• Forecast: The Big One is coming

    Geologists say that there is a 99.7 percent chance a magnitude 6.7 quake or larger will strike by 2037; California is one of the most seismically active regions in the world, where more than 300 faults crisscross the state

  • Fines for nuclear operator

    Security guards at a Florida nuclear power plant are found asleep on the job; other guards disable their weapons, making it impossible for them to protect the plant in the event of an incident; the NRC imposes fines

  • Unusual tremors measured off Oregon

    Tremors measured off the coast of Oregon typically precede volcanic eruptions, but there are no volcanoes in the area; quakes have also not followed the typical pattern of a major shock followed by a series of diminishing aftershocks

  • Unprepared: Canada lacks plan to protect critical infrastructure, II

    After the shock of the 9/11 attacks, Canada’s decentralized structure for protecting the country’s critical infrastructure was supposed to made tighter, more cohesive, and more effective; white papers were written, plans were unveiled, Web sites were designed — but not much else has happened; experts are worried

  • New way to estimate size and frequency of meteorite impacts

    How large was the meteorite which hit Earth 65 million years ago, leading to the extinction of the dinosaurs? Now we know: Four to six kilometers in diameter; scientists offer new methods to measure the size and frequency of meteorite impact

  • Unprepared: Canada lacks plan to protect critical infrastructure

    Seven years after 9/11, Canada lacks a coherent, coordinated plan to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure; in a recent report experts dismissed natural disasters, terrorism, cyber attacks, and pandemics as the major threats to Canada; rather, the greatest threat, they said, is a “lack of clarity around governance” during a disaster

  • Underwater ears offer information about hurricane strength

    MIT researchers find that hydrophones planted on the ocean floor can “listen” to hurricanes as they form; the sound hurricanes make varies with their intensity — so early listening to hurricanes would help first responders better prepare

  • SyTech Corporation and communication interoperability, I

    The lack of communication interoperability among first response, rescue teams, and law enforcement during the 9/11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina was only the most dramatic and poignant demonstration of a persistent and debilitating flaw in U.S. agencies’ planning for disaster — and performing during disaster; communication interoperability is essential not only in disasters, but for routine, every-day operations of law enforcement; SyTech’s comprehensive approach to interoperability offers a solution

  • Predicting earthquakes and volcanic eruptions

    New satellite will measure anomalies in the Earth’s gravitational field; such anomalies allow scientists to predict earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and allow communities to better prepare for them

  • Cannister containing iridium 192 stolen in Japan

    Worries about a dirty bomb increase as a container containing 48.4 pounds of iridium 192 is stolen from an inspection company in Japan

  • U.S. officials warn of Al-Qaeda's nuclear ambitions

    DHS, DOE, and intelligence officials tell Congress al-Qaeda is continuing its pursuit of a nuclear weapon; monitoring the progress of the organization in reaching this goal is difficult: “We must find something that is tactical in size but strategic in impact,” says one official

  • Foreign investors vie for Chicago's Midway airport

    The administration has given Chicago the green light to sell Midway airport; six consortiums — five of them involving non-U.S. companies — said they would put in their bids; post-DPW rumblings about non-U.S. ownership of U.S. critical infrastructure are already being heard

  • The U.S. on course to deactivating all its chemical weapons

    On 25 November 1969 President Richard Nixon unilaterally renounced the first use of chemical weapons and renounced all methods of biological warfare; the United States has been deactivating chemical weapons ever since, and to date has destroyed about 45 percent of the chemical weapons it had produced; it is not likely, though, that the United States would achieve the complete destruction of its chemical weapons stockpile by 2012, as mandated by the Chemical Weapons Treaty

  • CoreStreet's new access control technology making news

    CoreStreet’s Card-Connected technology creates a system of stand-alone electronic locks and physical access control systems which communicate by reading and writing digitally signed data (privileges and logs) to and from smart cards; card holders thus become an extension of the physical access network in which cards, rather than of wires, carry information to and from the standalone locks

  • NRG, Toshiba to promote ABWRs

    There are serious questions about the security of Boiling-Water Reactor (BWR) design and construction, questions which Advanced Boiling-Water Reactor (ABWR) design was supposed to answer; not everyone is convinced; NRG Energy, Toshiba to promote and build ABWRs in the United States