• Robots with human-like vision to perform dangerous missions

    Robots with human-like vision may be deployed to perform maintenance inside nuclear fusion reactors or carry out duties in other areas too dangerous for any person to operate in; a new laser sensor is being developed which will mimic this process by obtaining a coarse image of the scene, performing rapid image analysis to detect objects of interest and subsequently obtaining images with higher temporal and spatial resolution of the detected objects

  • Carbon Motors’ revolutionary E7 police car already has 14,000 reservations

    Carbon Motors offers law enforcement what it describes as the first purpose-built police interceptor; the company says that it already has 14,000 orders for the new cruiser — even though the price for the car has not yet been set; the company says that with the help of more than 3,500 U.S. law enforcement professionals from all fifty States representing the local, state, and federal levels, it wrote the groundbreaking specifications for such a vehicle

  • New surveillance software knows -- and comments on -- what a camera sees

    Software developed which offers a running commentary on CCTV’s images to ease video searching and analysis; the system might help address the fact that there are more and more surveillance cameras — on the streets and in military equipment, for instance — while the number of people working with them remains about the same

  • Italian-Russian reactor could be the first to achieve self-sustaining fusion

    As the interest in alternatives to fossil fuels grows, so does the interest in nuclear fusion; a Russian-Italian project will build a self-sustaining fusion reactor based on a design by an MIT scientist; the design employs a doughnut-shaped device which uses powerful magnetic fields to produce fusion by squeezing superheated plasma of hydrogen isotopes

  • Winners announced in Colorado Homeland Defense Alliance's innovation competition

    The winners of the Colorado Homeland Defense Alliance’s 4th Annual National Security Innovation Competition (NSIC) are the University of Ottawa, University of Connecticut, and University of Colorado; top prize goes to U Ottawa for blast mitigation materials

  • Pentagon directs basic research funds to applied projects, says report

    The U.S. Department of Defense has a $13.5 billion science and technology budget; about $1.9 billion — 15 percent of the total — is set aside for basic research; new study found that many of the projects funded under the basic research budget did not meet the definition of basic research used by the Pentagon

  • World's largest airship inflated Wednesday for the first time

    The world’s largest airship — 235 feet long and 65 feet in diameter — was inflated on Wednesday for the first time; the test took place inside the Garrett Coliseum in Montgomery, Alabama which, the proprietors state, can hold as many as 1,500 cattle (“with milking parlor”); the airship features many innovations, including propelling ducted fans which are mounted along the centerline of the hull rather than beneath it, so that the nose does not lift when more power is applied

  • DARPA looking for automated insider threat spotter

    The U.S. National Counterintelligence Strategy asserts that “Trusted insiders — are targeting the US information infrastructure for exploitation, disruption, and potential destruction”; DARPA, the Pentagon research arm, is soliciting idea for technology which will automatically spot — and eliminate — insider threat to U.S. information infrastructure

  • The day of transportable, refrigerator-size nuclear reactor nears

    The need for more energy and the growing interest in energy not based on fossil material have led to a revival of interest in nuclear power; there is a competition afoot among several companies for designing and building — and receiving a operation license for — a refrigerator-size nuclear reactor; the $50 million, 25-megawatt unit is transportable by truck, and would put electricity into 20,000 homes

  • Cigarette butts may be used to prevent corrosion of oil pipes

    Cigarettes butts are so toxic, they kill fish; still, 4.5 trillion cigarette butts find their way into the environment each year; Chinese scientists find that chemical extracts from cigarette butts be used to protect steel pipes from rusting; rust prevention and treatment cost the oil industry millions of dollars annually

  • Wisconsin researcher punished for unauthorized research on bioterror agent

    A university of Wisconsin researchers conducted unauthorized research on bioterror agent; the researcher developed antibiotic-resistant variants of brucellosis and tested them on mice; the University of Wisconsin was fined $40,000 by the National Institutes of Health, and the professor was ordered to stay out of a lab for five years

  • Tiny sensors embedded in cell phones identify, map airborne toxins in real time

    Cell phones are everywhere people are, so University of California-San Diego’s researchers want to turn the devices into chemical sensors; the tiny sensor, a porous flake of silicon, changes color when it interacts with specific chemicals. By manipulating the shape of the pores, the researchers can tune individual spots on the silicon flake to respond to specific chemical traits

  • New detection technology identifies bacteria, viruses, other organisms within 24 hours

    In the area of biodefense, current systems are centered on the detection of smaller prioritized sets of high-risk pathogens, rather than testing for a much broader spectrum of organisms; a new detection method from Lawrence Livermore allows not only the identification of the biological pathogens on a priority screening list, but also any other already-sequenced bacteria or virus in a sample that first responders, doctors, or regulatory agencies might not have been expecting to find, including possible novel or emerging pathogens

  • Cobham develops more accurate, cost-effective landmine detector

    The Red Cross estimates that 60-100 million mines are in place in 62 countries, causing 800 deaths each month; clearing mines is an expensive proposition, averaging £1m/km2; much of this cost is owed to high number of false alarms from metal detectors; British company develops a dual-sensor mine detector that enables nearly 33 percent more land to be cleared within existing budgets

  • New method to develop latent fingerprints

    Most of the techniques currently used for developing fingerprints rely on the chemistry of the print, but as prints dry or age, the common techniques used to develop latent fingerprints, such as dusting or cyanoacrylate — SuperGlue — fuming often fail; Penn State professor says that using the physical properties of the fingerprint, not the chemistry of the substances left behind, would solve these problems