"In recent years, efforts to develop the Next Big Thing — whether in medicine, computer technology, pollution prevention or high-performance materials — have turned to some really, really small things: nanomaterials."
A new discovery in genetic engineering seems to have profound potential for good or bad consequences. Changes can be made to an organism which will propagate through an entire species."
"There's far more riding on the Americas' largest seawater desalination plant than the 50 million gallons of drinking water it will produce for the San Diego area each day."
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which runs satellites collecting geodata both classified and unclassified, has put up a new Web page with Arctic information. It just went up, and it's as little geeky, but it shows promise for longer-term utility.
Investigative reporting in the environmental area depends on the Freedom of Information Act. The latest exposé on GMO lobbying in the New York Times by double-Pulitzer-winner Eric Lipton is a good example.
CAMEO is a free and publicly available suite of applications useful to reporters. Developed by the U.S. EPA and NOAA, it includes information about the hazards of various chemicals, as well as map overlays that may show how close a spill site is to the nearest facility of interest, such as a nursery school or retirement home.
"Los Angeles has been blackballed. The city has completed a program of covering open-air reservoirs with floating "shade balls" to protect water quality."
"Federal regulators have begun a push for new cybersecurity defenses to prevent sophisticated attackers from penetrating utility control rooms and other industrial control system centers by infiltrating malware on third-party vendors' products."
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