SDFM The Business of Defense
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Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the U.S. to protect any individuals who might be at risk after the Wikileaks War Dairies leaks. He also said the military was reviewing its rules for safeguarding classified information. He called it a \"mountain of raw data\" that didn\'t shed new light on U.S. policy but he and experts say it could help the Taliban Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen said that Wikileaks \"might already have on their hands the blood of a young soldier or that of an Afghan family.\"
July 30, 2010 -
August 2nd and 4th How is DC delivering human services and taking care of homeless vets? We will explore these issues and more with Clarence Carter.
July 29, 2010 -
July 26th and 28th Information dominance is about using information and data to prevent conflicts or win in a crisis.
July 29, 2010 -
Susan Grundmann Chairman, Merit Systems Protection Board Arnold Scott AFGE 6th District National Vice President Andrew McAfee Author of \"Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization\'s Toughest Challenges\" Perry Hooks President, Hooks Book Events
July 29, 2010 -
Difficult but the war in Afghanistan can succeed. The words of Richard Holbrook, the top U.S envoy in Afghanistan and Pakistan yesterday before Congress at an oversight hearing on money being spent on the nine year old war in Afghanistan. Lawmakers expressed concern about corruption that\'s eaten up millions of dollars. Holbrooke said this is the toughest job he\'s ever had.
July 29, 2010 -
The Defense Department says an investigation has identified dozens of members of the military and defense contractors that have allegedly obtained child pornography. Many of those involved are said to have access to top secret information. Some of those implicated to are connected to the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Security Agency. The Boston Globe first reported the story after obtaining documents through the Freedom of Information Act. Some have already been prosecuted.
July 26, 2010 -
The Afghan Taliban leadership is facing more pressure from the U.S. The U.S. Treasury Department will freeze the militants\' assets, ban travel and trigger an arms embargo. It follows similar action by the United Nations earlier this week, and comes after calls from Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Afghanistan. the U.S. and U.N. sanctions prohibit any financial transactions of the terror leaders in U.N. member countries, putting additional pressure on Pakistan to take broader actions against the Taliban militants.
July 26, 2010 -
Who\'s dialed in, and who isn\'t, across the Hill and the federal complex.
July 26, 2010 -
Like other sectors of the federal government, federal law enforcement is also dealing with ensuring a diverse workforce. July 23, 2010
July 22, 2010 -
Charles Stephenson Co-author, \"The Beat! Go-Go Music From Washington, D.C.\" Lisa Schlosser Director, Information Collection Office of Environmental Information, Environmental Protection Agency Bob Hill District Advisor, First Command
July 22, 2010 -
The Associated Press says it\'s obtained a thousand emails showing DHS sent FOIA requests to senior political advisers who turned scoured them for information about the requesters and delaying disclosures deemed too politically sensitive. DHS spokesman Sean Smith says, they were just giving senior leadership visibility into FOIA releases to enable the Department to be as responsive as possible. FOIA\'s are designed to be insulated from political considerations. AP says DHS stopped the practice after their investigation.
July 22, 2010 -
NASA\'s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, called WISE, has just completed its first survey of the entire sky. The globe-trotting satellite has generated more than one million images so far, of everything from asteroids to distant galaxies. The mission scanned strips of the sky as it orbited around the Earth\'s poles since it launched last December. One pictured region shows the Pleiades cluster of stars, also known as the Seven Sisters, resting in a tangled bed of wispy dust, highlighting the telescope\'s ability to take wide shots of vast regions of space. So far, WISE has observed more than 100,000 asteroids, both known and previously unseen, most lying in a belt between Mars and Jupiter. 90 of them are new near-Earth objects.
July 21, 2010 -
Officials with USAID - the U.S. Agency for International Development - recently gathered many of the world\'s leading scientists and development thinkers, along with leaders of key federal science agencies, to help map out a new Science, Technology and Innovation strategy. More than 60 experts from around the world spent two days discussing issues and how technology might provide solutions. One of the specific goals will be bridging the divide between the interests of the public and private sectors. The conference was the first step in helping USAID to identify what agency leaders call \"grand challenges\" and explore how science, technology, and innovation can be used to solve them. USAID officials have now appointed the first science advisor the Agency has had in 19 years as well as established a new dedicated Science and Technology office.
July 21, 2010 -
New battery materials developed by the Department of Energy\'s Pacific Northwest National Lab and a Maryland company could enable electric vehicles, power tools and even cell phones to recharge in minutes rather than hours. In collaboration with a Princeton University researcher, the Lab has demonstrated that small quantities of graphene - an ultra-thin sheet of carbon atoms - can dramatically improve the power and stability of lithium-ion batteries, while maintaining high energy storage capacity. The pioneering work could lead to the development of batteries that store larger amounts of energy and recharge quickly. Today, a typical cell phone battery takes between two and five hours to fully recharge. Researchers think using new battery materials with graphene could cut recharge time to less than 10 minutes.
July 21, 2010 -
The University of California San Diego along with General Atomics are about to begin work on developing a new kind of flow battery technology that pumps chemicals through a battery cell when electricity is needed. The development of the battery would revolutionize current century-old lead-acid battery technology - creating low cost, high efficiency and reliability needed for use on the smart electrical power grid. This project is receiving $2 million dollars in funding through the U.S. Department of Energy and APRA-E, the Advanced Project Research Agency devoted to Energy research. The goal is the production of a battery that can be scaled for grid-scale energy storage but which costs less and performs far longer than current technologies.
July 21, 2010