Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that in 2015, wildfires burned a record 10,125,149 acres across the United States, surpassing the previous record set in 2006. The secretary renewed the call for Congress to pass the bipartisan Wildfire Disaster Funding Act.
The flu season will likely peak in February, according to a model developed by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Using historical data, a mathematical representation of how flu spreads through a population, and data for the current flu season provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, scientists were able to create a probabilistic forecast model of the flu season.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reviews the most pressing public health challenges of 2015 and previews plans for 2016. CDC has made significant strides combating some of the biggest threats to Americans' health, including infectious and chronic diseases, while continuing to lead improvements in all areas of public health.
U.S. Army science and technology advisors have initiated a project to field a robot capable of assessing chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive (CBRNE) threats from a safe distance. Several Army organizations combined on a new variant of the PackBot 510 robot with enhanced CBRNE detection capabilities.
The Department of Homeland Security will achieve the objective of more flexible, timely, and useful communication with the public regarding terrorist threats through the introduction of an additional component of National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) to accompany the existing NTAS Alerts: the NTAS "Bulletin."
The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate announced its first Innovation Other Transaction Solicitation aimed at non-traditional performers such as technology start-ups to offer solutions to some of the toughest threats facing DHS and the homeland security mission.
The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate announced the membership of its Project 25 Compliance Assessment Program Advisory Panel. Project 25 aims to solve the issues that first responders face as manufacturers often use different technical approaches that make their radios unique, and, thus, potentially incompatible with other systems.
Profectus BioSciences Inc. announced that the company has received a grant for $4.6 million in support of the accelerated preclinical development and testing of a vaccine to protect soldiers against aerosol exposure with the Western, Eastern, and Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis viruses, considered to be priority select agent biothreats.
To protect healthcare workers and other patient caregivers during an influenza pandemic or other public health emergency, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response will support development of a high-speed manufacturing line to produce N95 respirators.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared the use of the XSTAT 30 wound dressing, an expandable, multi-sponge dressing used to control severe, life-threatening bleeding from wounds in areas that a tourniquet cannot be placed (such as the groin or armpit) in battlefield and civilian trauma settings.
