Blogs

So far we have been having a blast at the USA Science & Engineering Festival. Yesterday we participated in the "sneak peek" portion of the show which only lasted a few hours.  Today, was the official start day and it was packed with kids of all ages! Nearly everyone we met was eager to learn something new. We were a litte skeptical about how our booth would fare beacause A.) Our booth was not that flashy, it's kind of hard to compete against an F-16 Fighting Falcon!

The United States is developing a response to the strain bearing down on worldwide water resources in the decades ahead. A U.S. intelligence report made public in March outlined the potential for water-related issues to become national security problems in various places around the world. At a Washington policy and research organization May 9, the U.S. State Department revealed a multipronged strategy to prepare for the emergence of water problems "that will risk instability and state failure [and] increase regional tensions," as the intelligence assessment predicts.

 Malaria kills 655,000 people annually in Africa; insecticide-treated nets are commonly used to drive away mosquitoes from African homes, but now there is another solution: a fashionable hooded bodysuit embedded at the molecular level with insecticides for warding off mosquitoes infected with malaria. More at  http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20120510-antimalaria-garment-drives-bugs-away

 The American West has a drinking problem; on farms and in cities, people who live in that region are guzzling water at an alarming rate; scientists say that to live sustainably, they should use no more than 40 percent of the water from the Colorado River Basin; currently, however, they use 76 percent, nearly double the sustainable benchmark.

 Very little of Earth’s water is usable in everyday life; about 96 percent of water on Earth is saline; of the total freshwater, over 68 percent is locked up in ice and glaciers; another 30 percent of freshwater is in the ground; rivers are the source of most of the fresh surface water people use, but they only constitute about 300 mi3 (1,250 km3), about 1/10,000th of one percent of total water.

As the target date of 2015 for the Millennium Development Goals gets closer, an expert panel at Britain’s Institute of Development Studies ( IDS) discusses what kind of goals should be set for the future. In a paper recently published by the institute they mention that next set of goals would integrate the much broader idea of human security read more: http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95430/AID-POLICY-Beyond-the-MDGs-planning...

Afghanistan’s National Solidarity Program:

Lessons Learned on NGO-government partnerships supporting Development and Governance

May 9, 2012   2:30-4:00pm

A group of Ohio University students, normally focus on game development, has created a 3-D building mapping program to help first responders in safely responding to emergencies ranging from fires to terrorist attacks. The project took close to three years, and was funded with $950,000 from DHS, which paid for equipment and travel, along with the work of participating students. More at http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/srlet20120508-ohio-university-st...

Climate and environmental change are emerging as national security threats that weigh heavily in the Pentagon’s new strategy, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told an environmental group. More at http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20120508-panetta-environment-i...