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Bookshelf: Preserving the U.S. Technological Republic
The United States since its founding has always been a technological republic, one whose place in the world has been made possible and advanced by its capacity for innovation. But our present advantage cannot be taken for granted.
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Golden Dome: An Aerospace Engineer Explains the Proposed Nationwide Missile Defense System
Similar to Iron Dome, Golden Dome will consist of sensors and interceptor missiles but will be deployed over a much wider geographical region and for defense against a broader variety of threats in comparison with Iron Dome.
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Golden Dome: What Trump Should Learn from Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ Missile Defense System Plan
Golden Dome is reportedly partly inspired by Israel’s Iron Dome system that protects the country from missile attacks, but critics say that it’s much harder to design a defense system to protect a land mass the size of the United States. This is particularly the case in an era characterized by the threat from hypersonic missiles, as well as attacks from space.
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USGS to Fund States’ Efforts to Find Critical Minerals in Mine Waste
The U.S. Geological Survey invited states to compete for $5 million in cooperative agreements to find critical minerals needed to drive the U.S. economy in the materials left over from mining at active and legacy sites.
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Helping the Grid Keep Pace with a Power-Hungry Economy
After remaining nearly flat for almost two decades, America’s demand for electricity is growing, driven by data centers for AI, electric vehicles, production of electrofuels, and other factors. This rising demand is one of many reasons the U.S. needs to dramatically ramp up the grid’s capacity to move electricity.
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How to Solve a Bottleneck for CO2 Capture and Conversion
Today’s carbon capture systems suffer a tradeoff between efficient capture and release, but a new approach developed at MIT can boost overall efficiency.
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Catch Me If You Can? Check.
Sandia supports milestone hypersonic missile defense test, helping defend deployed troops and the nation against hypersonic threats.
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Trump’s Science Cuts Threaten Public Research Data
President Donald Trump’s cuts to scientific research create anxieties about the accessibility of research data. Scientists worldwide fear websites and data sets hosted in the United States will be deleted or decommissioned.
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How We Think About Protecting Data
A new study shows public views on data privacy vary according to how the data are used, who benefits, and other conditions.
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The Government Just Killed an Essential Way to Assess Climate Risk
Cities, insurers, and the public used the Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database to plan for the future. Now what will they do?
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Five Questions: RAND’s Jim Mitre on Artificial General Intelligence and National Security
A recent RAND paper lays out five hard national security problems that will become very real the moment an artificial general intelligence comes online. The researchers made only one prediction: If we ever get to that point, the consequences will be so profound that the U.S. government needs to take steps now to be ready for them.
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The Future of Open Data in the Age of AI: Safeguarding Public Assets Amid Growing Private Sector Demands
AI offers immense potential, but that potential must be realized within a framework that protects the public’s right to its own information. The open data movement must evolve to meet this new challenge—not retreat from it.
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As U.S. Doubles Down on Fossil Fuels, Communities Will Have to Adapt to the Consequences − Yet Climate Adaptation Funding Is on the Chopping Block
It’s no secret that warming temperatures, wildfires and flash floods are increasingly affecting lives across the United States. With the U.S. government now planning to ramp up fossil fuel use, the risks of these events are likely to become even more pronounced. Yet, the White House is proposing to eliminate funding for climate adaptation science in the next federal budget: With climate extremes likely to increase in the coming years, losing adaptation science will leave the United States even more vulnerable to future climate hazards.
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What if Bin Laden Was Killed in the Era of Generative AI?
By leveraging machine learning to produce AI-generated content, adversaries can weaponize synthetic media, making fact and fiction nearly indistinguishable. The death—or not—of combatant leaders is prime example of the magnitude of the challenge this emerging reality poses.
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Trump Administration Issues Restrictive Executive Order to Govern Gain-of-Function Research
Last week President Trump signed an executive order which imposes new restrictions on gain-of-function (GoF) research. Scientists and biosecurity experts say it is not unreasonable to review the security measures governing GoF research, but that the administration has used a definition of GoF which is too broad, vague, and inaccurate, raising the concern that the United States will become less safe, and less prepared for unforeseen biothreats, as essential research and important studies would be hobbled because of the wide net cast by the executive order.
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The long view
Are We Ready for a ‘DeepSeek for Bioweapons’?
Anthropic’s Claude 4 is a warning sign: AI that can help build bioweapons is coming, and could be widely available soon. Steven Adler writes that we need to be prepared for the consequences: “like a freely downloadable ‘DeepSeek for bioweapons,’ available across the internet, loadable to the computer of any amateur scientist who wishes to cause mass harm. With Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 having finally triggered this level of safety risk, the clock is now ticking.”
A Brief History of Federal Funding for Basic Science
Biomedical science in the United States is at a crossroads. For 75 years, the federal government has partnered with academic institutions, fueling discoveries that have transformed medicine and saved lives. Recent moves by the Trump administration — including funding cuts and proposed changes to how research support is allocated — now threaten this legacy.
Bookshelf: Preserving the U.S. Technological Republic
The United States since its founding has always been a technological republic, one whose place in the world has been made possible and advanced by its capacity for innovation. But our present advantage cannot be taken for granted.
Autonomous Weapon Systems: No Human-in-the-Loop Required, and Other Myths Dispelled
“The United States has a strong policy on autonomy in weapon systems that simultaneously enables their development and deployment and ensures they could be used in an effective manner, meaning the systems work as intended, with the same minimal risk of accidents or errors that all weapon systems have,” Michael Horowitz writes.
Ukraine Drone Strikes on Russian Airbase Reveal Any Country Is Vulnerable to the Same Kind of Attack
Air defense systems are built on the assumption that threats come from above and from beyond national borders. But Ukraine’s coordinated drone strike on 1 June on five airbases deep inside Russian territory exposed what happens when states are attacked from below and from within. In low-level airspace, visibility drops, responsibility fragments, and detection tools lose their edge. Drones arrive unannounced, response times lag, coordination breaks.
Shots to the Dome—Why We Can’t Model US Missile Defense on Israel’s “Iron Dome”
Starting an arms race where the costs are stacked against you at a time when debt-to-GDP is approaching an all-time high seems reckless. All in all, the idea behind Golden Dome is still quite undercooked.