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The creative acronym – SILMARILS – comes from “Lord of the Ring’s” magical lore. IARPA’s goals for the project are anything but fictional.

Current technologies for detecting narcotics, explosives and other dangerous chemicals requires physical contact between humans and X-ray-based machinery like those stationed within major airports that scan suitcases and luggage.

In other cases, a human must swab samples of a substance and run them through a similar machine, which is time and labor consuming and risky.

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Most traditional vaccines have safety and efficacy issues, whereas particulate vaccine delivery systems—which utilize nano- or micro-particulate carriers to protect and deliver antigens—are efficient, stable, include molecules to bolster immune responses, and minimize adverse reactions due to the use of biocompatible biomaterials.

A new review, titled “Particulate delivery systems for vaccination against bioterrorism agents and emerging infectious pathogens,” summarizes the current status of research efforts to develop particulate vaccine delivery systems against bioterrorism agents and emerging infectious pathogens.

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The tragedy in Brussels shocked the world this week—but the aftershocks of the March 22 terrorist bombings are likely to include follow-on cyber-threats.

These attacks typically involve hackers targeting critical infrastructure in order to cause chaos and physical damage, alongside fear and financial damage.

“We have been able to identify a pattern of behavior of cyber attackers and attack methods surrounding major terrorist events in Western Europe, the latest such pattern was identified after the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks,” Cytegic noted in an intelligence brief shared with Infosecurity.

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Is this another strategy to fight terrorism by seeing from techies and others the various ways terrorists can take every day items to create weapons?


Do you want to be a MacGyver and turn everyday household items into Decepticons? Then DARPA’s new Improv program wants you.

This sounds like a Transformers movie. Or a MacGyver episode. Heck, this could even be a precursor to Skynet and future Terminators. OK, that last one may not apply, but a new DARPA program wants people who can weaponize a toaster.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched a program called Improv and is soliciting creative minds to submit proposals on how common off-the-shelf, internet-connected items can be used as weapons.

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