Scientists conscripted in war on terrorism

The US National Academies of Science and Engineering and the Institute of Medicine are calling for the country to take full advantage of its scientific and engineering strengths to detect, thwart, and respond to terrorist attacks more effectively.

Science and technology have always provided humanity with a double-edge sword from our first crackling fires to the computer chip. But, as technology has become increasingly sophisticated the benefits of its and threats of its abuse have concomitantly grown. The Academies have released a report that now identifies actions, including deployment of available technologies, that can be taken immediately, and it points to the urgent need to initiate research and development activities in critical areas to prevent the USA, and putatively its allies from succumbing to terrorist attack.

Lewis Branscomb

The scientific and engineering community is aware that it can make a critical contribution to protecting the nation from catastrophic terrorism, said Lewis Branscomb, co-chair of the committee that wrote the report, and emeritus professor of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Our report gives the government a blueprint for using current technologies and creating new capabilities to reduce the likelihood of terrorist attacks and the severity of their consequences.

The Academies’ report suggests that action can be taken now to protect and control nuclear weapons and radioactive material, to produce adequate vaccine and antibody supplies to combat biological weapons, to secure shipping containers and electric power grids, and to improve ventilation systems and emergency communications. The authors list literally dozens of specific recommendations for research and development activities that could lessen vulnerabilities to terrorism.

Richard Klausner

Biomedical research know-how, for instance, might be harnessed to develop drugs to fight pathogens for which there are currently no treatments. Electrical engineers could generate smart power grids and adaptive systems that can cope even when sections are sabotaged or seriously damaged.

Critically, the report points to the opportunity new computer programs provide in data-mining and scanning information to make it easier for the intelligence services to join the dots between seemingly unrelated snippets of information.

Research is also to be encouraged in the development of new emergency equipment, such as better protective gear for rescue workers and sensors to alert them to radiological or chemical contamination and other hazards when they enter a disaster area. These opportunities will go unrealised unless the government is able to establish and execute a coherent strategy for taking advantage of the nation’s scientific and technical capabilities, adds co-chair Richard Klausner (Gates Foundation team), Executive Director of the Global Health Program, at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle. The federal agencies with science and engineering expertise are not necessarily the same as the agencies responsible for deploying systems to protect the nation, and they all must work together to discover and implement the best counter-terrorism technologies.

The report is aimed squarely at the US federal government, but many institutions from cities and states to private companies and universities will have to work together to discover and deploy anti-terrorism solutions.

It appears that it will hit home, Branscomb told Spotlight. At a hearing before the House Science Committee and the Senate subcommittee for Science, with some eighteen members present, both the senior senator (a democrat) and the senior congressman (a republican) endorsed the two key institutional recommendations. Since they are responsible for marking up that part of the Bill establishing the new department and dealing with science and technology it seems likely that the Academies’ study will influence the legislation that creates the department, he adds.

Making the Nation Safer: The Role of Science and Technology in Countering Terrorism will be available from the National Academy Press.

Scientists conscripted in war on terrorism

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