Ebola, cyber-security and drones: a faculty member and a graduate student in the University of Georgia College of Engineering recently addressed concerns related to all three hot-button issues through letters published in the online journal, Science. In Science, letters are peer-reviewed commentaries on trending topics.

Zion Tse, an assistant professor who leads the College’s Medical Robotics Laboratory, penned letters to Science on the possibility of medical devices such as pacemakers falling prey to hackers (remote, according to Tse) and on the use of social media in tracking the recent Ebola outbreak in western Africa.

Stan Gregory, a Ph.D. candidate working with Tse, published a letter in Science discussing the need to balance the risk and the potential related to drone technology. Gregory and Tse are developing a prototype drone designed to inspect power plants with funding from Southern Company.