How United States Agricultural Herbicides Became Military and Environmental Chemical Weapons: Historical and Residual Effects

Discoveries in Charles Darwin’s laboratory led to modern herbicides. Darwin discovered the internal mechanism that directed plants to grow toward sunlight and sources of water. Scientists in Europe and America later called this mechanism a plant’s hormone response system. Administrators and scientists, including Dr. Ezra J. Kraus, the Head of the Botany Department at the University of Chicago and a plant physiologist, suggested on the eve of WWII that weed killers had significant military value as chemical weapons. Dr. Kraus obtained access to a synthetic chemical, 2,4-D, and found that when the chemical was absorbed through the leaves of plants, it destroyed a plant’s hormones. After exposure, the plant experienced rapid and uncontrolled growth, and then the leaves shriveled, died and fell off. Dr. Kraus obtained funding for his Department of Botany research program from Department of Defense (DOD) during World War II (WWII). Camp Detrick (Biological Weapons Laboratory) scientists later obtained samples of newly created 2,4,5-T which contained unknown amounts of the by-product dioxin TCDD. In the 1950s and 1960s, Fort Detrick military scientists formulated the herbicide Agent Orange, which was a 50 - 50 mixture of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. These dual purpose herbicides were used by DOD and USDA. American and European farmers in the 1940s used 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T to eliminate weeds from pastureland and cropland. After WWII, synthetic herbicides (and pesticides) development continued in tandem with production of synthetic fertilizers and breeding of high-yield plant varieties. These new agricultural products were then shipped worldwide to increase crop yields, as part of the Green Revolution. This new system of agricultural technologies was intended to eliminate global starvation and increase food security by increasing field and farm crop yields. In contrast, the goal of military use of herbicides, as chemical weapons, was to defoliate jungle forests and destroy food crops as a strategy to win battles and wars. The primary objective of this research study is to describe how agricultural herbicides became tactical chemical weapons. A current assessment will address the environmental impacts of military and environmental chemical weapons on the United States and Vietnam ecosystems and need for additional dioxin TCDD hotspot clean-up efforts.

Weapons equipment portfolios selection based on equipment system contribution rates

Equipment selection is an essential work in the research and development planning of equipment.The scientific and rational development of weapons equipment portfolios is of considerable significance to the optimization of equipment architecture design,the adequate resources allocation,and the joint combat performance.From the system view,this paper proposes a method of weapons equipment portfolios selection(WEPS)based on the contribution rate of weapon systems,providing a new idea for weapon equipment portfolio selection.Firstly,we analyze the WEPS problem and the concept of the contribution rate under the systems background.Secondly,we propose a combat network modeling method for weapon equipment systems based on the function chain.Thirdly,we propose a WEPS method based on the contribution rate,fully considering the correlation relationships between potential weapons and the old weapon systems by the combat network model,under the limitation of capability demands and budget resources,with the objective to maximally increasing the combat ability of weapon systems.Finally,we make a case study with a specific WEPS problem where the whole calculation processes and results are analyzed and exhibited to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method model.

Mosquito vector management with botanicals-the most effective weapons in controlling mosquito-borne diseases

Dear editor,Mosquito-borne diseases,viz.,malaria,filariasis,dengue hemorrhagic fever,chikungunya,Japanese encephalitis etc.,created huge impact on humans over the world,and the chemical insecticides remain the mainstay of effective control.But,indiscriminate and rampant use of the chemical insecticides in controlling mosquito vectors,in order to prevent diseases vectored by them,has resulted problems related to the adverse environmental effects for their(insecticides)potential toxicity,high operational cost,community acceptance,and the development of insecticide resistance among the vectors.The factors mentioned above prompted the search for new means of control strategies.Currently,the botanicals(viz.,plant extracts,essential oils and phytochemicals)with mosquitocidal potential

Protection of Environment from Damaged Nuclear Station and Transparent Inflatable Blanket for Cities—Protection from Radioactive Dust and Chemical, Biological Weapons

