• SURVEILLANCEFrom Help to Harm: How the Government Is Quietly Repurposing Everyone’s Data for Surveillance

    By Nicole M. Bennett

    The data that people provide to U.S. government agencies for public services such as tax filing, health care enrollment, unemployment assistance and education support is increasingly being redirected toward surveillance and law enforcement.

  • TARGETING SCIENCEA Siege on Science: How Trump Is Undoing an American Legacy

    By Sachi Kitajima Mulkey

    In its first 100 days, the Trump administration has slashed federal agencies, canceled national reports, and yanked funding from universities. The shockwaves will be felt worldwide.

  • TARGETING SCIENCEFreezing Funding Halts Medical, Engineering, and Scientific Research

    By Liz Mineo

    The Trump administration’s decision to freeze more than $2 billion in long-term research grants to Harvard has put a halt to work across a wide range of medical, engineering, and scientific fields. The projects focus on issues from TB and chemotherapy to prolonged space travel and pandemic preparedness.

  • CLIMATE CHALLENGESWhite House Proposal Could Gut Climate Modeling the World Depends On

    By Abrahm Lustgarten

    Potential funding cuts for NOAA and its research partners threaten irreparable harm not only to climate research but to American safety, competitiveness, and national security.

  • QUANTUM COMPUTING & ENCRYPTIONDecrypting Tomorrow’s Threats: Critical Infrastructure Needs Post-Quantum Protection Today

    By Jason Van der Schyff

    Some argue we still have time, since quantum computing capable of breaking today’s encryption is a decade or more away. But breakthrough capabilities, especially in domains tied to strategic advantage, rarely follow predictable timelines. The time to act on the quantum computing threat was yesterday. The next best time is now.

  • QUANTUM COMPUTING & ENCRYPTIONQuantum Computing - How it Changes Encryption as We Know It

    All of the current encryption standards were created without the consideration of quantum computing and its capabilities. Classical computing would take thousands of years, or more, to crack encryption standards such as RSA or ECC. Quantum computing has the potential to break RSA and ECC encryption within hours or even minutes. AES encryption remains the most secure standard currently in use, but quantum computers will crack it in a fraction of the time that classical computers can.

  • COASTAL CHALLENGESCoastal Management Model Plays the Long Game Against the Rising Tides

    By Tim Schley

    To protect against rising sea levels in a warming world, coastal cities typically follow a standard playbook with various protective infrastructure options. The problem? Future climate conditions might differ substantially from the used projections.

  • TRGETING SCIENCETrump’s War on Measurement Means Losing Data on Drug Use, Maternal Mortality, Climate Change and More

    By Alec MacGillis

    By slashing teams that gather critical data, the administration has left the federal government with no way of understanding if policies are working — and created a black hole of information whose consequences could ripple out for decades.

  • TARGETING SCIENCEMore Than 1,900 Scientists Warn of Trump’s Attacks on Science

    More Than 1,900 members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine signed an open letter, warning the American people about the danger posed by the Trump administration’s sustained  attacks on science.

  • SEARCH & RESCUENext-Gen UAVs Enhance Search and Rescue Efficiency

    Search and rescue operations often face difficulties due to unpredictable weather, rugged terrain, and limited resources. UAVs offer a promising approach to search and rescue missions, but there is a need for improved Aerial Person Detection (APD) technologies to enhance the accuracy and efficiency of UAV-based rescue efforts.

  • CRITICAL MINERALSA Guide to the 4 Minerals Shaping the World’s Energy Future

    By Jake Bittle

    Ending our dependence on fossil fuels and adopting this new, greener technology requires a whole lot of metal. Especially important are rare earth elements and lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper. Just as the 20th century was defined by the geography of oil, the 21st century could be defined by the new geography of metal.

  • AIAI-Controlled Fighter Jets May Be Closer Than We Think — and Would Change the Face of Warfare

    By Arun Dawson

    Could we be on the verge of an era where fighter jets take flight without pilots – and are controlled by artificial intelligence (AI)? US R Adm Michael Donnelly recently said that an upcoming combat jet could be the navy’s last one with a pilot in the cockpit.

  • DEMOCRACY WATCHFeds Can’t Regulate “Ideological Diversity” at Schools Like Harvard

    By Walter Olson

    No civil rights law on the books requires “viewpoint diversity” in university admissions or hiring. No law of any sort entitles the federal government to reach into private universities to restructure their governance and disciplinary procedures or to require college brass to intervene to restructure named departments and schools. These are all things that the Trump administration is demanding of Harvard University on pain of massive peremptory cutoffs of funding for ongoing scientific research and other programs.

  • R&DMIT Lincoln Laboratory Is a Workhorse for National Security

    By Kylie Foy

    The US Air Force and MIT renew contract for operating the federally funded R&D center, a long-standing asset for defense innovation and prototyping.

  • ENERGY SECURITYExperts Discuss Geothermal Potential

    By Graeme Beardsmore and Rachel Webster, University of Melbourne

    Geothermal energy harnesses the heat from within Earth—the term comes from the Greek words geo (earth) and therme (heat). It is an energy source that has the potential to power all our energy needs for billions of years.