• Airborne laser ready for flight tests

    The coming months will be important for the airborne laser — the multibillion-dollar laser built into a customized Boeing 747 will try to shoot a ballistic missile as it rises above the clouds

  • U.K. orders helmet-mounted displays

    BAE’s The Q-Sight display is a key element of the Gunner’s Remote Sighting System (GRSS), a system that will allow the image from a machine-gun-mounted thermal weapon sight to be displayed remotely on a see-through display mounted on the weapon operator’s helmet

  • New type of blast-resistant glass

    Currently, blast-resistant window glass is more than 1in thick, which is much thicker than standard window glass that is only one-fourth of an inch thick and hurricane-protected window glass that is one-half of an inch thick; the new glass being developed is less than one-half of an inch thick

  • Instantly dimmable bullet-resistant windows

    Company awarded a contact to develop instantly dimmable bullet-resistant windows for military and law enforcement vehicles; company says the new product will have its initial application in the global counter-terrorism market for government VIP Armored Personnel Vehicles, but that it also has real value in the civilian VIP market

  • DARPA looking to harness water's power potential

    Bringing power to military units in far-away, and often inaccessible, places has always been a major problem; DARPA is now looking for ways to use seawater to create liquid fuel

  • NIST researchers develop more sensitive explosives detection method

    NIST researchers develop a simple method for detecting and measuring small quantities of explosives which is more sensitive than conventional techniques

  • New NIST trace explosives standard slated for homeland security duty

    NIST, with support from DHS, has developed a new certified reference material — Standard Reference Material (SRM) 2905 (Trace Particulate Explosives)

  • New data protection approach

    New data security system developed by Israeli researchers automatically protects sensitive data because it travels with the data even when it is saved to removable devices like a USB flash drive

  • Using lasers in nuclear decommissioning

    High-power lasers could remove contaminated surfaces of concrete and cut up metal pipework and process vessels inside nuclear reactors, or other contaminated environments

  • Exoskeletons ready for troop tests in 2010

    Designer of the exoskeleton demonstrates invention for journalists; a wearer can hang a 200 lb backpack from the back frame and heavy chest armor and kit from shoulder extensions

  • Gravity tractor to steer asteroids away from Earth

    There are thousands of asteroids in close proximity to Earth, and scientists believe it is inevitable that sooner or later an asteroid will come close enough to be a real threat; British aerospace company designs a gravity tractor to steer a menacing asteroids away

  • Using waste to recover waste uranium

    Researchers find that a combination of bacteria and inositol phosphate can be used to recover uranium from the polluted waters from uranium mines; method may be used to process nuclear waste

  • ASIS selects 10 ASIS Accolades winners

    Panel of judges selects ASIS’s first ASIS Accolades winners — the security industry’s most innovative new products, services, or solutions

  • New business model for researching, producing vaccines

    Relying on venture capital-funded biotech research is problematic when it comes to vaccines for pandemics and bioterrorism; an expert proposes a private-public partnership within the HHS Biomedical Advance Research and Development Authority

  • Code-breaking quantum algorithm runs on a silicon chip

    fifteen years ago, Peter Shor, a computer scientist at MIT, predicted that quantum computers could beat even the most powerful supercomputers and crack the widely used RSA encryption algorithm; he was right: University of Bristol researchers built a silicon chip that can do just that