Pakistan Is Rapidly Adding Nuclear Arms, U.S. Says — Thom Shanker and David E. Sanger —Washington Post — May 17, 2009
Members of Congress have been told in confidential briefings that Pakistan is rapidly adding to its nuclear arsenal even while racked by insurgency, raising questions on Capitol Hill about whether billions of dollars in proposed military aid might be diverted to Pakistans nuclear program. [More]
Ronald Arkin, a professor of computer science at Georgia Tech, is in the first stages of developing an "ethical governor," a package of software and hardware that tells robots when and what to fire. He argues not only can robots be programmed to behave more ethically on the battlefield, they may actually be able to respond better than human soldiers. [More]
New research shows how the coming generation of space telescopes will for the first time be capable of detecting "biosignatures" in the light from planets orbiting other stars. [More]
U.S.-Russian Team Deems Missile Shield in Europe Ineffective — Joby Warrick and R. Jeffrey Smith —Washington Post — May 14, 2009
A planned U.S. missile shield to protect Europe from a possible Iranian attack would be ineffective against the kinds of missiles Iran is likely to deploy, according to a joint analysis by top U.S. and Russian scientists. [More]
Law of the Sea? Nations Rush to Claim Seabed from Pole to Pole — Nathanial Gronewold —Scientific American — May 13, 2009
The biggest land grab since colonial times is accelerating as nations scramble to claim writ over hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean floor, much of it believed to be rich in natural resources. They hope to gain access to new oil, natural gas, mineral, and methane hydrate resources. [More]
The growing market for preassembled DNA and public access to genetic blueprints for smallpox, Ebola and other diseases have raised concerns that an individual might build a devastating biological threat from scratch. [More]
In Attics and Closets, 'Biohackers' Discover Their Inner Frankenstein — Jeane Whalen —Wall Street Journal — May 11, 2009
Some researchers and law-enforcement officials have raised red flags about biohackers, and have called for better oversight of "synthetic DNA," an ingredient widely used by professional biologists and hobbyists, saying it could theoretically lead to the creation of harmful viruses like Ebola or smallpox. [More]
President Obama plans deep new cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal at a time when the government faces a 15-year backlog of warheads already waiting to be dismantled and a need for billions of dollars in new facilities to store and dispose of the weapons' plutonium. [More]
Distinctive brain patterns could become the latest subject of biometric scanning after EU researchers successfully tested technology to verify identities for security checks. [More]
The Pentagon is redirecting its missile defense efforts from research into targeting the missile in its "boost-phase" to the less technically challenging "ascent-phase" of a missile launch. [More]