The author, in a series of previous articles, designed the “AB Dome” made of transparent thin film supported by a small additional air overpressure for the purpose of covering a city or other important large installations or sub-regions. In present article the author offers a variation in which a damaged nuclear station can be quickly covered by such a cheap inflatable dome. By containing the radioactive dust from the damaged nuclear station, the danger zone is reduced to about 2 km2 rather than large regions which requires the resettlement of huge masses of people and which stops indus-try in large areas. If there is a big city (as Tokyo) near the nuclear disaster or there is already a dangerous amount of radioactive dust near a city, the city may also be covered by a large inflatable transparent Dome. The building of a gi-gantic inflatable AB Dome over an empty flat surface is not difficult. The cover is spread on a flat surface and a venti-lator (fan system) pumps air under the film cover and lifts the new dome into place but inflation takes many hours. However, to cover a city, garden, forest or other obstacle course in contrast to an empty, mowed field, the thin film cannot be easily deployed over building or trees without risking damage to it by snagging and other complications. This article proposes a new method which solves this problem. The design is a double film blanket filled by light gas such as, methane, hydrogen, or helium - although of these, methane will be the most practical and least likely to leak. Sections of this AB Blanket are lighter than air and will rise in the atmosphere. They can be made on a flat area serving as an as-sembly area and delivered by dirigible or helicopter to station at altitude over the city. Here they connect to the already assembled AB Blanket subassemblies, cover the city in an AB Dome and protect it from bad weather, chemical, bio-logical and radioactive fallout or particulates. After assembly of the dome is completed, the light gas can be replaced by (heavier but cheaper) air. Two projects for Tokyo (Japan) and Moscow (Russia) are used in this paper for sample computation.

Explicit Exact Solution of Damage Probability for Multiple Weapons against a Unitary Target

Abstract We study the damage probability when M weapons are used against a unitary target. We use the Carleton damage function to model the distribution of damage probability caused by each weapon. The deviation of the impact point from the aimpoint is attributed to both the dependent error and independent errors. The dependent error is one random variable affecting M weapons the same way while independent errors are associated with individual weapons and are independent of each other. We consider the case where the dependent error is significant, non-negligible relative to independent errors. We first derive an explicit exact solution for the damage probability caused by M weapons for any M. Based on the exact solution, we find the optimal aimpoint distribution of M weapons to maximize the damage probability in several cases where the aimpoint distribution is constrained geometrically with a few free parameters, including uniform distributions around a circle or around an ellipse. Then, we perform unconstrained optimization to obtain the overall optimal aimpoint distribution and the overall maximum damage probability, which is carried out for different values of M, up to 20 weapons. Finally, we derive a phenomenological approximate expression for the damage probability vs. M, the number of weapons, for the parameters studied here.

Laser Weapons： Blinding Laser Weaponry and Its Discontents

In our highly globalized but culturally divided world whereby so-called defense industry is implied as both innovative and progressive, as contemporaneously the international legal doctrine is conceived to be static and conservative. This doubly bound narrative itself is almost as old as international law wherein the most striking contradictory moments happened in the era of, and between two world wars： In such a way that our thinking of legal and other fields owe much more thereto than we realize today. In this study, it is purported to call attention to some key understandings which may be termed as militarist humanitarianism, humanitarian militarism, or, optimist scientism, and pessimist humanitarianism. As such, it is intended to examine international issues pertaining to humanitarianism and militarism through the lens of different perspectives, doctrine-itself and their history as enshrined in the Protocol IV on Blinding Laser Weapons, issues which are almost totally neglected in the mainstream media and academia.

Toward a Test Protocol for Conducted Energy Weapons

Conducted Energy Weapons (CEWs), such as those manufactured by TASER International Inc., are seeing increased use by law enforcement agencies as a less lethal force option;but, at the same time, these weapons are also seeing an increased level of concern in terms of their safety of use. In order to enable consistent evaluation of CEW performance, a systematic protocol for testing the electrical output of such weapons is required. In this paper, we propose a test specification for CEWs, designed to calculate the key performance and electrical safety parameters. The weapon is fired into a specified load, and current or voltage data are acquired, from which a set of electrical parameters are calculated and recorded. The protocol is based on experience of testing 6000 CEWs in the labs affiliated with the authors. This test protocol is designed to enable systematic testing, evaluation and research on CEW’s, including identification of weapons which are out of specification, determination of changes in weapon characteristics over time, and evaluation of weapons post-incident. Based on the proposed test protocol, we evaluate and report on electrical output produced by 208 X26TM and128 M26TM TASER? weapons. Results are shown in terms of proposed summary parameters and in terms of manufacturer’s performance specifications.

Namebrand Strategy and Economics of Scale-Two Magic Weapons for Blue Ribbon Group

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Weapons system portfolio selection based on the contribution rate evaluation of system of systems

The weapons system portfolio selection problem arises at the equipment demonstration stage and deals with the military application requirements.Further,the contribution rate of the system is one of the important indicators to evaluate the role of a system,which can facilitate the weapons system portfolio selection.Therefore,combining the system contribution rate with system portfolio selection is the focus of this study.It also focuses on calculating the contribution rates of multiple equipment systems with various types of capabilities.The contribution rate is measured by establishing a hierarchical multi-criteria value model from three dimensions.Based on the value model,the feasible portfolios are developed under certain cost constraints and the optimal weapons system portfolios are obtained by using the classification optimization selection strategy.Finally,an illustrative example is presented to verify the feasibility of the proposed model.

