• Flexible, flapping flying machines may be on the horizon

    Rigid wings and rotors have made aircraft very successful; nature, however, prefers flexible, flapping flying structures — just look at birds; indeed, the most efficient and acrobatic airfoils in nature are the flexible wings of the bat; Brown University researchers want to adopt the bat’s approach to flying for human use

  • Can China's future earthquakes be predicted?

    To predict earthquakes, China relied on GPS data, which showed movements of two millimeters per year in certain areas of Szechwan province where a May 2008 earthquake killed 70,000 people (20,000 are still missing) and destroyed more than eight million homes; scientists examine a better way to predict disasters

  • Thruvision offers T-ray security scanner

    Terahertz radiation offer the promise of effective scanning of passengers without revealing anatomically correct images of their bodies

  • Modern-day piracy poses growing threats, challenges

    Forget Captain Kidd, wooden legs, or treasure maps; modern pirates are equipped with supercharged speedboats, large-caliber weaponry, and all the radio intercept technology they need to identify and locate valuable ocean-going booty; on 9/11 we saw what damage a jumbo jet could do when used as a weapon; how about a supertanker as a weapon?

  • Quantum calibration shows way for super-secure communication

    Scientists at Imperial College London have used a new approach to calibrating quantum mechanical measurement directly to calibrate a detector that can sense the presence of multiple individual photons; the ability to sense the presence of individual photons is an important requirement for the development of future long-distance quantum communication devices and networks

  • T-Ray Science licenses MIT's terahertz technology

    There is a growing interest in the detection capabilities of terahertz technology, and a Canadian company licenses an NIT-developed detection system that can be used to detect a continuous-wave (cw) THz signal

  • UAV-based anti-missile defense appears doomed

    DHS’s Project Chloe envisioned a UAV-based system to defend commercial airlines against shoulder-fired missiles; Northrop Grumman tests show the system to be more complex, and costlier, than originally anticipated

  • Fingerprint "developer" can read a letter from its envelope

    U.K. researchers find that disulfur dinitride polymer turned exposed fingerprints brown, as the polymer reaction was initiated from the near-undetectable remaining residues; what is more, traces of inkjet printer ink can also initiate the polymer, allowing detectives to read a letter from the residue it left on the envelope

  • CSIRO wireless sensor commercially available

    Wireless sensor networks are used in more and more homeland security roles such as monitoring water quality at sprawling water facilities and in perimeter defense of critical infrastructure facilities; they can also help keep the environment healthy

  • "Digital DNA" to fight cyber crime

    Scottish researchers develop what they call “digital DNA”: It is based on analyzing the way in which users access data on their computers and then creating a digital fingerprint that is unique to each user

  • The priorities of DHS's Science and Technology Directorate

    DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate is known for its restless, entrepreneurial spirit; it has a $830 million dollar budget, and 250 projects under development at any one time

  • Earthquake's trampoline effect

    During earthquakes the ground not only shakes from side to side, but also bounces up and down; this has important implications for designing quake-proof structures

  • Where is James Bond when we need him?

    The villains James Bond was fighting — Dr. No, Goldfinger, and Blofeld — looked improbable in the 1960s; these miscreants of globalization — part master criminal, part arms smuggler, part terrorist, part warlord —are now the stuff of reality

  • Better chemical sensor emulates animals' noses

    A new “electronic nose” is more adept than conventional methodologies at recognizing molecular features even for chemicals it has not been trained to detect

  • Using laptops to detect earthquakes

    Laptops have a small accelerometer chip built into them in order to protect the delicate moving parts of the hard disk from sudden jolts; same chip is a pretty good earthquake sensor, too