• The Pandemic: Implications for Terrorist Interest in Biological Weapons

    What if the IS or al-Qaeda obtained and spread a highly contagious virus in a community or country that they sought to punish? With the pandemic highlighting weaknesses in response efforts, will these groups now seek to obtain infectious viruses to achieve these same deadly results?

  • Groundwater Depletion Causes California Farmland to Sink

    A new study simulates 65 years of land subsidence, or sinking, caused by groundwater depletion in California’s San Joaquin Valley. The results suggest significant sinking may continue for centuries after water levels stop declining but could slow within a few years if aquifers recover.

  • Keeping Communities Safe from Chemical Hazards During Hurricane

    Extreme weather from hurricanes and tropical storms can devastate communities along the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts, and the threat of subsequent hazard chemical releases can be just as deadly.

  • China’s Growing Agricultural Problems Pose Risks for the U.S.

    China is facing a growing demand on its agricultural production. The Chinese government has taken several domestic initiatives to address the growing problem, but it has also gone abroad to address its needs through investments and acquisitions of farmland, animal husbandry, agricultural equipment, and intellectual property (IP), particularly of GM seeds These efforts present several risks to U.S. economic and national security.

  • Food Production Vulnerable to Cyberattacks

    Wide-ranging use of smart technologies is raising global agricultural production but cyber experts warn this digital-age phenomenon could reap a crop of another kind – cybersecurity attacks.

  • Reforming DHS’s Biodefense Operations and Governance

    Today’s biological threats show no signs of desisting any time soon. Naturally occurring outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics, and laboratory accidents pose a growing challenge – while the number of high-containment laboratories and amount of dangerous research continues to increase unabated. “DHS, as chief among those federal departments and agencies responsible for securing the homeland, must overcome its current state of fractionation and demonstrate to the rest of the government, country, and world that it is capable of coordinating and leading efforts in biodefense and other arenas,” Carrie Cordero and Asha M. George write.

  • Nearly 108,000 Overdose Deaths in 2021 Bear Out a Prediction from Five Years Ago

    A grim prediction made half a decade ago by University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health epidemiologists and modelers has come true: More than 100,000 people are now dying from drug overdoses annually in the U.S.

  • U.S. Tracks Monkeypox Case Tied to Recent Canadian Travel

    By Stephanie Soucheray

    US officials have confirmed a case of monkeypox in a Massachusetts resident who had recently traveled to Canada. This is the first monkeypox case detected this year in the United States. In 2021, both Maryland and Texas reported single cases in residents who had recently traveled to Nigeria, where the virus is endemic.

  • Gain-of-Function Studies Need Stricter Guidance: Researchers

    Researchers and biosecurity specialists are calling on the U.S. government to issue clearer guidance about experiments the government might fund which would make pathogens more transmissible or deadly.

  • As Science Evolves, Policy Framework Needs to as Well

    In late February, the NIH and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy asked the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity NSABB to make swift progress on its long-overdue review. The panel plans to draft a report outlining its recommendations by the end of the year.

  • Climate Change Could Spark the Next Pandemic

    As the Earth’s climate continues to warm, researchers predict wild animals will be forced to relocate their habitats — likely to regions with large human populations — dramatically increasing the risk of a viral jump to humans that could lead to the next pandemic.

  • Fact Checks Effectively Counter COVID Misinformation

    By Jim Hanchet

    New study finds that journalistic fact checks are a more effective counter to COVID-19 misinformation than the false news tags commonly used by social media outlets. “We find that more information may be an antidote to misinformation,” conclude the authors of the study.

  • Strengthening the Nation’s Early Warning System for Health Threats

    The White House hosted the Summit on Strengthening the Nation’s Early Warning System for Health Threats in support of the launch of the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics (CFA). The launch of the CFA fulfills requirements in National Security Memorandum-1 (NSM-1), which instructed U.S. leadership to strengthen the international COVID-19 response and advance global health security and biological preparedness.

  • Developing New Vaccine Against Three Biothreat Pathogens

    Scientists are seeking to develop a multi-pathogen vaccine that will protect against three bacterial biothreat pathogens.

  • Water Scarcity Predicted to Worsen in More than 80% of Croplands Globally

    Global warming is inexorably leading to water scarcity, and more than 80 percent of the world’s croplands will be affected by this scarcity by 2050. One way to mitigate the effects of growing scarcity is improving irrigation infrastructure and irrigation efficiency.