• Israel begins radiation detection at Haifa Port

    More ports join the U.S.-led effort to check for radiological materials; the idea is to have U.S.-bound cargo containers scanned for radiation before they arrive in U.S. ports; the latest port to be added to the list is Haifa, Israel

  • Lawmakers charge FEMA ignored evidence about trailers' health risks

    Lawmakers charge FEMA with manipulating scientific data about the potential danger posed by a toxic gas emitted in trailers still housing tens of thousands of survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita; more than 40,000 trailers are still being used by families displaced by Katrina in August 2005 and Rita weeks later

  • Protein found in mouse urine offers powerful biosensor

    Proteins found in mouse urine could help create powerful biosensors for environmental monitoring and security applications; major mouse urinary proteins coated on a standard piezoelectric crystal enabled a one thousand-fold increase in sensor sensitivity compared with existing electronic sensing methods

  • Purdue researchers turn cell phones into radiation detectors

    Boilermaker scientists equip cell phones with radiation sensors able to detect even light residues of radioactive material; many cell phones already contain global positioning locators, so the detector-equipped network of phones would serve as a national radiation tracking system

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  • New York City wants feds to install more bioterror sensors

    New York City wants more bioterror sensors installed on city streets; DHS, which funds 90 percent of the program, says it is willing to install a few of the units now, at a cost of $100,000 each, but that it would rather wait for new, improved sensors before paying for a city-wide roll out

  • Hand-held near-infrared chemical detector developed

    Welsh company ZiNIR develops a hand-held near-infrared detector which can identify the chemical content of a substance within a few seconds on a “point, click, read” basis; company sees big opportunity in U.S. security market

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  • Tiny sensors detect toxic gasses

    MIT researchers developed a small detector the size of a match box which will detect minute quantities of hazardous gases, including toxic industrial chemicals and chemical warfare agents, much more quickly than current devices

  • Terrorists in Europe more difficult to track

    As intelligence services and law enforcement use ever-more-sophisticated technology to monitor and track terrorists, al Qaeda operatives and sympathizers are countering by using different measures to avoid detection; they avoid places that they assume are bugged or monitored, such as mosques and Islamic bookshops, use more sophisticated codes, and more

  • New T-ray source would improve airport security, cancer detection

    Terahertz radiation does not have sufficient energy to “ionize” an atom by knocking loose one of its electrons, which is good news, because this ionization causes the cellular damage that can lead to radiation sickness or cancer; T-ray absorption patterns could not only detect but also identify a much wider variety of hazardous or illegal substances than X-ray

  • DSC receives Home Office funding for improved explosive detector

    U.K. company has developed technology to produce from vapor single crystals of the compound semiconductor cadmium telluride, which can be used as detectors of X-rays and gamma rays

  • New X-ray technique developed

    The tomographic energy dispersive diffraction imaging (TEDDI) harnesses all the wavelengths present in an X-ray beam to create 3D pictures; could be used to detect hidden explosives, drugs, and human cancers more effectively

  • Living cells as bioterror detectors

    Terrapin researcher has an idea for bioterror attack detection: Use cells that die when exposed to a particular pathogen, thus providing the early warning; the cells are also engineered to produce a signal, such as fluorescence, when attacked

  • Europeans install radiation detectors as U.S. question detectors' efficacy

    U.S. legislators raise questions about DHS’s $1.4 billion program which aims to deploy nuclear radiation detectors in U.S. ports; GAO raises questions about test methodology of latest technology; Europeans, though forge ahead with port deployment

  • Hygiena launches hand-held device for contaminant detection

    A New Jersey food processor just went belly up as a result of having to launch the second largest recall of contaminated beef in U.S. history; a California company says that if its hand-held contamination monitor were used, the contaminant would have been found earlier, reducing the size of the recall and the subsequent financial hit

  • Laser diodes with world's shortest wavelength for bioterror detection

    Currently, the shortest laser diode reported measures 343nm — which is problematic: Most biological molecules show strong absorption in the ultraviolet spectral region ranging from 280nm to 340nm; researchers at Bristol and Sheffield universities fabricate the first 337nm laser diode — allowing for continuous monitoring of biological molecules; technology will also increase capacity for information storage