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The feeling of security and the reality of security don't always match, says computer-security expert Bruce Schneier. He explains why we spend billions addressing news story risks, like the "security theater" now playing at your local airport, while neglecting more probable risks - and how we can break this pattern.

On the other hand, humanity's malignant effect on the environment has accelerated the rate of extinction for plants and animals, which now reaches perhaps 50,000 species a year. But even here there was some good news. We reversed our first man-made global atmospheric crisis by banning chlorofluorocarbons -- by 2015, the Antarctic ozone hole will have shrunk by nearly 400,000 square miles. Stopping climate change has been a slower process. Nonetheless, in 2008, the G-8 did commit to halving carbon emissions by 2050. And a range of technological advances -- from hydrogen fuel cells to compact fluorescent bulbs -- suggests that a low-carbon future need not require surrendering a high quality of life. Technology has done more than improve energy efficiency. Today, there are more than 4 billion mobile-phone subscribers, compared with only 750 million at the decade's start. Cell phones are being used to provide financial services in the Philippines, monitor real-time commodity futures prices in Vietnam, and teach literacy in Niger. And streaming video means that fans can watch cricket even in benighted countries that don't broadcast it -- or upload citizen reports from security crackdowns in Tehran. Perhaps technology also helps account for the striking disconnect between the reality of worldwide progress and the perception of global decline. We're more able than ever to witness the tragedy of millions of our fellow humans on television or online. And, rightly so, we're more outraged than ever that suffering continues in a world of such technological wonder and economic plenty. Nonetheless, if you had to choose a decade in history in which to be alive, the first of the 21st century would undoubtedly be it. More people lived lives of greater freedom, security, longevity, and wealth than ever before. And now, billions of them can tweet the good news. Bring on the 'Teenies.

Medical and military leaders have come together today to warn that climate change not only spells a global health catastrophe, but also threatens global stability and security.

"Research released today shows that within the next 10 years large parts of Asia can expect increased risk of more severe droughts, which will impact regional and possibly even global food security."

Droughts and floods which devastate crops and rising seas which imperil coastal cities will become potent triggers for famine, disease and homelessness, in turn inflaming tensions and leading to unrest, say experts.

With today's crops, it would be possible to feed the 2050 global population of nine billion people. But agricultural land will have to be used optimally. And this demands solid economic and institutional preconditions. Food prices will probably eventually rise. This was discussed by Professor Martin van Ittersum on 12 May 2011 at the ceremony at which he accepted the post of Professor of Plant Production Systems with a personal chair at Wageningen University.

Scientists say they're close to producing new "super varieties" of wheat that will resist a virulent fungus while boosting yields up to 15 percent, potentially easing a deadly threat to the world's food supply.

Scientists at UQ, in collaboration with JCU, may have found a way to offset up to 2.5 percent of Australia's annual greenhouse gas emissions and secure economic benefits for regional communities.

Invisibility appears to be the next possible advance in the use of Terahertz radiation in medicine, security, and communications.

The instant communications technology that nurtured grassroots revolutions in the Arab world could also help farmers cope with climate change, according to Iowa State University researchers.

Researchers at Northwestern University have created a new kind of cloaking material that can render objects invisible in the terahertz range.