U.K. UAV competition

The U.K. Ministry of Defence is holding its Grand Challenge, which calls for the design of a platform with a high degree of autonomy that can detect, identify, monitor, and report a comprehensive range of military threats in an urban environment

The atomic age is 63 years old

On 16 July 1945 the first atomic bomb was successfully exploded at the Trinity Site in New Mexico

U.K. says country is a good place for scientific research

U.K. government body releases a reference work showing major research infrastructures, including light sources, research ships, innovative laboratories, and social data sets

New bunker-busting weapon

The ability to destroy a bunker buried deep under concrete may well one day mean the difference between nuclear war and a diplomatic row; think Iran

New, quick method for identifying food-borne diseases

European researchers have developed a system which prepares samples and performs DNA tests on the salmonella and campylobacter bacteria in a portable and cost-effective chip

NASA's UAV helps fight California wild fires

Fire crews are fighting more than 1,700 blazes that have blackened 829,000 acres of California this fire season; they need all the help they can get -- and NASA extends such help by lending the state a modified Predator UAV

Evidence of acid rain supports meteorite theory of Tunguska catastrophe

There are many theories about the source of the mysterious 1908 explosion in Siberia, an explosion which leveled more than 80 million trees over an area of more than 2,000 square kilometers; presence of acid rain lends support to one of them

Midwest floods to create record dead zone in Gulf of Mexico

Each year, an influx of nutrients -- mainly nitrogen -- which come from fertilizers flushed out of the Mississippi basin creates dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico -- zones where there is not enough oxygen to sustain life; the summer's Midwest floods flush record levels of nutrients into the Gulf, creating a dead zone the size of New Jersey

Infrastructure / On the water front

Emerging water contaminants a growing worry

We wrote yesterday about the City of Chicago launching a thorough scientific examination to see the level of pharmaceutical contamination of Lake Michigan. Indeed, trace organics are important challenges facing the wastewater industry, whether they are endocrine disruptors, microconstituents, pharmaceuticals, or emerging contaminants. In response, several major research organizations have undertaken new research and are compiling information for wastewater treatment managers and others, to ensure that they are making the best and most appropriate treatment decisions to guarantee high quality water for reuse and healthy aquatic ecosystems in receiving waters. The research effort underway is broad and wide-ranging. Last May, the Water Environment Research Foundation pulled together more than two dozen government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and research centers which agreed to share their research findings and plans and to look for future research collaborations on pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) and related compounds.