Within the Department of Homeland Security's research and development arm, the age-old mission to secure and protect people has grown amid the coronavirus to include doing the most good and doing it for the world's good.
Its five labs scattered across the United States, as well as contract private sector partners, study chemical, explosives, radiological, and food supply issues that could affect the department's quarter of a million employees, as well as 800,000 local, state, tribal, and territorial law enforcement officers.
"We're not doing research for the sake of answering questions. We're interested in doing science because there is application - there is a need," said general biological scientist Dr. Lloyd Hough, the lead for S&T's Hazard Awareness & Characterization Technology Center and head of Probabilistic Analysis for National Threats Hazards and Risks.
The government's top scientists began looking at how temperature and humidity affect the virus's ability to remain in the air and on surfaces and at ways to get rid of it.
Scientists inserted coronavirus particles into synthetic saliva and phlegm, then placed it onto surfaces or blasted it into the air, similar to how a person would cough.
With a better understanding of what settings the virus could not thrive in, Hough instructed his team to focus on decontamination, due to the national shortage of masks, as well as the complicated and expensive means by which they must be sterilized.
The solution, scientists found, was the multicooker, a kitchen appliance that, in recent years, has become the in-gadget for cooking food.
Its five labs scattered across the United States, as well as contract private sector partners, study chemical, explosives, radiological, and food supply issues that could affect the department's quarter of a million employees, as well as 800,000 local, state, tribal, and territorial law enforcement officers.
"We're not doing research for the sake of answering questions. We're interested in doing science because there is application - there is a need," said general biological scientist Dr. Lloyd Hough, the lead for S&T's Hazard Awareness & Characterization Technology Center and head of Probabilistic Analysis for National Threats Hazards and Risks.
The government's top scientists began looking at how temperature and humidity affect the virus's ability to remain in the air and on surfaces and at ways to get rid of it.
Scientists inserted coronavirus particles into synthetic saliva and phlegm, then placed it onto surfaces or blasted it into the air, similar to how a person would cough.
With a better understanding of what settings the virus could not thrive in, Hough instructed his team to focus on decontamination, due to the national shortage of masks, as well as the complicated and expensive means by which they must be sterilized.
The solution, scientists found, was the multicooker, a kitchen appliance that, in recent years, has become the in-gadget for cooking food.
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