• New biorenewables technology about to reach the marketplace

    Innovative technology provides a new way to transform cellulosic biomass into renewable fuels and high-value chemicals; ,the technology uses ionic liquids to break down cellulosic or non-food plant biomass without using enzymes or costly pretreatment steps

     

  • Kaspersky Lab working on a secure operating system for critical infrastructure

    Antivirus firmKaspersky Lab is set to make a major contribution to the security of critical infrastructure systems by developing an operating system specifically designed for such systems; the new operating system will protect information used in infrastructure such as nuclear power plants, transportation control facilities, gas and electrical systems,and other  facilities “criticallyimportant” to the economy and well-being of industrialized societies

  • Assessing bridge resilience

    Across the United States, more than 600,000 bridges link travelers to millions of roadway miles, forming a critical part of the nation’s infrastructure; because bridges are typically more vulnerable than roadways to damage caused by natural and man-made hazards, they are also of interest to DHS, which funds cutting-edge research in various aspects of structural integrity testing and blast-resistant structural design

  • Ideas from nature on how to convert solar into liquid fuel

    It has long been a dream of scientists to use solar energy to produce chemicals which could be stored and later used to create electricity or fuels; a recent scientific breakthrough is providing hope that this may soon be possible; the development would offer many benefits, including the ability to store chemicals until needed — current solar power technology has difficulties in this area

  • Analyzing the sound of rain falling on a bridge reveals bridge’s health, stability

    Engineers have found that by listening to how a highway bridge sings in the rain, they can determine serious flaws in the structure; employing a method called impact-echo testing, engineers can diagnose the health of a bridge’s deck based on the acoustic footprint produced by a little bit of water

  • Cybersecurity bill supporters want a vote on bill in this Congress

    Last week, lawmakers and top White House officials appeared in different events, conferences, and industry gatherings to promote the cyber security bill which has been stalled in the Senate since August; administration’s officials and lawmakers supporting the bill warned that the current situation leaves U.S. critical infrastructure and businesses vulnerable to attack from hackers and spies

  • Twenty-year anniversary of U.S. last full-scale nuclear test

    The first U.S. nuclear test, code named Trinity, took place in southern New Mexico forty-seven years earlier, on 16 July 1945; in all, the United States conducted 1,030 nuclear tests – the last one, code-named Divider,  took place twenty years ago, on 23 September 1992

  • Los Alamos lab accelerates shipment of nuclear waste to permanent storage site

    Los Alamos National Laboratory broke its own records in the first year of accelerated shipping effort of nuclear waste from the Lab to permanent disposal facilities located twenty-six miles outside of Carlsbad, New Mexico

  • Cosmic rays help gather information from inside the Fukushima nuclear reactors

    Researchers have devised a method to use cosmic rays to gather detailed information from inside the damaged cores of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors which were heavily damaged in March 2011 by a tsunami that followed a great earthquake

  • A Mississippi river diversion helped build Louisiana wetlands

    The extensive system of levees along the Mississippi River has done much to prevent devastating floods in riverside communities; the levees, however, have also contributed to the loss of Louisiana’s wetlands; by holding in floodwaters, they prevent sediment from flowing into the watershed and rebuilding marshes, which are compacting under their own weight and losing ground to sea-level rise

  • Corps: absolute flood protection along the Missouri River is impossible

    A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers report said that absolute flood protection along the Missouri River is impossible, so the basin needs to prepare and plan for flooding in the future

  • Ozone causes forests to use more water, reducing availability in the Southeast

    Scientists have found that rising levels of ozone, a greenhouse gas, may amplify the impacts of higher temperatures and reduce streamflow from forests to rivers, streams, and other water bodies; such effects could potentially reduce water supplies available to support forest ecosystems and people in the southeastern United States

  • Sen. Rockefeller asks Fortune 500 CEOs for cybersecurity best practices

    Last month, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) sent a letter to the CEOs of fortune 500 companies asking them what cybersecurity practices they have adopted, how these practices were adopted, who developed them, and when they were developed; many saw Rockefeller’s letter as an admission that the Obama administration does not have a basis for trying to impose cybersecurity practices on the private sector through the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, now stalled in Congress

  • More companies adopt cloud disaster recovery solutions

    More and more companies adopt a cloud disaster recovery solution; in a recent 2012 TechTarget Cloud Pulse survey, a majority of the 926 companies that responded have said they are now using a cloud disaster recovery system or plan to in the next six months

  • Scientists say it is too late to stop global warming: better to focus on adaptation, mitigation

    Two scientists argue that governments and institutions should focus on developing adaption policies to address and mitigate against the negative impact of global warming, rather than putting the emphasis on carbon trading and capping greenhouse-gas emissions; they say that attempts to limit greenhouse-gas emissions through carbon cap-and-trade schemes and to promote renewable and sustainable energy sources are probably too late to arrest the inevitable trend of global warming