treehugger.com: by Matthew McDermott

A little bit late to the game, but glad they’ve arrived… The world’s largest exporter of meat products, Brazil’s JBS-Frisboi has pledged to no longer buy cattle raised from areas of the deforested Amazon which were cleared after September 23rd of this year, Greenpeace reports. Additionally, they will not work with any farms found to be using slave labor (what year is it again?!?) or raising cattle in designated protected areas or on indigenous lands: [ more ]

discovermagazine.com:

The U.S. Military has been after a vomit-inducing weapon for years. The idea is to use flashing lights that can make an enemy so dizzy, he hurls (and thereby becomes disoriented and unable to fight).

But while the government has sunk millions into creating the perfect spew-ray gun, a couple of hardware hackers recently slapped one together for around $250. [ more ]

wired.com: By Katie Drummond

The military’s got spy drones and surveillance cameras all over Afghanistan, and they’re looking to add even more. But the heaps of footage are already more than analysts can handle. Now, the Pentagon’s launching a a new effort that will use computer programming to help human analysts and improve the speed and accuracy of spy-cam threat detection — even when there’s only “weak evidence” of an impending attack. [ more ]

newscientist.com: Paul Marks

The latest request from the Pentagon jars the senses. At least, it did mine. They are looking for contractors to provide a “Multi-Robot Pursuit System” that will let packs of robots “search for and detect a non-cooperative human”.

One thing that really bugs defence chiefs is having their troops diverted from other duties to control robots. So having a pack of them controlled by one person makes logistical sense. But I’m concerned about where this technology will end up. [ read more ]

cnn.com: By Mike Steere

Space travel, security threats and increasing passenger numbers are forcing major changes in the way airports are designed.
Elegant space: the interior of the proposed Virgin Galactic spaceport in New Mexico

In fact, when discussing the future of the airport it is now appropriate to consider both conventional air travel hubs we are familiar with, as well as the imminent ’spaceports’. [ read more ]

technologyreview.com: By Brittany Sauser

Scientists have developed a better way to identify fingerprints on bullets and fragments of explosives.

Fingerprints are crucial evidence in many criminal investigations because they can tie a suspect to the scene of a crime with almost indisputable accuracy. Now crime-scene investigators have a new technique for finding fingerprints left on metals, like the cartridge from a spent bullet or fragments of an improvised explosive device, even if the perpetrator tries to wash the evidence clean. [ read more ]

wired.com: By Noah Shachtman

The Army has given a team of University of California researchers a $4 million grant to study the foundations of “synthetic telepathy.” But unlike old-school mind-melds, this seemingly psychic communication would be computer-mediated. The University of California, Irvine explains:

The brain-computer interface would use a noninvasive brain imaging technology like electroencephalography to let people communicate thoughts to each other. For example, a soldier would “think” a message to be transmitted and a computer-based speech recognition system would decode the EEG signals. The decoded thoughts, in essence translated brain waves, are transmitted using a system that points in the direction of the intended target. [ read more ]

wired.com: By Noah Shachtman

Environmental groups have been warning for years that tense parts of the world could get even worse with the advent of global climate change, and even spark whole new conflicts. Now, the nation’s spies are saying pretty much the same thing.

The U.S. intelligence community has finished up its classified assessment of how our changing weather patterns could contribute to “political instability around the world, the collapse of governments and the creation of terrorist safe havens,” Inside Defense reports. Congress was briefed on the report last week. And on Wednesday, leading spies — including National Intelligence Council chairman Dr. Thomas Fingar and Energy Department intelligence chief Rolf Mowatt-Larsen — will testify on the Hill about the 58-page document, “The National Security Implications of Global Climate Change Through 2030.” [ read more ]

cnn.com: By Jon Fortt

Tech visionary Lawrence Lessig made a sobering prediction Tuesday at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference: “There’s going to be an i-9/11 event,” he said, “an event that demonstrates the instability of the Internet, and that inspires the government to a response.”

He said he believes this digital disaster – a major hacker attack or other act of cyber-terrorism in the next 10 years – will prompt the U.S. government to clamp down on Internet freedoms in an online parallel to the Patriot Act.

[ read more ]

sciam.com: By JR Minkel

Researchers outline project to send long-distance, ultrasecure messages on Earth via the International Space Station

Researchers hope to send an experiment to the International Space Station (ISS) by the middle of the next decade that would pave the way for transcontinental transmission of secret messages encoded using the mysterious quantum property of entanglement.

When two particles such as photons are born from the same event, they emerge entangled, meaning they can communicate instantaneously no matter how far apart they are. Transmitting entangled pairs of photons reliably is the backbone of so-called quantum key distribution—procedures for converting those pairs into potentially unbreakable codes. Quantum cryptography, as it is known, could appeal to banks, covert government agencies and the military, and was tested in a 2007 Swiss election. [ read more ]