• New way to purify water

    Water-attracting materials seem to repel impurities, thus leaving a layer of pure water near their surface; making tubes from these particle-excluding materials would allow for a new way to purify water — if, for now, in relatively small quantities

  • Better picture of what lies beneath the Earth's surface

    A tool which measures minute changes in the planet’s gravity field from the air allows a cheaper alternative to seismic surveying

  • Cybercrime gangs highly structured

    The chain of command of a cybercrime gang is not unlike the Mafia, an evolution which shows how online crime is becoming a broad, well-organized endeavor

  • Criticism of delays in coordinating national emergency communication

    Congress criticizes DHS for delays in coordinating a national emergency communications plan for first responders

  • The crisis of U.S. infrastructure, III

    The crisis of U.S. infrastructure is one of political will — the will, that is, to vote for money to maintain this elaborate infrastructure; the true political divide lie between Americans who are willing and able to pay up front for the nation’s needs — whether through taxes or tolls — and those who would rather skimp or burden their children

  • Draft security publication looks at cell phones, PDAs

    PDAs are offering more and more features, and more people now use them; NIST publishes a draft guidelines on security considerations for cell phones and PDAs

  • The crisis of U.S. infrastructure, II

    The U.S. infrastructure is elaborate — 4 million miles of roads, 600,000 bridges, 26,000 miles of commercially navigable waterways, 11,000 miles of transit lines, 500 train stations, 300 ports, 19,000 airports, 55,000 community drinking water systems, and 30,000 wastewater plants; maintaining this infrastructure costs money

  • AMEC-led consortium to clean up Sellafield

    Treating and cleaning nuclear waste is part and parcel of nuclear power generation; The U.K. government, a proponent of greater reliance on nuclear power, takes steps to deal with legacy waste problems

  • GAO strongly criticizes DoE over Hanford clean-up

    More than 210 million liters of radioactive and chemical waste are stored in 177 underground tanks at Hanford in Washington State; most are more than fifty years old; GAO says there now “serious questions about the tanks’ long-term viability”

  • Smart-card manufacturers sues to suppress security flaw information

    NXP Semiconductors is suing Radboud University Nijmegen to prevent university researchers from presenting a paper in an October conference on IT security; paper in question details serious security flaws in the company’s RFID chip

  • Alternative fuels for the aviation industry

    Rolls-Royce, British Airways collaborate on developing and testing alternative fuels for aviation; testing is expected to be complete by the end of March 2009, after which the results will be analyzed and reported

  • French authorities ban water use following nuclear leak

    Safety agencies in France are playing down the risk to public health from Tuesday’s uranium leak at the Tricastin nuclear plant, but water-usage bans have worried skeptical residents and environmental organizations

  • Homeland security experts on priorities for next administration

    Experts: The next administration’s top four homeland security priorities should be border security, emergency response, development of medical counter-measures to weapons of mass destruction, and port security

  • Aussies review e-security

    The Rudd government undertakes a wide review of e-security measures; review could lead to changes in funding committed to a number of agencies in 2007 by the Howard government in its four-year, $73.5 million e-security national agenda

  • California unveils GIS initiative

    Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) enhance the technology for environmental protection, natural resource management, traffic flow, emergency preparedness and response, land use planning, and health and human services; California wants to avail itself of the technology’s benefits