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CCAT looking to fund new military technologies
CCAT is seeking funding applications for technologies which support the smart unmanned ground robotics initiative; technologies of interest to the Naval Expeditionary Combat Command (NECC); and force health protection
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Quantum teleportation and memory demonstrated in tandem
In quantum communication, information is transmitted using atoms, photons, or other quantum objects; researchers, for the first time, show quantum teleportation and quantum memory in a single experiment
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E.coli to serve as a future source of energy
Aggies researchers shows that a strain of E. coli produces 140 times more hydrogen than is created in a naturally occurring process; finding may prove to be a significant stepping stone on the path to a hydrogen-based economy
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Protein found in mouse urine offers powerful biosensor
Proteins found in mouse urine could help create powerful biosensors for environmental monitoring and security applications; major mouse urinary proteins coated on a standard piezoelectric crystal enabled a one thousand-fold increase in sensor sensitivity compared with existing electronic sensing methods
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Robots use electromagnetic force to create shape-shifting swarm
Carnegie Mellon researchers develop herds, or swarms, of robots using electromagnetic forces to cling to each other so they assume any shape or formation on the go; The prototype robots use electromagnetic forces to maneuver themselves, communicate, and even share power
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New method dramatically increases accuracy of facial recognition systems
University of Glasgow researchers develop a method to increase the accuracy of face recognition biometrics: A computer “averages” 20 pictures of an individual into a morphed portrait; tests show that the new method increases accuracy of a facial recognition system from 54 percent to 100 percent
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RFID technology ever more pervasive, pt. I
RFID tags are everywhere — on boxed goods, in some computer printers, car keys and tires, on shampoo bottles and department store clothing tags; they are also in library books, contactless payment cards, passports, and travel documents; they introduce efficiency and security to the supply chain, but also allow companies and organizations to track the behavior and shopping patterns of individuals
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IOTV Body Armor, Improved Outer Tactical Vest
Soldiers have complained that the standard body armor is too heavy, too hot, and too cumbersome; the Army is now deploying new body armor: It is three pounds lighter, provides more coverage in the small of the back, sits higher around the armpit area, and sits lower on the torso
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Funding for developing nuclear clean-up tool
As nuclear power draws renewed interest — what with the rising price of oil and growing worries about global warming — there is more interest in tools and solutions to help deal with nuclear waste and nuclear clean-up
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American Superconductor's New York grid work moves forward
Massachusetts-based American Superconductor signed a contract to to develop and install new electrical power-grid technology in New York City which would enable Con Edison better to handle power surges and interruptions caused by accidents, weather or terrorist attacks; after government agencies’ squabble, and congressional examination of the contract, DHS tells company to go forward
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Analysis // Ben Frankel: China is new driver of world's innovation, economy
China is becoming the driver of the world’s science, technology, and economy; the U.S.’s persistent failure to encourage and support the training of scientists and engineers in sufficient numbers, at the same time that post-9/11 immigration barriers prevent non-American scientists and engineers from filling the gap, has caused the United States to fall further behind China; if the EU were considered one entity instead of 27 separate countries, it, too, would surpass the United States
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First commercial hot-dry-rock geothermal power plant to start operation
Hot fractured dry rock technology was invented to draw energy from deep underground areas where geothermal heat is abundant, but no water exists to carry the heat to the surface; Aussie company this week to begin operation of the world’s first commercial dry rock geothermal power plant
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MapSnapper allows queries of points of interest on maps
Southampton University researchers develop MapSnapper; solution allows cell phone users to take pictures of map sections and have the pictures come back to them with points of interest added; these points of interest can then be queried further; solution could help phone screen advertising — and first responders rushing to the scene of a disaster
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Breakthrough: Researchers identify weakness in anthrax bacteria
MIT researchers find that nitric oxide (NO) is a critical part of Bacillus anthracis’s defense against the human immune response launched by cells infected with the bacterium; anthrax bacteria that cannot produce NO succumb to the immune system’s attack
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Magnetic fingerprinting to contribute to air traffic safety
European researchers develop an innovative system which monitors tiny fluctuations in the Earth’s magnetic field caused by a passing plane; system increases airport safety even in the worst weather conditions
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More headlines
The long view
Designing the Coastal City of the Future
Boston is situated along the Gulf of Maine, which is warming faster than 99 percent of the ocean due, in part, to changing sea patterns from melting ice in Greenland and the Arctic Ocean. Coupled with increased heat and precipitation, the rising sea level is threatening the low-lying city, much of which was built on landfill over the past 300 years along a 50-square-mile harbor. To save the 685,000-person city, the local government is calling on architects to help implement one of the most ambitious municipal resiliency plans in the United States: Climate Ready Boston. Launched in 2016 by Mayor Martin J. Walsh, Climate Ready Boston is an initiative to prepare the city for the long-term impacts of climate change.
