June 6th, 2006

CISAC researcher mines old anthrax release for new data

In 1979, anthrax was accidentally released in the city of Sverdlovsk (pop. 1,200,000) in the former Soviet Union, infecting about 80 to 100 people and killing at least 70. Now, physicist Dean Wilkening, director of CISAC's science program, has revisited this Cold War tragedy and used its real-world data to improve our ability to model the medical effects of inhalational anthrax. His research allows more accurate modeling of hypothetical scenarios such as the release of a kilogram of aerosolized anthrax in Washington, D.C., today.
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June 29th, 2005

CISAC researchers raise concerns about milk supply's safety against terrorism

Terrorists could harm hundreds of thousands of people by poisoning the U.S. milk supply, warns a study by Lawrence M. Wein, a CISAC faculty member, and Yifan Liu, an incoming CISAC fellow. The study analyzes milk's vulnerability to tampering and suggests that safeguards used voluntarily by some milk producers should be more widely adopted. Read more »

January 1st, 2005

University Scholars Play Prominent Role in Charting Reforms for United Nations

A new united nations report recommending the most sweeping reform in the institution's history offers a global vision of collective security for the 21st century that is as committed to development in poor nations as it is to prevention of nuclear terrorism in rich ones. Read more »