• Tech companies, telecoms clash over cybersecurity executive order

    Last August a cybersecurity bill died in Congress amid partisan bickering. On 12 February this year, President Obama packed many of that bill’s elements into a cybersecurity executive order. To make the order more acceptable to some of its congressional and industry critics, the president introduced an exemption which would take large technology companies off the list of companies subject to the new cybersecurity standards. This exemption placated some of the original cybersecurity bill’s critics, but angered others, chief among them telecommunication companies.

  • Precious metal recovery technique ideal for rare Earth elements purification

    Researchers have come up with a new approach to make the recovery of high value precious metals faster and more economically viable. The new technique could be ideal for the purification of rare earth elements, which are vital commodities for ‘green’ technologies such as hybrid cars and novel batteries.

  • New source for rare earth elements: discarded consumer products

    In a new twist on the state’s mining history, a group of Idaho scientists will soon be crushing consumer electronics rather than rocks in a quest to recover precious materials. Two national labs  in the state will apply expertise gained in recycling fissionable material from nuclear fuel to separate rare earth metals and other critical materials from crushed consumer products.

  • Norfolk, Virginia, tries to cope with sea-level rise

    Norfolk, Virginia, is home to the largest U.S. naval base in the country, and the second biggest commercial port on the U.S. Atlantic coast. Floods are an ever-present problem, a problem which has become worse in recent decades. The relative sea level around Norfolk has risen 14.5 inches (.37 meter) since 1930, when the low-lying downtown area routinely flooded. The frequency of storms-induced surges has increased as well.

  • The impact of sea-level rise on coastal military installations

    The Pentagon says that climate-related effects are already being observed at Department of Defense (DoD) installations in every region of the United States and its coastal waters. The effects of climate change will adversely impact military readiness and DoD natural and built infrastructure unless these risks are considered in DoD decisions. A new white paper developed by the Pentagon’s Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) identifies key climate-related policy questions that need to be addressed.

  • Volcanic aerosols, not pollutants, slowed recent Earth warming

    Researchers looking for clues about why Earth did not warm as much as scientists expected between 2000 and 2010 now thinks the culprits are hiding in plain sight — dozens of volcanoes spewing sulfur dioxide.

  • RFI for cybersecurity framework for critical infrastructure

    In his 12 February 2013 Executive Order, President Obama called for the development of a Cybersecurity Framework to reduce cyber risks to critical infrastructure such as power plants and financial, transportation, and communications systems. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) the other day issued a Request for Information (RFI) in the Federal Register as its first step in the process to developing that framework.

  • No gloom-and-doom: science does not back global tipping point view

    A group of international ecological scientists have rejected a doomsday-like scenario of sudden, irreversible change to the Earth’s ecology. The scientists argue that global-scale ecological tipping points are unlikely and that ecological change over large areas seem to follow a more gradual, smooth pattern.

  • New power engineering curriculum to help U.S. security, economy

    Nearly 40 percent of all energy consumed in the United States is first converted to electricity, with that figure expected to rise to as much as 70 percent in the future. Increasing the pipeline of graduates in electric power and energy has implications for both the country’s place in the global market and national defense. The more expertise there is at home, the less the United States will have to import talent and energy resources from overseas. An Office of Naval Research (ONR)-supported project is bringing sweeping changes to electric power and energy education at universities throughout the country, establishing first-time programs at some schools and bringing new courses and labs to others.

  • Report details history, earlier versions of Stuxnet

    In 2010, Symantec reported on a new and highly sophisticated worm called Stuxnet. This worm became known as the first computer software threat which was used as a cyber-weapon. In a new report, Symantec says that clues in the code pointed to other versions of the worm which could potentially perform different actions leaving an open question about Stuxnet and how it came to be.

  • Weather extremes caused by giant waves trapped in the atmosphere

    The world has suffered from severe regional weather extremes in recent years, such as the heat wave in the United States in 2011 or the one in Russia 2010, coinciding with the unprecedented Pakistan flood. Behind these devastating individual events there is a common physical cause, propose scientists in a new study. The study suggests that man-made climate change repeatedly disturbs the patterns of atmospheric flow around the globe’s Northern hemisphere through a subtle resonance mechanism.

  • Russian fireball largest ever detected by nuke monitoring organization

    Infrasound has been used as part of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization’s (CTBTO) monitoring tools to detect atomic blasts since April 2001 when the first station came online in Germany. Infrasonic waves from the meteor that broke up over Russia’s Ural Mountains last week were the largest ever recorded by the CTBTO’s International Monitoring System.

  • Climate change as a national security issue

    In a new report, Harvard researcher is pointing toward a new reason to worry about the effects of climate change — national security. During the next decade, the report concludes, climate change could have wide-reaching effects on everything from food, water, and energy supplies to critical infrastructure and economic security. “The imminent increase in extreme events will affect water availability, energy use, food distribution, and critical infrastructure — all elements of both domestic and international security,” the report’s author says.

  • Self-healing protective coating for concrete

    Scientists are reporting development of what they describe as the first self-healing protective coating for cracks in concrete, the world’s most widely used building material. The coating is inexpensive and environmentally friendly.

  • U.S. responds to China’s cyberattacks with anti-theft trade strategy

    The Obama administration yesterday (Wednesday) unveiled the details of a broad strategy to counter the systemic theft by Chinese government agencies of U.S. trade and technology and trade secrets. The administration’s plan calls for new diplomatic push to discourage intellectual property theft abroad and better coordination at home to help U.S. companies protect themselves.