Mysterious Case of the Vanishing UFOs
All over the rest of the world UFOs are in sharp decline, and may soon disappear altogether. People are simply not spotting unidentified spacecraft like they used to. Alien abductions are at an all-time low. UFO-spotting organizations are closing down. Since 2014 alien sightings have halved. The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one, and dropping. “Where have all the UFOs gone?” Ben Macintyre asks in The Times, noting that “The recent drastic worldwide decline of unexplained phenomena is one of the odder unexplained phenomena of modern times.”
AI Could Be a Disaster for Humanity. A Top Computer Scientist Thinks He Has the Solution.
Stuart Russell is a leading AI researcher who co-authored the top textbook on the topic. He has also, for the last several years, been warning that his field has the potential to go catastrophically wrong. In a new book, Human Compatible, he explains how. AI systems, he notes, are evaluated by how good they are at achieving their objective: winning video games, writing humanlike text, solving puzzles. If they hit on a strategy that fits that objective, they will run with it, without explicit human instruction to do so.
How Climate Change Will Help China and Russia Wage Hybrid War
Americans and Europeans may not yet notice the existential threat climate change poses, but they had better pay attention to it. Their adversaries could use climate change as a new front in hybrid warfare. “In several African countries we’re already seeing rural settlements disrupted by development projects funded and executed by China,” Howard Jones, CEO of the Born Free Foundation. Told Defense One’s Elizabeth Braw. “Those projects include altering the flows of entire river systems and putting good land to use for export of food and resources to China. Put this together with climate change and pre-existing poverty and we have a huge problem. And why would China care?” Braw adds: “Indeed, China, Russia, and other hostile states can use climate change as a new tool in blended aggression (often called hybrid warfare) against the West.”
Why America Isn’t Equipped for the New Rules of War
Sean McFate is a former paratrooper in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division; he’s also worked as a private military contractor in West Africa. Today he’s a professor at the National Defense University and Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. His book The New Rules of War, published earlier this year, dissects the ways warfare must change in order for America to succeed. MIT Technology Review’s war reporter Janine di Giovanni sat down to ask him about his vision for the future of conflict.
California Wildfires Signal the Arrival of a Planetary Fire Age
Another autumn, more fires, more refugees and incinerated homes. For California, flames have become the colors of fall. Stephen Pyne writes that free-burning fire is the proximate provocation for the havoc, since its ember storms are engulfing landscapes. But in the hands of humans, combustion is also the deeper cause. Modern societies are burning lithic landscapes - once-living biomass now fossilized into coal, gas and oil - which is aggravating the burning of living landscapes. “Add up all the effects, direct and indirect – the areas burning, the areas needing to be burned, the off-site impacts with damaged watersheds and airsheds, the unraveling of biotas, the pervasive power of climate change, rising sea levels, a mass extinction, the disruption of human life and habitats – and you have a pyrogeography that looks eerily like an ice age for fire,” he writes. “You have a Pyrocene. The contours of such an epoch are already becoming visible through the smoke. If you doubt it, just ask California.”