Weapons Detection for Security and Video Surveillance Using CNN and YOLO-V5s

In recent years,the number of Gun-related incidents has crossed over 250,000 per year and over 85%of the existing 1 billion firearms are in civilian hands,manual monitoring has not proven effective in detecting firearms.which is why an automated weapon detection system is needed.Various automated convolutional neural networks(CNN)weapon detection systems have been proposed in the past to generate good results.However,These techniques have high computation overhead and are slow to provide real-time detection which is essential for the weapon detection system.These models have a high rate of false negatives because they often fail to detect the guns due to the low quality and visibility issues of surveillance videos.This research work aims to minimize the rate of false negatives and false positives in weapon detection while keeping the speed of detection as a key parameter.The proposed framework is based on You Only Look Once(YOLO)and Area of Interest(AOI).Initially,themodels take pre-processed frames where the background is removed by the use of the Gaussian blur algorithm.The proposed architecture will be assessed through various performance parameters such as False Negative,False Positive,precision,recall rate,and F1 score.The results of this research work make it clear that due to YOLO-v5s high recall rate and speed of detection are achieved.Speed reached 0.010 s per frame compared to the 0.17 s of the Faster R-CNN.It is promising to be used in the field of security and weapon detection.

Accurate analysis of limiting human dose of non-lethal laser weapons

In order to maximize the lethality and reversibility of the non-lethal laser weapons(NLLW) at the same time and thus provide a theoretical basis for the R&D of laser weapons in the future,this paper accurately analyzed the limiting biological dose of irreversible damage to human skin caused by the NLLW.Firstly,based on the burn theory in medicine and the actual tactical background,this paper redefines the evaluation criteria of the limiting laser dose of NLLW to the human body.Secondly,on the basis of anatomical knowledge,a 5-layer finite element model(FEM) of superficial skin is proposed,constructed and verified,which can accurately describe the limiting reversible damage.Based on the optimized Pennes bioheat transfer equation,the diffusion approximation theory,the modified Beer-Lambert law,the Arrhenius equation,and combined with dynamic thermophysical parameters,this paper highly restored the temperature distribution and accurately solved the necrotic tissue distribution inside the human skin irradiated by 1064 nm laser.Finally,it is concluded that the maximum human dose of the1064 nm NLLW is 8.93 J/cm^(2),8.29J/cm^(2),and 8.17 J/cm^(2) when the light spots are 5 mm,10 mm and15 mm,respectively,and the corresponding output power of the weapon is 46.74 W,173.72 W and384.77 W.Simultaneously,the temperature and damage distribution in the tissue at the time of ultimate damage are discussed from the axial and radial dimensions,respectively.The conclusions and analysis methods proposed in this paper are of great guiding significance for future research in military,medical and many other related fields.

Regulation of toxins and bioregulators under the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention

In this paper we highlight how the apparent double coverage of toxins and bioregulators by both the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention(BTWC)and the Chemical Weapons Convention(CWC)in fact masks a regulatory gap that has left such potentially dangerous agents neglected by both the control regimes during a period of rapid advances in relevant chemical,life and associated sciences and technologies.We first review what toxins,bioregulators and other mid-spectrum agents are and why they are of such concern and then examine how they are regulated under the BTWC and CWC.This paper then examines an illustrative range of contemporary chemical and life science research and associated activities of concern drawn from case study research on China,India,Iran,Russia,Syria and the United States,and assesses how the CWC and BTWC States Parties have inadequately addressed these threats.We then examine how both the CWC and BTWC Review Conferences failed to address these long-term challenges,and we end by providing a series of recommendations for how both regimes can be strengthened in this area.

Ethical and strategic challenges of AI weapons: A call for global action

1 Impending prophecy About a decade ago,theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking expressed extreme concern about the development of artificial intelligence(AI),stating that"the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.Concurrently,in 2014,entrepreneur Elon Musk expressed similar cautionary sentiments,suggesting that AI might surpass nuclear weapons in terms of danger.Despite these warnings,the prevailing sentiment at the time was largely skeptical.However,only a few years later,on May 30,2023,hundreds of artificial intelligence experts and other notable figures issued a 22-word statement[1]warning against the“risk of extinction.”

