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U.S., Russia, China race to develop hypersonic weapons
Russia and China have recently touted their progress in developing hypersonic vehicles, which fly much faster than the speed of sound, which is 767 mph. Hypersonic missiles are rocket-boosted to high altitude and may be launched from land, sea or air. Over the past 60 years, U.S. interest in hypersonic vehicles has waxed and waned. Now it seems the U.S. is back in the hypersonic effort in a serious way.
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Using AI in future hypersonic systems
A test launch for a hypersonic weapon — a long-range missile that flies a mile per second and faster — takes weeks of planning. So, while the U.S. and other states are racing to deploy hypersonic technologies, it remains uncertain how useful the systems will be against urgent, mobile or evolving threats. Sandia National Laboratories thinks artificial intelligence and autonomy could slash these weeks to minutes for deployed systems.
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China: Determined to dominate cyberspace and AI
China is chasing dominance in emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in both the private and military sectors, as a central part of its effort to be the leading global cyber power, Chris C. Demchak writes in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The rise of AI – a subset of cyber as are machine learning, quantum computing, and other new technologies – does not herald a new arms race equivalent to that of the Cold War. Rather, the concern should be on the profound disruption to the existing Westernized global order. In the 1990s, Western nations, led by the United States, created what Demchak calls a “Westernized national creation”: cyberspace. Cyberspace, however, has created a multitude of ubiquitous, embedded vulnerabilities whose easy exploitation directly accelerated the rise of an otherwise impoverished authoritarian and aggressive China. Today, no single democracy has the scale and sufficient resources alone to match the foreknowledge and strategic coherence of the newly confident and assertive China. There is thus a need to create a Cyber Operational Resilience Alliance (CORA) to provide the scale and collective strategic coherence required to ensure the future wellbeing and security of democracy in an overwhelmingly authoritarian, post-Western, cybered world.
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How artificial intelligence systems could threaten democracy
U.S. technology giant Microsoft has teamed up with a Chinese military university to develop artificial intelligence systems that could potentially enhance government surveillance and censorship capabilities. The advent of digital repression is profoundly affecting the relationship between citizen and state. New technologies are arming governments with unprecedented capabilities to monitor, track and surveil individual people. Even governments in democracies with strong traditions of rule of law find themselves tempted to abuse these new abilities.
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Detecting rare metals used in smartphones
A more efficient and cost-effective way to detect lanthanides, the rare earth metals used in smartphones and other technologies, could be possible with a new protein-based sensor that changes its fluorescence when it binds to these metals.
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Rapid DNA technology ID’ed California wildfire victims
Amid the chaos and devastation of a mass casualty evet, medical examiners often provide closure as they identify victims in the aftermath, but their ability to do this quickly can vary depending on the size, scope, and type of disaster. Such challenges were the case following the Camp Fire wildfire that killed eighty-five people and devastated communities in Paradise, California, in the fall of 2018. S&T’s Rapid DNA technology became the first resort as it provided identifying information in under two hours when dental records and fingerprints weren’t available.
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Nuclear weapons might save the world from an asteroid strike – but we need to change the law first
The schlocky 1998 Bruce Willis movie Armageddon was the highest grossing film of that year. The blockbuster saw a master oil driller (Willis) and an unlikely crew of misfits place a nuclear bomb inside a giant asteroid heading for Earth, blow it up – and save humanity. Armageddon isn’t exactly a documentary: it’s packed full of sci-fi nonsense. But, 20 years on, its basic plot – of using a nuclear explosion to avert a cataclysmic asteroid collision – doesn’t seem quite as silly as it did at the time.
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Celestial menace: Defending Earth from asteroids
Incoming asteroids have been scarring our home planet for billions of years. This month humankind left our own mark on an asteroid for the first time: Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft dropped a copper projectile at very high speed in an attempt to form a crater on asteroid Ryugu. A much bigger asteroid impact is planned for the coming decade, involving an international double-spacecraft mission.
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Insect-inspired arm technology improve drone design
A drone delivery is great – on a perfect, sunny day. But what about when it’s windy? Most drones are not able to withstand wind because of their fixed-arm design. Researchers have come up with a patented design for drones that works in windy conditions, is more energy-efficient and can handle a larger payload.
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S&T seeking partners for first responder technology R&D
DHS S&T said it was inviting industry, academia, laboratories, and the innovation community to submit white papers related to twelve first responder technology funding opportunities. S&T said that each of the twelve topic areas “represent technology needs identified by responders themselves, and we are seeking the best partners to turn these needs into solutions.”
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Defending the Earth from asteroids
A mere 17-20 meters across, the Chelyabinsk meteor caused extensive ground damage and numerous injuries when it exploded on impact with Earth’s atmosphere in February 2013. To prevent another such impact, researchers use a simple yet ingenious way to spot these tiny near-Earth objects (NEOs) as they hurtle toward the planet.
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Identifying new way to improve cybersecurity
With cybersecurity one of the nation’s top security concerns and billions of people affected by breaches last year, government and businesses are spending more time and money defending against it. Researchers have identified a new way to improve network security.
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Sensing earthquakes in a new way to help improve early warning systems
Every year earthquakes worldwide claim hundreds or even thousands of lives. Forewarning allows people to head for safety and a matter of seconds could spell the difference between life and death. Researchers demonstrate a new earthquake detection method — their technique exploits subtle telltale gravitational signals traveling ahead of the tremors. Future research could boost early warning systems.
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Novel compact antenna for communicating where radios fail
A new type of pocket-sized antenna could enable mobile communication in situations where conventional radios don’t work, such as under water, through the ground and over very long distances through air. The 4-inch-tall device could be used in portable transmitters for rescue missions and other challenging applications demanding high mobility.
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New sensors can sense and sort troublesome gases
From astronauts and submariners to miners and rescue workers, people who operate in small, enclosed spaces need good air quality to work safely and effectively. Newly developed electronic sensors can simultaneously detect at least three critical parameters that are important to monitor to ensure human comfort and safety.
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More headlines
The long view
Autonomous Vehicle Technology Vulnerable to Road Object Spoofing and Vanishing Attacks
Researchers have demonstrated the potentially hazardous vulnerabilities associated with the technology called LiDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging, many autonomous vehicles use to navigate streets, roads and highways. The researchers have shown how to use lasers to fool LiDAR into “seeing” objects that are not present and missing those that are – deficiencies that can cause unwarranted and unsafe braking or collisions.
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.
Prototype Self-Service Screening System Unveiled
TSA and DHS S&T unveiled a prototype checkpoint technology, the self-service screening system, at Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) in Las Vegas, NV. The aim is to provide a near self-sufficient passenger screening process while enabling passengers to directly receive on-person alarm information and allow for the passenger self-resolution of those alarms.
Falling Space Debris: How High Is the Risk I'll Get Hit?
An International Space Station battery fell back to Earth and, luckily, splashed down harmlessly in the Atlantic. Should we have worried? Space debris reenters our atmosphere every week.
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.
Strengthening the Grid’s ‘Backbone’ with Hydropower
Argonne-led studies investigate how hydropower could help add more clean energy to the grid, how it generates value as grids add more renewable energy, and how liner technology can improve hydropower efficiency.
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.
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.