Recent News

By Category: Research

New Nanobead Approach Could Revolutionize Sensor Technology

(Nanowerk News) Researchers at Oregon State University have found a way to use magnetic “nanobeads” to help detect chemical and biological agents, with possible applications in everything from bioterrorism to medical diagnostics, environmental monitoring or even water and food safety. When fully developed as a hand-held, portable sensor, like something you might see in a Read More »

April 27, 2011
| Filed under North America, Countermeasures, and Research
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Proposed destruction of smallpox virus stirs controversy – CBS News

(Livescience.com) After ravaging humanity for three millennia, the virus behind smallpox is facing its comeuppance. In May, at a meeting of the World Health Organization, nations will decide if it’s finally time to sterilize and incinerate into oblivion the known remaining samples of the virus. Smallpox is sometimes described as the most devastating disease in Read More »

April 26, 2011
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, and Research
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Promising anthrax treatment study results

Researchers find that a multi-agent prophylaxis which is initiated within twenty-four hours after the infection, prevented the development of fatal anthrax respiratory disease; treatment which combines antibiotics with immunization and a protective antigen-based vaccine offered long-term immunity against the disease. According to a study in the April 2011 issue of the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Read More »

April 25, 2011
| Filed under Agents & Toxins and Research
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Why We Still Need Smallpox – New York Times

In a few weeks, member states of the World Health Organization will consider the destruction of the last known samples of smallpox virus, currently held in secure labs by the United States and Russia. Some have sought to publicly frame this issue as a contentious disagreement between our two countries and the rest of the Read More »

April 25, 2011
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, and Research
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U.N. Presses Countries to Enact Anti-WMD Measures

A U.N. Security Council measure adopted without dissent on Wednesday presses governments to comply with a 2004 resolution demanding domestic efforts to prevent “nonstate actors” from obtaining weapons of mass destruction, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, April 1). (Apr. 21) – The U.N. Security Council, shown meeting earlier this month, on Wednesday enacted a Read More »