldiers and first responders —and filtration systems for buildings and vehicles
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Fighting crime in Mexico, gadget at a time
Security companies are flocking to Mexico’s capital to sell some high-tech peace of mind
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The long view
AI-Controlled Fighter Jets May Be Closer Than We Think — and Would Change the Face of Warfare
Could we be on the verge of an era where fighter jets take flight without pilots – and are controlled by artificial intelligence (AI)? US R Adm Michael Donnelly recently said that an upcoming combat jet could be the navy’s last one with a pilot in the cockpit.
What We’ve Learned from Survivors of the Atomic Bombs
Q&A with Dr. Preetha Rajaraman, New Vice Chair for the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
Need for National Information Clearinghouse for Cybercrime Data, Categorization of Cybercrimes: Report
There is an acute need for the U.S. to address its lack of overall governance and coordination of cybercrime statistics. A new report recommends that relevant federal agencies create or designate a national information clearinghouse to draw information from multiple sources of cybercrime data and establish connections to assist in criminal investigations.
Autonomous Weapon Systems: No Human-in-the-Loop Required, and Other Myths Dispelled
“The United States has a strong policy on autonomy in weapon systems that simultaneously enables their development and deployment and ensures they could be used in an effective manner, meaning the systems work as intended, with the same minimal risk of accidents or errors that all weapon systems have,” Michael Horowitz writes.
Twenty-One Things That Are True in Los Angeles
To understand the dangers inherent in deploying the California National Guard – over the strenuous objections of the California governor – and active-duty Marines to deal with anti-ICE protesters, we should remind ourselves of a few elementary truths, writes Benjamin Wittes. Among these truths: “Not all lawful exercises of authority are wise, prudent, or smart”; “Not all crimes require a federal response”; “Avoiding tragic and unnecessary confrontations is generally desirable”; and “It is thus unwise, imprudent, and stupid to take actions for performative reasons that one might reasonably anticipate would increase the risks of such confrontations.”
Luigi Mangione and the Making of a ‘Terrorist’
Discretion is crucial to the American tradition of criminal law, Jacob Ware and Ania Zolyniak write, noting that “lawmakers enact broader statutes to empower prosecutors to pursue justice while entrusting that they will stay within the confines of their authority and screen out the inevitable “absurd” cases that may arise.” Discretion is also vital to maintaining the legitimacy of the legal system. In the prosecution’s case against Luigi Mangione, they charge, “That discretion was abused.”