• Light refraction used to detect explosives or toxins, and identify infections

    The transmission of light can be affected by the suspension of metal particles in a clear medium; researchers are now exploiting this property to construct nanosensors that could be used to detect explosives or toxins, or identify infections

  • EC to boost funding for scientific research

    The EU countries produce almost one-third of the world’s scientific knowledge, but research in the information and communication technologies sector accounts for only a quarter of the EU countries’ overall research efforts; the EU wants to change this

  • Self-powered monitoring system for bridges developed

    More than 70,000 of the U.S. bridges are structurally deficient; funds from the administration’s stimulus package will be going to shoring up these bridges; how do agencies responsible for keeping an eye on the health of tens of thousands of bridges do so? University of Miami researchers offer an answer

  • Obama names Aneesh Chopra first U.S. chief technology officer

    President Barack Obama fulfills a campaign pledge to appoint chief technology officer for the United States; Chopra will work closely with Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, who is responsible for setting technology policy and federal technology spending, which amounts to more than $70 billion a year

  • Britain's MI5 looking for real "Q"

    Q, the head of Q Branch in James Bond movies, helped Bond escape several scrapes thanks to the wealth of new-fangled gadgets he offered Agent 007; MI5, U.K. domestic intelligence service, is looking for a real Q; applications due by Friday

  • Space-based solar power coming to California

    Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), California’s largest utility company, will purchase from Solaren 200 megawatts of electricity when Solaren’s system is in place, which is expected to be 2016

  • Using a long tether to deflect threatening asteroids

    An asteroid-tether-ballast system could effectively alter the motion of an asteroid to ensure it missed hitting Earth; the tether, though, is on the long side: between 1,000 kilometers to 100,000 kilometers

  • Aussies inaugurate carbon capture institute

    Australia is the world’s fourth largest producer of hard coal, and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says that Australia has a national and shared global responsibility to establish the workability of carbon capture and storage technology at a commercial scale

  • Pocket-size choppers for soldiers, first responders

    Norwegian company successfully tests a tiny helicopter — it is just over 10 cm long and weighs 0.5 grams; it will be used to look inside a building, over a hill or crest, or down a tunnel

  • American Technology Corp.: LRAD worked as intended in February incident

    San Diego-based American Technology Corporation says its product — long-range acoustic device (LRAD) — was never deployed during the February 2009 MV Biscaglia pirate incident; LRAD is a critical part of a layered defense strategy; it is effective in giving crew members time to determine the intent of unidentified vessels that do not respond to radio calls, and let the pirates know that they lost the element of surprise

  • U.S. tests large flying wing-type UAV in Afghanistan

    Hazy photographs emerged of a large flying-wing UAV — or, rather, UCAV (unmanned combat air vehicle) —on a runway in a military base in Afghanistan; the shape and assumed capabilities indicate growing role of unmanned system in attack missions

  • Watching the watchers: new solution monitors CCTV operators

    People watching CCTV images back in the control rooms often have too many screens to monitor at once, and as a result may miss the criminal or antisocial activities they are there to spot; a new solution monitor the monitors

  • Latest in nonlethal weapons: Poo-flinging catapult

    A colorful English businessman, tired of his property and business being burglarized, used a catapult loaded with chicken excrement to deter burglars; the police said the smart-poo device was illegal because it could not be said to use “reasonable force”

  • New curved laser beams may be used to lessen threats of thunderclouds

    U.S. physicists have created the first curved laser beams; the laser’s plasma channels could be used to control lightning strikes by firing laser pulses into thunderclouds

  • Seeing through concrete, clearly

    Insurgents and terrorists fight from within civilian structures, making it difficult for soldiers and first responders to respond without injuring many civilians; DARPA wants a solution which would allow soldiers to look through concrete walls and give them a detailed picture of a building’s interior — right down to the fixtures