• Day of portable, brief-case size X-ray machine nears

    A California company is working on developing flat-panel image sensors which would enable it to make a briefcase-sized X-ray machine powered by a laptop battery; such a system might be used in the field by the military or instead of bulky bedside systems used in hospital intensive-care units

  • DHS's researchers receive a 2-year, $2.3 billion appropriation

    In a vote of confidence, the House Homeland Security Committee unanimously passes a 2-year, $2.3 billion appropriation to fund the push-the-envelope R&D efforts of DHS’s Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate; among other things, the bill would create an Office of Public-Private Partnerships inside S&T to make sure that promising private-sector products and solutions get the support they need; to ensure good ideas do not fall through the cracks, S&T would also establish a Rapid Response Division

  • DARPA director urges universities to create and “elite army of futuristic technogeeks”

    Between 2001 and 2008, DARPA’s funding to research schools was cut in half; less funding meant fewer graduate students: Combined with a 43 percent decrease in computing and science enrollment among undergrads, this means a shortage in technologists in the making; DARPA chief wants this trend reversed

  • Montana State team developing new way to fight influenza, bioterrorism threats

    Researchers develop aerosol spray containing tiny protein cages that will activate an immune response in the lungs; the protein cages trigger the rapid production of lymphoid tissue in the lung; the technology could be used to prevent or treat a range of pulmonary diseases including influenza; it might counter bioterrorism threats, such as airborne microbes

  • New technologies unveiled to protect U.K. 75 million mobile phone users from crime

    U.K. e-commerce, or contatcless, mobile transactions, will account for £151 billion by 2013. the U.K. government’s Design Council unveils three solutions aiming to make mobile phones – and, hence, e-commerce – safer

  • Immunovaccine offers enhanced anthrax vaccine candidate

    Currently, to provide protection from anthrax, individuals receive a 6-dose regime with three injections given two weeks apart, followed by three additional injections given at 6, 12, and 18 months; annual booster injections of the vaccine are recommended thereafter; Canadian company Immunovaccine says it developed a method to cut this arduous regimen by half

  • Tulane University, Corgenix awarded $15,000,000 to expand Lassa fever research

    Lassa fever, because of its high fatality rate, the ability to spread easily by human-to-human contact, and the potential for aerosol release, is classified as a bio safety level 4 agent and is included on the NIAID Category A list of potential bioterrorism threats; new study will focus on identification of novel B-cell epitopes on Lassa virus proteins, aiming to develop agents to treat and prevent the disease

  • INL develops safer, more efficient nuclear fuel for next-generation reactors

    The advanced nuclear fuel, which would be used in next-generation high-temperature gas reactors, has set a particle fuel record by consuming approximately 19 percent of its low-enriched uranium; this is more than double the previous record set by German scientists in the 1980s, and more than three times that achieved by current commercial light water reactor fuel

  • Oklahoma State rejects anthrax study over euthanasia of primates

    The U.S. National Institutes of Health wanted OSU to conduct research on treatment for anthrax; the study involves baboons, which must be destroyed after anthrax exposure to ensure they do not infect others; In April, OSU announced that animals will no longer be euthanized in teaching labs at the veterinary school; measure was the result of pressure by Madeleine Pickens, the wife of billionaire benefactor and OSU alumnus T. Boone Pickens

  • New Ebola vaccine protects against lethal infection in animal models

    Ebola virus is the the cause of severe hemorrhagic fever in humans and nonhuman primates; it is transmitted through direct contact of bodily fluids with infected individuals resulting in death up to 90 percent of the time; no licensed vaccines or antivirals are available against EBOV; researchers say new vaccine shows promise

  • DARPA can help slumping U.S. economy

    Expert: DARPA should be used in expanded ways to help the U.S. economy and American society

  • DARPA wants shrink-blade helicopters

    DARPA is looking at a helicopter — or “morphcopter” — with shrinking blades; adjustable shrinking blades would offer performance benefits and options such as whisper mode for easier operations in confined spaces

  • U.K. companies invest in R&D

    Survey of R&D spending by the 850 U.K. companies most active in R&D and the 1,400 most active companies globally show that U.K. companies increased their R&D budgets by 6 percent (the top 88 companies increased their budgets by 10.3 percent); global competitors average a 9.5 percent increase

  • A simpler route to invisibility

    Two years ago Duke University researchers built an invisibility cloak — a device that can make objects vanish from sight, at least when viewed using a narrow band of microwave frequencies; researchers now show how to create cloaks that work across a wider range of frequencies

  • Reasons for optimism over US particle physics

    A panel of experts advising the U.S. Department of Energy says that recent cuts in funding for particle physics research may not do as much harm to U.S. basic research as scientists initially thought