Recent News

By Category: Biotechnology

Biohacking Healthcare

(Forbes) Here’s a fairly new term for the healthcare lexicon – biohacking. Wikipedia files their entry under the single category of human biology. The entry itself is very brief and, at least according to Wikipedia, there are two meanings: the art of managing one’s own biology using a combination of medical, nutritional, electronic, and Quantified Read More »

September 14, 2012
| Filed under North America, Biotechnology, Public Health, and Research
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Detecting a subway bioterror attack

(New Scientist) IT’S 3 am, and the subway station has long since shut for the night. As I watch, a small group of people move along the platform in the eerie quiet, their anticipation palpable as they prepare to release a cloud of bacteria into the tunnels beneath the densely populated Boston area. Among them Read More »

September 13, 2012
| Filed under North America, Biotechnology, Public Health, and Research
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DHS Failed to Ask Key Questions on Planned Biowatch Gear: GAO

(Global Security Newswire) Congressional investigators have found the U.S. Homeland Security Department failed to determine if a planned new generation of biological strike scanners would meet an existing need and would function as intended before it pushed to obtain the technology, the Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday. The Government Accountability Office in preliminary findings Read More »

September 13, 2012
| Filed under North America, Biotechnology, Policy & Initiatives, and Public Health
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$1 Bil Later, DHS Pulls Plug On Faulty “BioWatch” System

(The Moral Liberal) After blowing $1 billion on faulty “live-saving” technology that was supposed to detect biological attacks, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is quietly pulling the plug on the failed system. Known as BioWatch, the program has turned out to be a worthless money pit for U.S. taxpayers. The mainstream newspaper that first Read More »

September 12, 2012
| Filed under North America, Biotechnology, and Policy & Initiatives
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BioWatch upgrade apparently postponed

(Los Angeles Times) Amid concerns about cost and reliability, the federal Department of Homeland Security has quietly postponed plans to buy technology that officials have long claimed could provide a life-saving upgrade of BioWatch, the nation’s system for detecting biological attacks. One year ago, the department had said a contract for the new, automated system Read More »