• 9/11 Survivors’ Exposure to Toxic Dust and the Chronic Health Conditions That Followed Offer Lessons That Are Still Too Often Unheeded

    After the 9/11 attack, more than 100,000 responders and recovery workers from every U.S. state – along with some 400,000 residents and other workers around ground zero – were exposed to a toxic cloud of dust that fell as a ghostly, thick layer of ash and then hung in the air for more than three months. The World Trade Center dust plume consisted of a dangerous mixture of cement dust and particles, asbestos and a class of chemicals called persistent organic pollutants. The dust also contained heavy metals that are known to be poisonous to the human body and brain, such as lead and mercury, and PCB.

  • Iran Nuclear Weapons Breakout Time Remains at Zero

    A new report from the Institute for Science and International Security summarizes and assesses information in the (IAEA) quarterly safeguards report for 7 September 2022. The main finding: Iran’s breakout time, that is, the time between a political decision to produce a nuclear weapon and the completion of such weapon, remains at zero.

  • How to Prevent, Prepare for, and Respond to Mass Attacks

    What can people do right now to protect their communities from mass shootings? Researchers at RAND have spent two years working to answer that question. They looked at 640 mass attack plots that endangered, or would have endangered, four or more people in a public place between 1995 and 2020. More than half were thwarted before anyone got hurt—and in two-thirds of those cases, it was because of a tip from the public.

  • Reducing Wildfire Danger

    With the climate crisis increasing the risk of wildfires in the UK and many other parts of northern Europe, scientists from across the world are sharing their expertise to help tackle the dangers.

  • The Oath Keepers Data Leak: Unmasking Extremism in Public Life

    A data leak revealed the information of thousands of people whose names were in an Oath Keepers database as having paid for a membership at some point. The Oath Keepers are an anti-government extremist group associated with the militia movement.

  • Two Constables, Four Police Chiefs and More Than 3,000 other Texans Were Members of the Oath Keepers: Report

    A recent analysis of Oath Keepers’ membership rolls leaked last year found that Texas had more members of the far-right extremist group than any other state — and the most who worked as elected officials, law enforcement officers or members of the military.

  • Does the U.S. Economy Benefit from U.S. Alliances and Forward Military Presence?

    To what extent does conflict in other regions affect the U.S. economy, even when the United States remains a nonbelligerent state? To what extent does U.S. military engagement abroad suppress conflict? To what extent does U.S. military engagement abroad impact U.S. peacetime trade and investment with other countries? To what extent does U.S. military engagement abroad increase U.S. economic welfare?

  • Reliance on Dual-Use Technology is a Trap

    The current approach to promoting the use of emerging technology by the Pentagon is for emerging technology companies to work with the Department of Defense is to build commercial applications first and only then move into defense. But the notion of developing “technologies for the commercial market first and only then slap some green paint on them so that they can begin exploring the U.S. defense market” is untenable, Jake Chapman writes. “A better solution would enable entrepreneurs to focus on solving defense challenges by making the Department of Defense a better customer.”

  • What Would It Take to Survive an EMP Attack?

    We are increasingly vulnerable to both natural disruptions and military attacks on our power grids. An electromagnetic pulse impulses (EMPs) would destroy your electronics, leaving you and your surroundings intact — but without easy means of survival. Remember, almost all conventional power sources and the entire internet would be knocked out and might take many months to replace.

  • Protecting National Public Warning System from EMPs

    DHS released a report of operational approaches to protect the National Public Warning System from an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The report summarizes recommendations that federal, state, local agencies, and private sector critical infrastructure owners and operators can employ to protect against the effects of an EMP event.

  • Risks of North Korean Chemical, Biological Weapons; EMP; and Cyber Threats

    What WMD and cyber capabilities does North Korea currently have? How does North Korea use or threaten to use these capabilities? What are North Korea’s goals in employing its WMD and cyber capabilities? What impact could this use have? How can the ROK-U.S. rein in and defeat the North’s WMD and cyber capabilities?

  • A Protein Could Prevent Chemical Warfare Attack

    A team of scientists has designed a synthetic protein that quickly detects molecules of a deadly nerve agent that has been classified by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction and could be used in a chemical warfare attack.

  • Why Outlawing Ghost Guns Didn’t Stop America’s Largest Maker of Ghost Gun Parts

    Unregistered, unserialized weapons produced with Polymer80 parts have turned up at crime scenes across the country, but state-level efforts to close ghost gun loopholes continue to fall short.

  • Five Facts About Mass Shootings in K-12 Schools

    Preventing mass shootings in the United States, particularly those occurring in school settings, is an important priority for families, government leaders and officials, public safety agencies, mental health professionals, educators, and local communities. What does the evidence say about how to detect, prevent, and respond to these tragic events?

  • Artificial Intelligence and Policing: It’s a Matter of Trust

    From Robocop to Minority Report, the intersection between policing and artificial intelligence has long captured attention in the realm of high-concept science fiction.AI is currently primarily used for statistical inferencing used to make (or inform) decisions—in other words, technology that falls broadly into the category of “predictive policing.”