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New biometrics discipline -- foot biometrics – for security, disease detection
Identity science takes a giant, well, step forward with a new discipline in biometrics: foot biometrics; researchers at the new $1.5 million per year Pedo-Biometrics Research and Identity Automation Lab will test insole sensory system prototypes for a variety of identification uses, from security to detecting the onset of such diseases as diabetes and Parkinson’s
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Milestone for a Raytheon bomb which acquires, tracks, and then hits moving targets
Raytheon said its Small Diameter Bomb II (SDB II) program achieved a milestone when it successfully engaged and hit a moving target during a flight test at the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico; the bomb, released from an F-15E, acquired, tracked, and guided to a moving target using its tri-mode seeker, scoring a direct hit
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Using dolphins’ signal processing method for sea-mine detection
One way for Iran to close the Straits of Hormuz to shipping is to place thousands of sea mines in the water; research examine how dolphins process their sonar signals, using the findings to provide a new system for man-made sonar to detect targets, such as sea mines, in bubbly water
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Social identification, not obedience, is the motive for unspeakable acts
What makes soldiers abuse prisoners? How could Nazi officials condemn thousands of Jews to gas chamber deaths? What is going on when underlings help cover up a financial swindle? For half a decade or so, the dominant view – following the famous Milgram experiments – has been that people engage in barbaric acts because they have little insight into what they are doing and conform slavishly to the will of authority; new research suggests that we need to rethink obedience as the standard explanation for why people engage in cruel and brutal behavior
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Police officers need sleep for health, performance
Forget bad guys and gunfire: Being a police officer can be hazardous to your health in other ways; a news study found that officers working the evening or night shifts were fourteen times more likely to get less restful sleep than day-shift officers, and also were subjected to more back-to-back shifts, exacerbating their sleep deficit – and that police officers who sleep fewer than six hours per night are more susceptible to a variety of health problems
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New algorithm for wireless networks inspired by frog calls
Males of the Japanese tree frog have learnt not to use their calls at the same time so that the females can distinguish among them and locate the caller; scientists say this is a model that can be used for creating a more efficient wireless communication systems
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Studying predator search patterns to improve human searches
The inspiration for the next Google or search-and-rescue drone may spring from a seemingly unlikely source: Watching how animals sniff out food; innovators in everything from robotics to Internet search engines study patterns that animal predators walk while searching for prey; mathematical models which have been used in the past to study these patterns, however, are in need of a little revamping, researchers say — because in the animal kingdom, scent plays a major role in tracking prey
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Unmanned systems emulate animals’ conditioned fear-response mechanism for self-preservation
When animals in the wild engage in eating or grazing, their eyes, ears, and sense of smell continuously monitor the environment for any sense of danger; researchers developed a similar conditioned fear-response mechanism for unmanned systems
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Will rising temperatures lead to rising crime rates?
General Strain Theory has become one of the leading explanations for crime, and Emory University’s Professor Robert Agnew, has become its chief architect; he argues that rising temperatures will lead to more strains — increased temperatures, heat waves, natural disasters, serious threats to livelihood (farming, herding, fishing), forced migrations on a massive scale, and social conflicts arising as nations and groups compete for increasingly scarce food, fresh water, and fuel – and more strains invariably lead to rising crime rates
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Study suggests ways to cut billions from Pentagon budget
The Department of Defense currently spends $400 billion each year acquiring products and services from defense contractors. About $100 billion of the money is spent on administrative costs; one way to reduce the high administrative cists could be “relational contracting,” a concept that has helped private industry dramatically reduce the costs of doing business
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New contracting model would allow the Pentagon to do more with less
Old-school, transactional product support paid defense contractors to ship spare parts and do repairs; it paid contractors to “fix-on-failure”; management experts say that DoD should adopt a different contracting model: Performance-Based Life Cycle Product Support Management, or PBL; under PBL, the military buys system performance, or outcomes, rather than products or services, and a contractor is responsible for providing a defined level of equipment readiness or availability, whatever the cost
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Iran could test-fly ICBMs capable of striking U.S. within three years: Pentagon
A Pentagon report submitted to Congress on 29 June says Iran continues to make large strides in virtually all conventional, unconventional, and nuclear categories; the report focused most extensively on Iran’s inventory of ballistic missiles, and warned that Iran may be able to test-fly an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM), capable of striking American soil, within three years’ time; Iran also continues to supply men, money, training, and even sophisticated weapons systems to some of the world’s best-known terror groups
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New research raises questions about iris recognition systems
Since the early days of iris recognition technologies, it has been assumed that the iris was a “stable” biometric over a person’s lifetime — “one enrollment for life”; researchers find, however, that iris biometric enrollment is susceptible to an aging process that causes recognition performance to degrade slowly over time
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Using cold plasma to fight fires
Traditional fire-suppression technologies focus largely on disrupting the chemical reactions involved in combustion; from a physics perspective, however, flames are cold plasmas; DARPA, the Pentagon’s research arm, theorized that by using physics techniques rather than combustion chemistry, it might be possible to manipulate and extinguish flames
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FDNY conducts live fire tests to test improvements in fire department tactics
In the name of science, but with aim of saving lives, preventing injuries, and reducing property losses, members of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) spent much of the first two weeks in July setting fire to twenty abandoned townhouses on Governors Island, about a kilometer from the southern tip of Manhattan
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More headlines
The long view
Tantalizing Method to Study Cyberdeterrence
Tantalus is unlike most war games because it is experimental instead of experiential — the immersive game differs by overlapping scientific rigor and quantitative assessment methods with the experimental sciences, and experimental war gaming provides insightful data for real-world cyberattacks.
Using Drone Swarms to Fight Forest Fires
Forest fires are becoming increasingly catastrophic across the world, accelerated by climate change. Researchers are using multiple swarms of drones to tackle natural disasters like forest fires.
Testing Cutting-Edge Counter-Drone Technology
Drones have many positive applications, bad actors can use them for nefarious purposes. Two recent field demonstrations brought government, academia, and industry together to evaluate innovative counter-unmanned aircraft systems.
European Arms Imports Nearly Double, U.S. and French Exports Rise, and Russian Exports Fall Sharply
States in Europe almost doubled their imports of major arms (+94 per cent) between 2014–18 and 2019–23. The United States increased its arms exports by 17 per cent between 2014–18 and 2019–23, while Russia’s arms exports halved. Russia was for the first time the third largest arms exporter, falling just behind France.
How Climate Change Will Affect Conflict and U.S. Military Operations
“People talk about climate change as a threat multiplier,” said Karen Sudkamp, an associate director of the Infrastructure, Immigration, and Security Operations Program within the RAND Homeland Security Research Division. “But at what point do we need to start talking about the threat multiplier actually becoming a significant threat all its own?”
The Tech Apocalypse Panic is Driven by AI Boosters, Military Tacticians, and Movies
From popular films like a War Games or The Terminator to a U.S. State Department-commissioned report on the security risk of weaponized AI, there has been a tremendous amount of hand wringing and nervousness about how so-called artificial intelligence might end up destroying the world. There is one easy way to avoid a lot of this and prevent a self-inflicted doomsday: don’t give computers the capability to launch devastating weapons.