• Berkeley quake demonstration shows bridge safety ideas

    Researchers demonstrate new bridge design that can withstand powerful earthquakes; the design concept relies on building segmented bridges with seismic isolators between the segments; the design would be particularly useful for long stretches of elevated freeways and high-speed rail lines that often run on elevated tracks

  • Crack-proof concrete developed

    Researchers develop crack-proof concrete; the construction industry has spent decades looking for materials that would not crack when they are used to repair and reinforce older materials, because even hairline cracks can let in pollutants and start disintegrating the concrete; BASF engineers offer a solution

  • Self-healing concrete developed

    University of Rhode Island researchers develop a new type of self-healing concrete that promises to be commercially viable and have added environmental benefits; a microencapsulated sodium-silicate healing agent is embedded directly into a concrete matrix; when tiny stress cracks begin to form in the concrete, the capsules rupture and release the healing agent into the adjacent areas

  • Cigarette butts may be used to prevent corrosion of oil pipes

    Cigarettes butts are so toxic, they kill fish; still, 4.5 trillion cigarette butts find their way into the environment each year; Chinese scientists find that chemical extracts from cigarette butts be used to protect steel pipes from rusting; rust prevention and treatment cost the oil industry millions of dollars annually

  • The boom (or is it a bubble?) in federal cybersecurity

    The Obama administration and Congress are allocating more funds to cybersecurity; much of that new spending, estimated at $6 to $7 billion annually just in unclassified work, is focused on the Washington region, as the federal government consolidates many of its cybersecurity-focused agencies in the area; some VCs warn of a cybersecurity bubble

  • Cybersecurity summit pays little attention to control system's security

    Despite threats of infrastructure attacks, scant attention was paid to control systems during a global security conference; the problem is safeguarding infrastructure’s control systems against attackers is that such protection requires a different approach to securing PCs or networks; Windows-based security products will not help; says one expert: “All the devices that sense things — temperature, pressure, flow, and things like that — are not Windows, those are proprietary, real-time or embedded, and there’s no security there”

  • How to protect Times Square -- and other highly traveled areas

    New Yorkers were lucky that a T-shirt vendor notices the suspicious SUV left by Faisal Shazad in Times Square, but there are ways to improve on luck in trying to secure highly traveled areas; more coordinated CCTV system, blast-mitigation, and more call boxes are a few of the measures

  • Remotely controlled robot inspects dangerous structures

    A remotely controlled robot uses laser sensors to look inside damaged structures to look for survivors; when inside the structure, the robot takes multiple scans using Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) unit that takes up to 500,000 point measurements per second. It also can scan through walls and windows

  • New California tremor map shows 50 new faults

    California has an estimated 15,000 faults; many of those are short, and experts have found no evidence that they have generated sizable temblors; others, though, can produce major quakes; the state’s geological agency have placed fifty new faults — all of them surface faults that have been discovered over the last two decades — on one map which will help educate the public and aid in planning and quake readiness

  • DOE removes from its Web site a guide on nuclear plant air attacks

    Since 2008 the Department of Energy’s Web site offered the public a virtual how-to manual for attacking a nuclear plant with an airplane; The document showed the areas that a plane could hit at a reactor with maximum effect, and it cited buildings or targets that a plane could strike and cause radioactive release; the document has now been removed

  • Flooding risks along the Mississippi River underestimated by Army Corps of Engineers

    Scientists argue that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in an effort to correct old data on water flows in the Mississippi, may have led to underestimates of the current risk of flooding on the Mississippi between the Ohio and Missouri Rivers, and to inadequate preparations by government agencies

  • Cybersecurity incidents in industrial control systems on the rise

    The good news is that only about 10 percent of U.S. industrial control systems are actually connected to the Internet; the bad news is that even with minimal Internet access, malware and breaches are increasingly occurring in utility, process control systems; cybersecurity incidents in petroleum and petrochemical control systems have declined significantly over the past five years — down more than 80 percent — but water and wastewater have increased 300 percent, and power/utilities by 30 percent

  • Calls grow for federalizing government building security

    DHS’s Federal Protective Service (FPS) has a budget of about $1 billion, and employs 1,225 full-time workers and 15,000 contract security guards at more than 2,300 federal facilities nationwide; in fiscal 2009 the service obligated $659 million for guards, the single largest item in its budget; a GAO reports criticizes the work of many of the guards and the contracts which employ them, and lawmakers debate whether to federalize federal buildings security responsibilities

  • Critical surge barrier on New Orleans's eastern flank completed ahead of schedule

    A 7,490 ft.-long storm-surge protection wall that is the central part of a roughly two-mile long surge barrier in New Orleans is being completed several months ahead of schedule; the placement of a significant portion of the barrier, well ahead of the start of the 2010 hurricane season, adds a welcome level of defense on the city’s eastern flank

  • Louisiana officials to visit the Netherlands to learn Dutch flood protection methods

    The Dutch are widely hailed as having the best investment in flood protection in the world; much of the country’s densely populated areas are below sea level, and after a storm struck in 1953 and flooded 80 percent of the Netherlands, the Dutch became even more serious about flood protection