Why are sexually selected weapons almost absent in females？

In sex role reversed species, predominantly females evolve sexually selected traits, such as ornaments and/or weapons. Female ornaments are common and their function well documented in many species, whether sex role reversed or not. However, sexually selected female weapons seem totally absent except for small wing spurs in three jacana species, present in both males and females. This poor female weaponry is in sharp contrast to the situation in species with conventional sex roles： males com- monly have evolved sexually selected weapons as well as ornaments. At the same time, females in many taxa have naturally se- lected weapons, used in competition over resources or in predator defence. Why are sexually selected weapons then so rare, al- most absent, in females？ Here I briefly review weaponry in females and the function of these weapons, conclude that the near ab- sence of sexually selected weapons begs an explanation, and suggest that costs of sexually selected weapons may exceed costs of ornaments. Females are more constrained when evolving sexually selected traits compared to males, at least compared to those males that do not provide direct benefits, as trait costs reduce a female＇s fecundity. I suggest that this constraining trade-off between trait and fecundity restricts females to evolve ornaments but rarely weapons. The same may apply to paternally investing males. Whether sexually selected weapons actually are more costly than sexually selected ornaments remains to be investigated

Strengthening biological security after COVID-19:Using cartoons for engaging life science stakeholders with the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention(BTWC)

The devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have acutely shown the need for maintaining robust international and national systems for biological security and ensuring that life sciences are used only for peaceful purposes.Life science stakeholders can play an important role in safeguarding scientific and technological advances in biology and related fields against accidental or deliberate misuse,not least because they are on the frontlines of driving innovation.In this paper,we argue that enhancing awareness and understanding of the risk of deliberate disease is essential for effective biological security.We first discuss the issue of‘dual use’in science and technology as it relates to disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.Second,we review how scientist engagement with dual-use risks has been addressed in the context of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention(BTWC).Third,we report on the development of an innovative awarenessraising tool,a cartoon series,that can be used for engaging life science stakeholders with BTWC issues.Finally,we outline a set of practical considerations for promoting sustainable life science engagement with the BTWC.

Shifting chemical defence or novel weapons? A review of defence traits in Agarophyton vermiculophyllum and other invasive seaweeds

Seaweed bioinvasions increasingly affect coastal environments around the world, which increases the need for predictive models and mitigation strategies. The biotic interactions between seaweed invaders and invaded communities are often considered a key determinant of invasion success and failure and we here revise the current evidence that the capacity of seaweed invaders to deter enemies in newly reached environments correlates with their invasion success. Particularly efficient chemical defences have been described for several of the more problematic seaweed invaders during the last decades. However, confirmed cases in which seaweed invaders confronted un-adapted enemies in newly gained environments with deterrents that were absent from these environments prior to the invasion (so-called “novel weapons”) are scarce, although an increasing number of invasive and non-invasive seaweeds are screened for defence compounds. More evidence exists that seaweeds may adapt defence intensities to changing pressure by biological enemies in newly invaded habitats. However, most of this evidence of shifting defence was gathered with only one particular model seaweed, the Asia-endemic red alga Agarophyton vermiculophyllum, which is particularly accessible for direct comparisons of native and non-native populations in common garden experiments. A. vermiculophyllum interacts with consumers, epibionts and bacterial pathogens and in most of these interactions, non-native populations have rather gained than lost defensive capacity relative to native conspecifics. The increases in the few examined cases were due to an increased production of broad-spectrum deterrents and the relative scarcity of specialized deterrents perhaps reflects the circumstance that seaweed consumers and epibionts are overwhelmingly generalists.

Development of and prospects for the biological weapons convention

Biological weapons are used in wars to wound or kill people or animals and destroy crops with pathogenic microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses,as well as toxins and other biologically active substances.These are highly infectious,easily communicable,widely destructive,long-acting,and difficult to prevent and treat.Thus,a major challenge for the international community is preventing the spread of biological weapons throughout the world.The Biological Weapons Convention(BWC)is a multilateral treaty that clearly prohibits the development,production,stockpiling,acquisition and preservation of biological and toxic weapons,as well as the design and delivery of biological warfare agents,except for the purpose of prevention,protection and other peaceful uses.The BWC is,to a certain extent,binding on countries capable of manufacturing biological weapons,and has become a powerful tool enabling the international community to jointly deal with the threats posed by biological weapons.However,its effectiveness has been reduced by the lack of a corresponding verification mechanism.With the rapid development of biotechnology,global biosecurity is faced with new and highly uncertain challenges and threats,which requires the member countries of the BWC to cooperate with,promote,and supervise each other in making constant improvements to the BWC in an effort to maintain global peace and stable development.

Illegal Weapons Exports?

Amnesty International, a human rights organization, released a report on June 11 accusing China of facilitating regional conflicts and human rights violations by exporting a large quantity of weapons to Sudan, Nepal, Myanmar and the Great Lakes countries of Africa. Responding to such charges, Teng Jianqun, a researcher with the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, told the official Xinhua News Agency that China has always put its limited arms exports under strict control and surveillance, deno...

Tax Weapons in the COVID-19 War:A Preliminary Study of Brazil,Canada,Denmark,UK and US

1.The COVID-19 Pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic is killing hundreds of thousands of people and crippling businesses worldwide.2 There is no medical cure or vaccine yet.To prevent COVID-19 from crushing the health care system,non-essential activities have been paused and people are asked to stay home and keep"social distancing"in order to slow down the spread of the virus.