Security and Defense
The trend toward fewer conflicts reported by peace researchers since the early 1990s now seems to have been broken. This is shown in the latest annual report “States in Armed Conflict,” from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program at the Uppsala University Department of Peace and Conflict Research. The findings worry the researchers. The Middle East is the region where peace initiatives are most conspicuous in their absence.
Canada’s peacekeepers suffer similar rates of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD) as combat, war-zone soldiers, according to a London, Ont. research team. Psychiatrist J. Donald Richardson and his co-investigators also found that PTSD rates and severity were associated with younger age, single marital status and deployment frequency.
The past seven years have shown what can happen if the President of the United States hears and sees only what supports his predispositions.
Science doesn't work that way. Don't you think it would be a good idea if someone organized a 2008 Presidential debate focused on science and Technology?
How people respond to the U.S. government's attempts to censor some war-related images comes down to whether or not they are supporters of President Bush, a new study suggests. Researchers at Ohio State University surveyed 600 people and asked them if they were interested in viewing photos or videos of the caskets containing dead U.S. soldiers arriving in the United States from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory is taking its nuclear energy research into new territory – virtual territory that is. With the recent arrival of the new IBM Blue Gene/P and the lab’s development of advanced computer models, Argonne has a critical role in making it possible to burn repeatedly nuclear fuel that now sits as waste, thus closing the nuclear fuel cycle and reducing the risk of nuclear proliferation.
Climate change may be one of the most significant threats facing humankind. A new study shows that long-term climate change may ultimately lead to wars and population decline. The study, published November 19 in the early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), revealed that as temperatures decreased centuries ago during a period called the Little Ice Age, the number of wars increased, famine occurred and the population declined.
Both crime and prison populations could be reduced dramatically by focusing on the “power few” criminals who commit the most crime, according to Lawrence Sherman, Director of the Jerry Lee Center of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania and Professor of Criminology at Cambridge University, UK. His paper will be published online this week in Springer’s Journal of Experimental Criminology.
Jurors presented with gruesome evidence, such as descriptions or images of torture and mutilation, are up to five times more likely to convict a defendant than jurors not privy to such evidence, research reveals.
Soon after 9-11, Americans wondered aloud: How did our guardians miss the clues? Suspects on watch lists had moved money in curious ways. “Chatter” had risen in recent months. A visitor to the country had offered cash to learn how to fly—but not land—a jetliner. In hindsight, these telltale nuggets provided evidence of the terror to come. Or did they?
Crack sentences imposed in Fiscal Years 2003-2006, would be eligible for review under the new amendment by Sentencing Commission. The "conflict of interest" between the USDOJ and USSC involves how applicable standards would be applied, in light of the Supreme Court's ruling of United States v. Booker. According to the Office of the Assistant Attorney General with the Department of Justice, the issue revolves around how sentencing courts calculate the amended guidelines range. Furthermore, questions persists if the defendant should be present during this process. As a result, the Office of the Assistant Attorney General claims that undue hardship awaits sentencing courts, probation offices and its' affiliates, if 20,000 defendants were released. How legitimate is this claim and does it matter if previous sentencing guidelines were racially motivated?
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has opened a competition to develop a new cryptographic “hash” algorithm, a tool that converts a file, message or block of data to a short “fingerprint” for use in digital signatures, message authentication and other computer security applications. The competition is NIST’s response to recent advances in the analysis of hash algorithms.
The English Reformation—heyday of religious change—spurred a fundamentalist approach to Bible reading, according to new research by a Harvard professor.
Michael Greenstone, an MIT professor of economics, has applied statistical techniques he uses in measuring the economic impact of climate change to conduct the first quantitative analysis of the U.S. troop surge in Iraq.
Publishers Weekly has just published its list of best books for 2007, including the following science or science-related titles.
An academic at the University of Sheffield has used groundbreaking technology to investigate the potential innocence of a woman convicted of poisoning a child in her care.
