• U.S. adults fare poorly on international skill test

    A just-completed international test of adults in math, reading, and problem-solving using technology offers a grim message to the United States. The test focused on skills deemed critical for global competitiveness and economic strength, and American adults scored below the international average. It tested about 166,000 people ages 16 to 65 in thirty-three countries and subnational regions. Adults in Japan, Canada, Australia, Finland, and multiple other countries scored significantly higher than American adults in all three areas on the test.

  • USAF partners with national labs to improve aircraft component design

    Working with national laboratories, universities, and industry, the Air Force is ensuring it stays on the cutting edge of global security by creating a new engineering paradigm to improve the safety and fuel-efficiency of aircraft.Materials research engineers at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) have partnered with national laboratories to model defects and study materials at their grain level in an effort to develop and advance the design of systems used by the military personnel, including aircraft.

  • First ever evidence discovered of a comet striking Earth

    The first ever evidence of a comet entering Earth’s atmosphere and exploding, raining down a shock wave of fire which obliterated every life form in its path, has been discovered. The comet entered Earth’s atmosphere above Egypt about twenty-eight million years ago. As it entered the atmosphere, it exploded, heating up the sand beneath it to a temperature of about 2,000 degrees Celsius, and resulting in the formation of a huge amount of yellow silica glass which lies scattered over a 6,000 square kilometer area in the Sahara.

  • Reducing urban water leakage

    No resource is more fundamental to life and human society than water. Yet, globally, 25 to 30 percent of drinking water is lost every year due to leakages in urban water distribution systems. An EU-funded project is proposing an innovative solution for the automatic detection, sealing, and curing of typical network pipes, without digging up pavements and roads.

  • Bolstering water security in a crowded world

    With limited water and the increasing number of people depending on it – there will be more than nine billion people on the planet by 2050 — water security is tenuous. Integrated water management plans using “blue,” “green,” and “gray” water, however, can increase water security by allowing agriculture to rise to the challenge of feeding a growing world population while leaving enough water for other uses.

  • Government shutdown stymies U.S. science agencies

    A U.S. Government furloughs affecting virtually all National Science Foundation (NSF) employees and three-fourths of those at the National Institutes of Health could impact American competitiveness, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) warned. “If the government shutdown continues for a week or more, it is going to make the United States less desirable as an international research collaborator,” said an AAAS representative. “When funding is no longer reliable, many of our research partners may be unable to continue collaborating with us. That could eventually have longer-term impacts on American innovation and competitiveness.”

  • Reducing security threats from explosives

    Researchers, as part of the Awareness and Localization of Explosives-Related Threats center (ALERT), a DHS Center of Excellence, are working on ways to detect explosives and neutralize their impact. The researchers are developing portable detectors as well as larger systems to scan for explosives. Some technologies will analyze the spectrum of light shining through vaporized samples; others will analyze solid residues.

  • Delaware prepares for sea-level rise

    Benjamin Franklin said that that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and Governor Jack Markell of Delaware agrees. Two weeks ago he unveiled an initiative aiming to prepare his state for the effects of climate change and sea-level rise. Markell has signed an executive order requiring all state agencies to take sea-level rise into account when designing and locating state projects. The order also requires development of strategies to make state facilities and operations better prepared to deal with climate change and sea-level rise.

  • Radioactive shale gas contaminants seep into a Pennsylvania creek

    Researchers examined the quality of shale gas wastewater from hydraulic fracturing and the stream water above and below the disposal site in western Pennsylvania. Elevated levels of radioactivity, salts, and metals have been found in river water and sediments at a site where treated water from oil and gas operations is discharged into a creek.

  • Making clean drinking water universally available “achievable”

    More than 780 million people around the world still do not have safe and reliable drinking water. The problem of providing clean water is most acute in developing countries, particularly in Africa, where creaking infrastructures struggle to keep pace with fast-growing urban populations; in rural areas, millions of water pumps stand unused waiting to be repaired.

  • Societies with rigid cultural values produce more terrorists

    Examining more than 80,000 terrorist attacks which occurred between 1970 and 2007, researchers find that cultural values and norms which promote rigid thinking are related to a greater number of terrorist attacks or fatalities. Societies that have the belief that one’s destiny and life events are predetermined (fatalism), have very strong norms and severe punishments for deviation from norms (cultural tightness), and those that privilege masculinity and have very distinct gender roles (low gender egalitarianism) have higher terrorism rates than those that are low on these dimensions.

  • Violent hate crimes, lone-wolf terrorism share characteristics

    Researchers examined the timing, locations, methods, targets, and geographic distributions of lone-actor terrorist attacks, group-based terrorist attacks, and violent hate crimes that occurred in the United States between 1992 and 2010. They found that locations where the 101 lone-actor terrorism incidents occurred shared more demographic similarities with the locations of the 46,000 violent hate crimes than with the locations of 424 group-based terrorist attacks over the time period.

  • Tiny smartphone sensors create an urban seismic network

    A tiny chip used in smart phones to adjust the orientation of the screen could serve to create a real-time urban seismic network, easily increasing the amount of strong motion data collected during a large earthquake. This urban seismic network could transmit in real-time ground motion data to a central location for assessment. The rich volume of data could help first responders identify areas of greatest potential damage, allowing them to allocate resources more effectively.

  • Harnessing lightning power to charge a mobile phone

    Scientists from the University of Southampton have collaborated with Nokia on ground-breaking, proof-of-concept research into harnessing the power of lightning for personal use, an industry first that could potentially see consumers tap one of nature’s significant energy sources to charge their devices in a sustainable manner.

  • Parental, administrative support breeds academic success

    Researchers used data collected from 180,000 students, 170,000 parents, 14,000 teachers, and 6,000 principals across thirty-four countries to look at the issue of cultural excellence — what parents, schools, and students are doing to improve success in reading, math, and science. It is a long-held belief that parental and administrative support helps breed academic success; and the new study offers data to back that up.