• Drought may threaten much of globe within decades

    A new study, based on twenty-two computer climate models and a comprehensive index of drought conditions, as well as analyses of previously published studies, finds that most of the Western Hemisphere, along with large parts of Eurasia, Africa, and Australia, will be at risk of extreme drought this century; in contrast, higher-latitude regions from Alaska to Scandinavia are likely to become more moist

  • Apollo astronaut offers asteroid-avoidance strategy

    If an asteroid is headed for Earth, NASA and its partner agencies will be able to see it a while before it gets too close for comfort; a 10- to 15-year window is enough time to send up a tracking probe to fly in formation with the asteroid; this would help scientists pinpoint its exact location and determine its trajectory, which would help them decide if they need to knock it away

  • High performance materials for the tunnel of the century

    On 15 October Swiss engineers finished their work on the Gotthard Tunnel — longest rail tunnel in the world; the 57-km (35.4-mile) high-speed rail link, which will open in 2017, will form the lynchpin of a new rail network between northern and southeastern Europe and help ease congestion and pollution in the Swiss Alps

  • NOAA: Global temperature ties for warmest on record

    The first nine months of 2010 tied with the same period in 1998 for the warmest combined land and ocean surface temperature on record (the records go back to 1880); this value is 1.17 F (0.65 C) above the twentieth century average; Los Angeles set a new all-time maximum temperature on 27 September when temperatures soared to 113 F;

  • America's latest wonder: Hoover Dam companion bridge

    After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. feared a terrorist with a truck bomb could attack the Hoover Dam, potentially flooding vast areas and disrupting water and power supplies to several states; semi-trucks were banned from bridge, forced to take route to Las Vegas that is more than forty miles longer; new 1,900-foot-long structure will reroutes traffic off of the two-lane road atop the dam, will improve traffic in the region, and help protect the dam from terrorist threats; it is the seventh highest bridge in the world and it is held up by the longest arch in the Western Hemisphere

  • PG&E to improve pipelines safety

    Following the deadly natural gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, California, on 9 September, PG&E said it would upgrade its California pipeline system to boost safety; a key element will be the installation of hundreds of automatic shutoff valves to replace the current manual valves; the company would also contribute $10 million to a nonprofit group to develop better diagnostic tools to determine the condition of underground pipelines

  • Geologists warn of warming-induced landslides flattening cities

    There are 39 cities around the world with populations greater than 100,000 — and an untold number of smaller towns and villages — which are situated within 100 kilometers of a volcano that has collapsed in the past and which may, therefore, be capable of collapsing in the future; thinning glaciers on volcanoes could destabilize vast chunks of summit cones, triggering mega-landslides capable of flattening cities such as Seattle and devastating local infrastructure

  • Chertoff calls for cyber-deterrence doctrine

    More than 100 countries now have cyber-espionage and cyber-attack capabilities; both kinds of attack used the same tools and might be used to mount anything from a garden variety cyber-espionage attack resulting in the corruption of financial data to something that might result in loss of life, such as a possible attack against air-traffic control systems; governments should formulate a doctrine to stave off cyberattacks similar to the cold war-era principle of nuclear deterrence, according to former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff.; “Everyone needs to understand to rules of the game”

  • With rising sea levels, the time for adapting is now

    Coastal development has accelerated over the past fifty years; many of the world’s megacities are situated at the coast and new infrastructure worth billions of dollars is being constructed; these developments assume that the stable sea levels of the past several millennia will continue — but this assumption is no longer true

  • Study: U.S. grid robust, hard to bring down

    Reliance on a particular kind of mathematical model — a so-called topological model — for understanding complex systems has led a growing number of researchers to conclude that the U.S. electric grid is exceedingly vulnerable to disruption; two mathematicians now argue that these studies “have ignored the physics of how things actually work — like electricity infrastructure”; an examination of how the grid actually works would show that the U.S. electrical grid is probably more secure that many people realize

  • U.S. power grid easy prey for hackers

    Attackers could manipulate power-grid data by breaking into substations and intercepting communications between substations, grid operators, and electricity suppliers; grid hackers could make millions of dollars at the expense of electricity consumers by influencing electricity markets; they could also make the grid unstable, causing blackouts

  • Large parts of the world are drying up

    The soils in large areas of the Southern Hemisphere, including major portions of Australia, Africa, and South America, have been drying up in the past decade as a result of intensified “evapotranspiration” — the movement of water from the land to the atmosphere

  • Experts: Stuxnet "a game changer"

    EU cybersecurity agency warns that the Stuxnet malware is a game changer for critical information infrastructure protection; PLC controllers of SCADA systems infected with the worm might be programmed to establish destructive over/under pressure conditions by running pumps at different frequencies; Dr. Udo Helmbrecht, chief of EU’s cybersecurity agency: “Stuxnet is a new class and dimension of malware—- The fact that perpetrators activated such an attack tool, can be considered as the ‘first strike’ against major industrial resources. This has tremendous effect on how to protect national [cyber and critical infrastructure] in the future’

  • Securing privately owned critical infrastructure networks

    Securing the industrial control systems (ICS) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) networks that are used to run the U.S. critical infrastructure is a daunting job; as in other areas of critical infrastructure protection, ICS and SCADA risk mitigation falls to private owner-operators, as do the costs

  • Iran: Stuxnet part of Western sabotage campaign

    Iran claims that the Stuxnet virus which infected more than 30,000 computers used in industrial control systems in the country — many of them in Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities, especially to yet-to-become operational Bushehr nuclear power plant — is part of a covert Western plot to derail its nuclear program; this is the most direct admission by Iran that the West — read: the United States and Israel — have been engaged in a systematic covert sabotage campaign to derail Iran’s weapons program