• HazmatDebate continues over releasing Pennsylvania crude oil shipment information

    Shipment of crude oil by rail in the United States has increased from 800,000 barrels a day in 2012 to 1.4 million in 2014. In western Pennsylvania, over seventy-five million gallons of crude oil are passing through Allegheny and Westmoreland counties to refineries in Philadelphia. Release of the recently classified rail transport records by Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) was a result of a federal mandate ordering railway companies to share information on interstate shipments of crude oil with state emergency management officials.Railway companies claim that releasing the information threatens security and is commercially sensitive.

  • Nuclear wasteTiny helpers: Atom-thick flakes help clean up radioactive waste, fracking sites

    Graphene oxide has a remarkable ability quickly to remove radioactive material from contaminated water. Researchers determined that microscopic, atom-thick flakes of graphene oxide bind quickly to natural and human-made radionuclides and condense them into solids. The discovery could be a boon in the cleanup of contaminated sites like the Fukushima nuclear plants, and it could also cut the cost of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) for oil and gas recovery and help reboot American mining of rare earth metals.

  • Oil spillsBP settlement includes $350 million funding for Gulf health, environmental protection

    As part of the $4 billion settlement announced last month between the federal government and BP concerning the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, the National Academy of Sciences has been asked to establish a new $350 million, 30-year program on human health and environmental protection in the Gulf of Mexico

  • Alabama: students do not need birth certificates to attend school

    After thousands of fearful Hispanic students failed to show up for classes on Monday in Alabama, the state’s top education official announced that children would still be allowed to attend even if they did not have birth certificates

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  • DisastersWeighing the costs of disaster

    Different people react differently to disasters; individuals exposed to disaster may experience a number of psychological problems including PTSD, grief, anxiety, and increased substance abuse, but the evidence shows that less than 30 percent of adults experience severe, lasting levels of these problems; there may be a number of factors that influence how people react following disasters, such as age and socioeconomic status

  • Flooding risks along the Mississippi River underestimated by Army Corps of Engineers

    Scientists argue that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in an effort to correct old data on water flows in the Mississippi, may have led to underestimates of the current risk of flooding on the Mississippi between the Ohio and Missouri Rivers, and to inadequate preparations by government agencies

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  • Guest columnThe government's new mail room // by Keith James

    How CRF regulations overhaul mail security — and the keys to timely compliance

  • Landscape of business intelligence market changes in six months

    A campaign of acquisitions by IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP has changed the look of the business intelligence market in the last six months; The Big Four’s market moves were driven by the growing BI hype, the need for self-preservation, and even some fear

  • Pointer Telocation shows Cellocator CelloTrack

    The GPS-based asset tracking market is growing, and a specialist introduces an advanced system to help companies in asset management, inventory control, loss prevention, and security

  • Textual analysis reveals corporate fraud

    The textual analysis technique can be used to identify language patterns in management communications which are inconsistent with either the company’s financial performance or with the communications of other companies in the same industry, indicating fraud