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GeoengineeringArctic “Ice Management” Delays, but Not Negate, Climate Change Effects
According to a much-debated geoengineering approach, both sea-ice retreat and global warming could be slowed by using millions of wind-powered pumps, drifting in the sea ice, to promote ice formation during the Arctic winter. Researchers say that the approach could potentially put off ice-free Arctic summers for a few more decades, but beyond that, the Arctic the massive campaign wouldn’t produce any meaningful cooling effect.
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EarthquakesUnderwater Telecom Cables to Be Used as Seismic Detection Network
About 70 percent of Earth’s surface lies under the sea, which means that, until now, most of the Earth’s surface had been largely without early-warning seismic detection stations. Scientists say that fiber-optic cables that constitute a global undersea telecommunications network could one day help in studying offshore earthquakes.
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Perspective: Climate threatsTechnologies to Manage Climate Change Already Exist – but U.K. Needs to Scale Up Efforts Urgently
In the U.K., climate change is being tackled by taking baby steps. Andreas Busch writes that this is unfortunate, because “The world already has effective engineering solutions to manage climate change and to limit global temperatures from rising above 1.5°C – a target set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But there is a desperate lack of conviction from politicians and society to address the climate emergency.”
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CybersecuritySafeguarding Drones, Robotic Cars against Cyberattacks
Robotic vehicles like Amazon delivery drones or Mars rovers can be hacked more easily than people may think, new research finds. Researchers designed three types of stealth attack on robotic vehicles that caused the machines to crash, miss their targets or complete their missions much later than scheduled.
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Water securityAdding Hard-to-Reach Water to the Water Supply
More than 20 percent of the world’s population are dependent on karst groundwater. In these regions, large amounts of water seep into the porous rock and are available at great depths only. Moreover, karst water is susceptible to pollution. Use for sustainable water supply is a challenge in threshold and developing countries.
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AIReview of the Artificial Intelligence Industry Reveals Challenges
A periodic review of the artificial intelligence industry revealed the potential pitfalls of outsourcing our problems for technology to solve rather than addressing the causes, and of allowing outdated predictive modeling to go unchecked.
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DronesShould Santa Use a Drone to Deliver Gifts to Well-Behaved Children?
Santa has always run a one-sleigh operation, but a new analysis could help him speed deliveries and save energy, if he ever decided to add a drone to his route. The new routing algorithm anticipates the day trucks and drones cooperate to drop packages at your doorstep quickly and efficiently.
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InfrastructureUsing Hemp to Repair Deteriorating Kentucky Bridges
Bridges are a crucial component of Kentucky’s infrastructure — providing access between regions and cities and linking workers to jobs. But as traffic continues to increase, bridges across the state are aging at an accelerated pace. Experts say that 7 percent of Kentucky’s bridges—or 1,100 bridges — are classified as “structurally deficient.” Researchers have developed innovative products — dubbed CatStrong — for restoring bridges.
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Perspective: AIRussia’s AI Quest is State-Driven — Even More than China’s. Can It Work?
The Russian government, more than Western governments and more than China’s, is working hard to position itself as a facilitator and promoter of innovation in artificial intelligence. Vladimir Putin said that the technology will lead whoever masters it to global advantage. Samuel Bendett writes that “Those who doubt that this uniquely state-heavy approach can succeed would do well to remember that today’s internet and mobile telecommunications grew out of Pentagon-funded research, that the Soviet Union led the Space Race for a decade, and that U.S. astronauts currently ascend to orbit atop Russian rockets.”
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CybersecurityWho's Responsible When Your Car Gets Hacked?
In the future, when cars can drive themselves, grand theft auto might involve a few keystrokes and a well-placed patch of bad computer code. At that point, who will be liable for the damages caused by a hacker with remote control of a 3,000-pound vehicle?
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Shooter locationSystem Locates Shooters Using Smartphone
Researchers have developed a system that can accurately locate a shooter based on video recordings from as few as three smartphones. When demonstrated using three video recordings from the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas that left 58 people dead and hundreds wounded, the system correctly estimated the shooter’s actual location - the north wing of the Mandalay Bay hotel. The estimate was based on three gunshots fired within the first minute of what would be a prolonged massacre.
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Gene editingEthical Red Flags Fly as Russian Biologist Pushes Boundaries of Gene Editing
As the number of scientists engaged in gene editing grows, the questions about the technology are becoming more urgent. “I worry about the evident hubris on the part of those who act as if it is reasonable for a small group of elite scientists to direct our human future. With human genome-editing technology we are on the cusp of taking over the human evolutionary story,” says one scientist.
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Gene editingSafe Genes Tool Kit Takes Shape
DARPA launched the Safe Genes program in 2017 to establish a “safety by design” strategy for guiding the development of an array of powerful, emergent genome editing technologies. DARPA says that DARPA’s goals for Safe Genes are to mitigate the risks and security concerns related to the accidental or intentional misuse of such technologies and, at the same time, enable the pursuit of novel genetic solutions that support public health and military force protection and readiness.
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Water securityUsing the Internet of Things for Water Security
A cluster of internet-enabled devices, including a water-flow sensor, pH sensor, ultrasonic sensor, and “PIC” microcontroller, may be used together as a watchdog system for water quality.The simple and low-cost system being developed by the team of researchers in India makes water quality assessment and water security widely available without the need for sophisticated technical knowledge.
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AIInterim Report on U.S. and AI Released to Congress
The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) released its Interim Report last week. “As NSCAI’s report conveys, U.S. leadership in promoting trust and innovation in artificial intelligence is imperative to the future of our nation’s security and economy,” said Michael Kratsios, Chief Technology Officer of the United States.
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The long view
Perspective: AIAI 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.
Perspective: New warWhy 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.
Perspective: China syndromeBeijing Will Give You Cold War Nostalgia
America’s twenty-first-century competition with China is likely to be more dangerous and more complex than the U.S. Cold War with the Soviet Union. Walter Russell Mean writes that this is the result of two factors: First, China’s economic power makes it a much more formidable and resourceful opponent than the Soviet Union was., and, second, the technological environment has changed dramatically in the past generation.
Perspective: AIRussia’s AI Quest is State-Driven — Even More than China’s. Can It Work?
The Russian government, more than Western governments and more than China’s, is working hard to position itself as a facilitator and promoter of innovation in artificial intelligence. Vladimir Putin said that the technology will lead whoever masters it to global advantage. Samuel Bendett writes that “Those who doubt that this uniquely state-heavy approach can succeed would do well to remember that today’s internet and mobile telecommunications grew out of Pentagon-funded research, that the Soviet Union led the Space Race for a decade, and that U.S. astronauts currently ascend to orbit atop Russian rockets.”
Perspective: Climate threatsTechnologies to Manage Climate Change Already Exist – but U.K. Needs to Scale Up Efforts Urgently
In the U.K., climate change is being tackled by taking baby steps. Andreas Busch writes that this is unfortunate, because “The world already has effective engineering solutions to manage climate change and to limit global temperatures from rising above 1.5°C – a target set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But there is a desperate lack of conviction from politicians and society to address the climate emergency.”