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Filtered Data Stops Openly Available AI Models from Performing Dangerous Tasks
Researchers have reported a major advance in safeguarding open-weight language models. By filtering out potentially harmful knowledge during training, the researchers were able to build models that resist subsequent malicious updates – especially valuable in sensitive domains such as biothreat research.
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Asteroid Hunting Using Heliostats?
Most planetary defense efforts use observatory-grade telescopes to produce images of the stars. Within those images, computational methods identify streaks, which are asteroids. This process is precise but time-consuming, and building new observatories is expensive. A Researcher says that heliostats, which typically turn solar energy into electricity, could help find asteroids at night. Most planetary defense efforts use observatory-grade telescopes to produce images of the stars. Within those images, computational methods identify streaks, which are asteroids. This process is precise but time-consuming, and building new observatories is expensive. A Researcher says that heliostats, which typically turn solar energy into electricity, could help find asteroids at night.
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Risk Assessment with Machine Learning
Researchers utilize geological survey data and machine learning algorithms for accurately predicting liquefaction risk in earthquake-prone areas.
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HHS Scraps Further Work on Life-Saving mRNA Vaccine Platform
In what experts say will hobble pandemic preparedness, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the dismantling of the country’s mRNA vaccine-development programs—the same innovation that allowed rapid scale-up of COVID-19 vaccines during the public health emergency.
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RFK Jr Is Wrong About mRNA Vaccines – a Scientist Explains How They Make COVID Less Deadly
In announcing the cancellation of US government support for research into mRNA vaccines, Kennedy has claimed that mRNA vaccines “encourage new mutations and can actually prolong pandemics” – a misleading statement that contradicts the scientific consensus on viral evolution and effects of vaccination. The false assertions by RFK Jr. and other vaccine-skeptics notwithstanding, mRNA vaccines do not cause viruses to mutate. Mutations are part of viral evolution: a natural process that happens regardless of our intervention. What vaccines do is give us a fighting chance.
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Incentives for U.S.-China Conflict, Competition, and Cooperation Across Artificial General Intelligence’s Five Hard National Security Problems
The prospect of either the United States or the People’s Republic of China —or both—achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI) is likely to heighten tensions and could even increase the risk of competition spiraling into conflict. But the emergence of AGI could also create incentives for risk reduction and cooperation. We argue that both will not only be possible but essential.
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Securing South Korea's Critical Minerals Supply Chains Through Trilateral Cooperation
South Korea, Japan, and the United States’ trilateral partnership has expanded to include collaboration on economic security, including on critical minerals supply chains (CMSCs). A new report offers analysis and tools for supply chain net assessment, supply chain cooperation, and economic security.
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Hundreds of Old EV Batteries Have New Jobs in Texas: Stabilizing the Power Grid
After reaching the end of their automotive lives, the batteries are being reused to provide lower-cost grid energy storage.
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To Better Detect Chemical Weapons, Materials Scientists Are Exploring New Technologies
Chemical warfare is one of the most devastating forms of conflict. It leverages toxic chemicals to disable, harm or kill without any physical confrontation. Across various conflicts, it has caused tens of thousands of deaths and affected over a million people through injury and long-term health consequences.
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DHS S&T Launches Third Phase of Industry Competition to Develop Remote Identity Verification Tech
DHS S&T’s has announced the third phase of the Remote Identity Validation Rally (RIVR), which challenges the private sector to deliver secure, accurate, and user-friendly technologies that can combat identity fraud when users apply for government services, open bank accounts, or verify social media accounts.
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Geological Mapping Project Supports Critical Mineral Explorations, Enhances Public Safety in the Southeast
A key focus of a new USGS mapping project is to identify where critical minerals vital to the economy and national security might be located. As demand for rare earth elements and other critical minerals grows for use in technology, energy, and defense sectors, this project can provide vital data that helps the U.S. secure domestic sources of critical minerals, thus reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign sources.
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Argonne, UT to Strengthen Collaboration in Battery Sciences and Critical Materials Development
New memorandum of understanding expands joint research to accelerate U.S. battery innovation and secure critical materials supply chains.
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Cybersecurity Education in the Age of AI: Rethinking the Need for Human Capital in National Cyber Defense
Just five years ago, headlines were filled with urgent calls for the United States to drastically increase its output of cybersecurity professionals. Fast forward to 2025, and the proliferation of AI —especially generative and autonomous models—has transformed both the threats we face and the tools we use to defend against them. AI-driven cybersecurity software now automates many of the functions that once required a skilled human analyst, and the argument is made that AI may soon render many human cybersecurity roles obsolete.
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Not Just Drones, but Massed Swarms of Them. Defenses Can’t Cope
A new and sophisticated phase of aerial warfare has emerged from the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East over the past month, defined by the systematic use of massed drone saturation attacks. This evolving doctrine uses quantity and simultaneity to overwhelm even the most advanced air-defense systems.
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Attacks on the U.S. Innovation Ecosystem Are an Attack on a Wellspring of American Prosperity
The Trump administration’s attacks on the country’s science and innovation ecosystem — its cuts to federally funded R&D; its war on higher education; and its aggression toward immigrants, including skilled immigrants — are dismantling America’s science and technology advantage—putting the country’s future prosperity at risk. This frontal assault on the key source of U.S. industry’s competitive advantage is not a recipe for American greatness; it is a recipe for long-term decline.
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The long view
A Shining Star in a Contentious Legacy: Could Marty Makary Be the Saving Grace of a Divisive Presidency?
While much of the Trump administration has sparked controversy, the FDA’s consumer-first reforms may be remembered as its brightest legacy. From AI-driven drug reviews to bans on artificial dyes, the FDA’s agenda resonates with the public in ways few Trump-era policies have.
Risk Assessment with Machine Learning
Researchers utilize geological survey data and machine learning algorithms for accurately predicting liquefaction risk in earthquake-prone areas.
Foundation for U.S. Breakthroughs Feels Shakier to Researchers
With each dollar of its grants, the National Institutes of Health —the world’s largest funder of biomedical research —generates, on average, $2.56 worth of economic activity across all 50 states. NIH grants also support more than 400,000 U.S. jobs, and have been a central force in establishing the country’s dominance in medical research. Waves of funding cuts and grant terminations under the second Trump administration are a threat to the U.S. status as driver of scientific progress, and to the nation’s economy.
The True Cost of Abandoning Science
“We now face a choice: to remain at the vanguard of scientific inquiry through sound investment, or to cede our leadership and watch others answer the big questions that have confounded humanity for millennia —and reap the rewards.”
Bookshelf: Smartphones Shape War in Hyperconnected World
The smartphone is helping to shape the conduct and representation of contemporary war. A new book argues that as an operative device, the smartphone is now “being used as a central weapon of war.”
New Approach Detects Adversarial Attacks in Multimodal AI Systems
New vulnerabilities have emerged with the rapid advancement and adoption of multimodal foundational AI models, significantly expanding the potential for cybersecurity attacks. Topological signatures key to revealing attacks, identifying origins of threats.