• The near future will see self-cleaning materials, water-striding robots

    Researchers at the University of Nebraska and Japan explain a property called super hydrophobia, in the process giving engineers and materials scientists important clues as to how to develop the long-sought super hydrophobic materials

  • Surge in armored car sales in Brazil

    Brazilians have to live with exceedingly high levels of crime — in the late 1990s, for example, the UN ranked the Jardim Ângela section of São Paulo as the most violent neighborhood in the world — at the same time that government agencies, owing to corruption or incompetence, fail to provide security; São Paulo leads the country — and the world — in making and selling armored cars; tax breaks now allow the middle class to buy protection which once was the reserve of the rich

  • Republican oppose Safran's FBI contract

    Republicans legislators express opposition to the FBI awarding a large biometric contract to French company Safran; the company is partly owned by the French government

  • Dutch police uses unmanned mini-helicopter to sniff out cannabis

    Police in the noerthwest region of the Netherlands asked their engineers to design an unmanned helicopter to hover over the region and sniff out traces of weed smell in the air samples it collects; new methods does not require a warrant to enter buildings

  • Al-Qaeda plea deal details communication methods

    Last week Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri entered a plea deal in Illinois in which he admitted to entering the United States on 10 September 2001 in order to form a sleeper cell for future terrorist activities; plea details Al-Qaeda’s communication methods

  • Terrorist incidents, fatalities outside Iraq increase in 2008

    The security situation in Iraq improved in 2008, but outside Iraq there were more terrorist incidents and more fatalities as a result of these incidents; Pakistan is rapidly being engulfed by terror: in 2007 there were 890 incidents which killed 1,340 people; in 2008, 1,839 incidents which killed 2,293 people

  • U.S. Navy nears decision on Littoral Combat Ship

    The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) will help the U.S. Navy counter growing “asymmetric” threats like coastal mines, quiet diesel submarines, global piracy, and terrorists on small fast attack boats; two teams — one led by General Dynamics, the other by Lockheed Martin — compete for a contract that could be worth more than $30 billion when all is said and done

  • Blast-proof CCTV tested by DHS's S&T

    CCTVs help the police identify terrorists who perpetrate an attack; trouble is, the blast set by the terrorists may destroy the camera and its video; there are two solutions: the more expensive one is a real-time streaming-video CCTV which sends images back to HQ until the moment the camera is destroyed; the cheaper alternative is an indestructible video CCTV

  • Organized crime threat to U.S. economy, national security

    After 9/11, many law enforcement and intelligence agencies turned their attention to the fight against terrorism; a new report from CRS says that evolving organized crime threatens U.S. national security and the economy as it grows increasingly transnational

  • Chertoff: biological weapons biggest terrorist threat

    Chertoff: “The natural ingredients of a biological threat are not difficult to come by, and it’s just a question of the know-how in terms of fabricating them to make a weapon”

  • U.K. science community welcomes Rose Review of primary curriculum

    The body representing the U.K.’s foremost science education organizations said it welcomed the publication the other day of the Rose Review which suggested reforms of of the entire primary science curriculum

  • U.K. government in £100 million scheme to promote new ideas, products

    U.K. government launches a new 100 million scheme — the Small Business Research Initiative — to encourage public-sector organizations to invite British companies to submit ideas and develop technologies, which the public-sector organization could then buy to help improve public services

  • Drug cartels now use ultralight aircraft to smuggle drug into U.S.

    The drug cartels south of the U.S. border have a new weapon in their arsenal: Ultralight aircraft; these ultralights can carry up to 300 pounds of narcotics

  • US-CERT warns of swine flu-related phishing scams

    The swine flu outbreak is about two weeks old, but criminals are already e-mailing millions of phishing e-mails which purport to offer the latest information about the disease

  • Radioactive spills in Scotland

    U.K. Ministry of Defense reveals a series of serious radioactive leaks in 2004, 2007, and 2008 into the Firth of Clyde