Can high-tech ‘sensor fusion’ revolutionize biosurveillance?

It’s the opening act in a potential public health nightmare: a chicken dies on a farm, for no apparent reason; another perishes at a farm hundreds of miles away; it takes time for the farm owners to notice, more time for tests to be conducted and different anomalies connected, and before the diagnostics are complete, the damage is done – the first wave of a bird flu pandemic has broken.

Beyond natural outbreaks, there are also concerns involving deliberate acts: The Department of Justice charged three Chinese nationals with smuggling biological materials into the U.S.; and in June two Chinese researchers were charged with trying to smuggle a fungus into the U.S. that can devastate grain crops.

Read more at The Cipher Brief