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The Apocalypse That Wasn’t: AI Was Everywhere in 2024’s Elections, but Deepfakes and Misinformation Were Only Part of the Picture
2024 is a “super-cycle” year in which 3.7 billion eligible voters in 72 countries had the chance to go the polls. The vast majority of various surveys’ respondents expected AI to be used for mostly bad purposes in these elections, but the dreaded “death of truth” has not materialized – at least, not due to AI.
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U.S. Should Build Capacity to Rapidly Detect and Respond to AI Developments
It is imperative to improve near real-time observation and tracking of progress in artificial intelligence (AI), its adoption, and its impacts on the workforce, and to widely share this information to better inform and equip workers and policymakers.
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How Mining and Renewable Energy Go Hand in Hand on the Road to Net Zero
More, not less, mining will be needed in the future to help achieve the goal of net zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050. A UNSW expert explains why mining will be vital to help renewable energy technologies flourish and to achieve greenhouse gas emission targets.
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Building a Fellowship that Empowers Policymakers to Leverage Science
As all of us just saw with hurricanes Helene and Milton, extreme weather and other impacts of climate change are already affecting the fabric of our society. As evident by these recent tragedies, U.S. leaders are navigating a complex and interconnected policy landscape as they wrestle with how to confront climate change.
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Nuclear Is Here ... and Here and Here
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) helped start the nuclear age more than 80 years ago, and it remains at the forefront of nuclear research. The lab is also actively involved in promoting east Tennessee’s nuclear industry and consulting with nuclear businesses that move into the area.
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AI, Bioterrorism and the Urgent Need for Australian Action
Experts worry that, within a few years, AI will put that capability into the hands of tens of thousands of people. Without a new approach to regulation, the risk of bioterrorism and lab leaks will soar.
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U.S. Army Cyber Command, DARPA Evaluate Advanced Cyber Threat Detection Technologies
Joint activities through the Constellation program accelerate maturation of tactical and strategic cyber capabilities.
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Maintaining Bridge Safety: Digital Sensing-Based Monitoring System
Bridge maintenance monitoring technology is applied to long-span bridges such as cable-stayed bridges and suspension bridges. This monitoring system consumes a lot of resources for design and installation, and the system configuration itself is complex, so there are limits to its application for maintenance of small- and medium-sized bridges. This is bout to change.
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Assessing Small Modular Reactor Applications to Rebuild a Clean Economy in Post-War Ukraine
Building on a decades-long partnership, the Argonne National Laboratory will play a leading role in planning and rebuilding the nuclear-generated clean energy infrastructure in post-war Ukraine.
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New AI Tool Generates Realistic Satellite Images of Future Flooding
Visualizing the potential impacts of a hurricane on people’s homes before it hits can help residents prepare and decide whether to evacuate. The method could help communities better prepare for approaching storms.
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Preparing our Ports for the Future of Alternative Maritime Fuels
Fuels like ammonia will greatly reduce carbon emissions—better for the environment, but are they safe for our infrastructure? The Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) recently conducted a market research survey to assess hazards associated with alternative fuel production, storage, and transport at U.S. ports. High-risk ports could be the sites for future ammonia release tests that will inform preparedness and response.
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World Heading Towards a “Data Doomsday” as Demand Outstrips Energy Supply
New research warns that global renewable electricity supply will be unable to meet the surging demand from digital data by 2033.
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Startup Turns Mining Waste into Critical Metals for the U.S.
At the heart of the energy transition is a metal transition. Wind farms, solar panels, and electric cars require more exotic metals with unique properties, known as rare earth elements. Phoenix Tailings is creating domestic supply chains for rare earth metals, key to the clean energy transition.
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High-Tech Methods to Stem the Flow of Fentanyl
Keeping up with illicit labs churning out new forms of fentanyl, nitazenes is the goal.
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How AI Can Enhance the Accuracy of Eyewitness Identification
AI and natural language processing can provide deeper insights into eyewitness reliability. “Just because someone says they’re confident doesn’t mean they’re right. The worst mistakes come from highly confident witnesses who are actually wrong,” one expert said.
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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.”
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.
Our Online World Relies on Encryption. What Happens If It Fails?
Quantum computers will make traditional data encryption techniques obsolete; BU researchers have turned to physics to come up with better defenses.
Virtual Models Paving the Way for Advanced Nuclear Reactors
Computer models predict how reactors will behave, helping operators make decisions in real time. The digital twin technology using graph-neural networks may boost nuclear reactor efficiency and reliability.
Critical Minerals Don’t Belong in Landfills – Microwave Tech Offers a Cleaner Way to Reclaim Them from E-waste
E-waste recycling focuses on retrieving steel, copper, aluminum, but ignores tiny specks of critical materials. Once technology becomes available to recover these tiny but valuable specks of critical materials quickly and affordably, the U.S. can transform domestic recycling and take a big step toward solving its shortage of critical materials.
Microbes That Extract Rare Earth Elements Also Can Capture Carbon
A small but mighty microbe can safely extract the rare earth and other critical elements for building everything from satellites to solar panels – and it has another superpower: capturing carbon dioxide.
Virtual Models Paving the Way for Advanced Nuclear Reactors
Computer models predict how reactors will behave, helping operators make decisions in real time. The digital twin technology using graph-neural networks may boost nuclear reactor efficiency and reliability.
Critical Minerals Don’t Belong in Landfills – Microwave Tech Offers a Cleaner Way to Reclaim Them from E-waste
E-waste recycling focuses on retrieving steel, copper, aluminum, but ignores tiny specks of critical materials. Once technology becomes available to recover these tiny but valuable specks of critical materials quickly and affordably, the U.S. can transform domestic recycling and take a big step toward solving its shortage of critical materials.
Microbes That Extract Rare Earth Elements Also Can Capture Carbon
A small but mighty microbe can safely extract the rare earth and other critical elements for building everything from satellites to solar panels – and it has another superpower: capturing carbon dioxide.