• Recycled concrete saves money

    Purdue University civil engineers are working with the Indiana Department of Transportation to perfect the use of recycled concrete for highway construction, a strategy that could reduce material costs by as much as 20 percent; “If you are going to pave, you may have to remove the old concrete and break it into pieces anyway, so recycling makes sense,” one of the researchers says

  • Wyoming braces for spring floods

    The Wyoming Office of Homeland Security is readying local and state agencies for projected spring floods and is urging local residents to prepare themselves as well; this year large snow packs from heavy winter storms have increased the likelihood of flooding; state officials are encouraging families to keep a three-day emergency kit loaded with food, water, clothing, flashlights, medicine, and important documents; last year floods hit Wyoming causing major disruptions, particularly in Fremont County; this year state officials hope to minimize the impact of floods with early preparation

  • Cooling pools or dry casks for nuclear waste: which is safer

    There are two ways to store nuclear waste: in pools of water, where the densely packed uranium rods are cooled by a constant flow of circulating water, or in dry casks — typically barrel-shaped steel-and-concrete structures that stand twenty feet high and sit outdoors — where the uranium loosely packed rods are cooled by passive air; there are 65,000 tons of nuclear waste in the United States, more than in any other nation, and this amount grows by about 2,200 tons each year; the Fukushima disaster demonstrated that dry casks were able to withstand the 11 March combination of earthquake and tsunami much better than cooling pools; the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission must now decide whether cooling pools are safe enough to store nuclear waste, and even whether densely packing nuclear waste is safe

  • Chernobyl radiation did not damage abundance, diversity of aquatic life

    A new study of the lakes in and around Chernobyl’s fallout zone reveals that radiation from the nuclear accident appears to have had no long term effect on the abundance or diversity of aquatic animal life; no evidence was found that the abundance or diversity of the animal communities was influenced by direct contamination from the Chernobyl accident; indeed, the most contaminated lake, Glubokoye, 6.5 km north of the nuclear power plant, supported the most animal diversity of those lakes studied

  • Dramatic increase in critical infrastructure cyber attacks, sabotage

    A new study by McAfee and CSIS reveals a dramatic increase in cyber attacks on critical infrastructure such as power grids, oil, gas, and water; the study also shows that that many of the world’s critical infrastructures lacked protection of their computer networks, and revealed the staggering cost and impact of cyberattacks on these networks

  • Secret bomb-proofing building design posted on the Web

    The Pentagon is building two towers in Alexandria, Virginia, to house 6,400 personnel; the Army Corps of Engineers inadvertently posted the bomb-proofing specifications for the new buildings on the Web; experts say this will allow terrorist to learn how to circumvent the building defenses; there is another problem; the documents reveal that the specifications call for the building to be designed to resist threats posed by vehicle bombs detonated outside the building’s security perimeter carrying the equivalent of 220 pounds of TNT; experts say this is not enough; Timothy McVeigh used 4,000 pounds of TNT in Oklahoma City in 1995; the 1993 attempt on the World Trade Center involved 900 pounds; the attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983 involved 12,000 pounds of TNT

  • Lessons from Japan's tsunami could dramatically shift building codes

    American tsunami experts and engineers are scouring the devastation wrought by the 11 March earthquake and tsunami to analyze how structures fared during the natural disasters and what lessons can be applied to U.S. building codes; experts are particularly concerned about the toppling of a reinforced-concrete building as that has been the baseline for tsunami construction and evacuation procedures; experts were stunned by the devastation and are concerned about America’s West Coast which is significantly less prepared than Japan for an earthquake or tsunami; in particular experts are concerned about Oregon which shares many geological similarities to Japan’s northeastern coast; researchers hope to learn valuable lessons that will minimize the destruction from a similar event in the United States

  • Much of earthquake damage in Japan caused by "liquefaction"

    The massive subduction zone earthquake in Japan caused a significant level of soil “liquefaction” that has surprised researchers with its widespread severity, a new analysis shows; the findings also raise questions about whether existing building codes and engineering technologies are adequately accounting for this phenomenon in other vulnerable locations, which in the United States include Portland, Oregon, parts of the Willamette Valley, and other areas of Oregon, Washington, and California

  • Robot reports high radiation inside crippled reactors

    A U.S.-made robot traveled inside Unit 1 and Unit 3 of the crippled Fukushima plant, and came back with radioactivity readings of up to 49 millisieverts per hour inside Unit 1 and up to 57 millisieverts per hour inside Unit 3; the legal limit for nuclear workers was more than doubled since the crisis began to 250 millisieverts; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends an evacuation after an incident releases 10 millisieverts of radiation, and workers in the U.S. nuclear industry are allowed an upper limit of 50 millisieverts per year

  • Strong fabric can be used to protect buildings from explosion

    Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) is a fabric that can carry 143,000 pounds of force per square inch; University of Missouri researcher collaborates with the U.S. Army to test a method of retrofitting buildings to protect them in the case of a terrorist attack; to protect a building from an extreme event, CFRP can be used to increase the bending capacity of walls or columns

  • Siemens, McAfee team up to defend against critical infrastructure attacks

    McAfee and Siemens will work together to help secure critical infrastructure against cyber attacks that target industrial control processes like the Stuxnet worm which destroyed nuclear centrifuges at an Iranian nuclear enrichment facility; the two companies are targeting Advanced Persistent Threats aimed at the manufacturing and process industry; this new security product could help ease security fears for critical infrastructure operators who rely on industrial control programs for nearly every automated process; McAfee says it’s Application Control system product would have protected Iran’s centrifuges from the Stuxnet virus that caused them to spin out of control

  • Shoring up U.K. infrastructure essential to country's welfare

    The United Kingdom suffers from some of the most congested infrastructure in the developed world and a failure to invest in these will have serious impacts upon the country’s long-term economic future; improvements to transport, energy, and ICT infrastructure could increase GDP by an additional 0.7 percent

  • Streamlined approach to U.S. preparedness

    The administration has released a new presidential policy directive on national preparedness; the directive, the result of a comprehensive review of national preparedness policy, replaces Homeland Security Presidential Directive 8; the administration says that the directive seeks to move away from burdensome requirements and instead build the key capabilities the nation needs to confront any challenge

  • Wastewater employee charged with terrorism after idling plant

    A 43-year old waste water facility employee was the sole employee during the night shift at the massive Greenfield Water Reclamation Plant in Gilbert, Arizona; last Friday night, armed with a hand gun, the employee walked through the facility alone, methodically turning off major operating systems at the plant; left untreated, the sewage in the system would cause a buildup of methane gas, which could cause a huge explosion; after a 2-hour stand-off, the police arrested the man, allowing other employees to turn on the treatment systems; the employee is being held on a $250,000 bond, charged with terrorism