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ENERGY WEAPONSWar at the Speed of Light: The Emerging Role of Directed-Energy Weapons
For decades, notions of laser weapons have been the stuff of science fiction. Now they are becoming military reality, as directed-energy weapons, including high-energy lasers and high-power microwave weapons, open new approaches to counter swarms of cheap drones.
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CLIMATE CHALLENGESHow the Trump administration’s climate math doesn’t add up
There’s an old argument that protecting the environment hurts the economy. It’s wrong for a lot of reasons.
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NUCLEAR ENERGYDOME, World’s First Nuclear Reactor Test Bed, Ready for Privately Developed Advanced Reactors
The Idaho National Laboratory’s Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments (DOME) is a first-of-its-kind microreactor test bed that will enable rapid development, testing and demonstration of privately developed advanced nuclear reactors.
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DOOMSDAYWhat to Expect When You’re Expecting the End of the World
Jem Bendell predicted that society would collapse because of climate change. Then he tried to get on with his life.
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GROVES OF ACADEMEFrom Lecture Halls to Jail Cells: The Rising Risks of University Research
Universities should be clear-eyed about the need to negotiate trade-offs between research security and international engagement. National export-control authorities also need to provide adequate guidance and support to university institutions and researchers navigating increasingly onerous export-control regimes.
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AIAI Can Design and Run Thousands of Lab Experiments without Human Hands. Humanity Isn’t Ready for the New Risks This Brings to Biology
What happens when the same capabilities operate outside those controls is a question that policy has not yet answered. Overreact, and talent and investment may move elsewhere while the technology continues advancing anyway. Underreact, and the risks of that technology could be exploited to cause real harm.
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AIThe Federal Government Is Rushing Toward AI. Our Reporting Offers Three Cautionary Tales.
I’ve studied how the federal government has handled — and mishandled — the AI transition over the past two decades, and my reporting offers some cautionary tales and valuable lessons as policymakers encourage the use of AI and federal agencies adopt the technology.
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SEA MINESHow Sea Mines Threaten Global Trade, and How Navies Detect Them
Artificial intelligence techniques, such as machine learning, can help navies detect modern sea mines. Here’s what I’ve learned about how the mines work and how they can be neutralized.
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MOVING MOUNTAINSBypass the Strait of Hormuz with Nuclear Explosives? The U.S. Studied That in Panama and Colombia in the 1960s
The idea of a new canal to move oil from the Middle East had emerged in the context of another Middle East conflict, the 1956 Suez crisis. Project Plowshare advocates, led by Edward Teller, sought to use what they called “peaceful nuclear explosions” to reduce the costs of large-scale earthmoving projects.
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GUNSNew York City’s Spike in 3D-Printed Guns Prompts Push for Tougher Laws
Police in the nation’s biggest city are recovering a growing number of 3D-printed guns. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is advocating legislation that would make 3D-printing guns a crime.
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AI RISKSArtificial Intelligence Is Facing a Crisis of Control—and the Industry Knows It
Washington appears to be years away from consensus on the expanding security risks posed by advanced artificial intelligence (AI). Concrete international agreements also do not yet exist. There is a tenuous potential path forward to avoid a disaster, but it will require out-of-the-box thinking, intense determination, and unprecedented cooperation.
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AI & CYBER PROTECTIONAI Effort Moves from Novelty to Front Lines of National Lab’s Cyber Protection
A research effort to explore how artificial intelligence can offer an advantage to cyber defenders has made the leap into computing operations: Modeling by PNNL research team is tapped to help defend Lab operations.
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CRITICAL MINERALSResearchers Advance Critical Materials Recycling Technologies
The U.S. has deposits of nearly all critical materials, but mining capabilities cannot meet the nation’s growing demand. Most extraction and processing are done overseas, much of it in China. This reliance on foreign critical materials risks supply disruptions that could affect U.S. national security, economic growth and everyday life.
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IRAN WARWhy Iran Targeted Amazon Data Centers and What That Does – and Doesn’t – Change About Warfare
It seems likely that as the use of AI tools and other cloud-based resources continues to grow in importance for countries around the world, commercial data centers will be targets in future conflicts.
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CHINA WATCHWondering Where China’s Cyber Effort Will Go Next? Just Read the Five-Year Plan
Adversaries sometimes declare strategic priorities, yet cyber incidents that align with them are not assessed accordingly. We should in fact be guarding against intrusions before they happen by taking note of foreign and industrial policies that indicate where they’re likely to concentrate.
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The long view
AIWhat If We Used AI to Strengthen Democracy?
AI is just the latest technology in a long line of innovations through history that have influenced politics. While many experts fear artificial intelligence will be deployed to weaken democracy, examples abound around the world of it being used to make systems fairer. Surveillance, control, propaganda aren’t the only options, says security technologist.
CHINA WATCHThe Trump Administration’s Cyber Strategy Fundamentally Misunderstands China’s Threat
The adoption of an offense-first strategy is a dangerous miscalculation. It will not diminish Beijing’s campaigns, and it coincides with a significant deterioration of cyber defenses that have kept U.S. networks and Americans safe.
CHINA WATCHAllfare: China’s Whole-of-Nation Strategy
To analyze how states exert their influence, scholars often compartmentalize actions into rigid analytical frameworks, which obscures the holistic scope of the challenge.
DRONESCounter-Drone Technologies Are Evolving – but There’s No Surefire Way to Defend Against Drone Attacks
Together, these three types of counter-drone technologies – radio frequency, directed energy and kinetic – provide a comprehensive tool kit for addressing the diverse threats posed by unauthorized drones. However, there is no single ideal solution to counter these threats.
STEELA New Way to Make Steel Could Reduce America’s Reliance on Imports
America has been making steel from iron ore the same way for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been making enough of it. Today the U.S. is the world’s largest steel importer, relying on other countries to produce a material that serves as the backbone of our society. Hertha Metals uses natural gas and electricity to produce steel and high-purity iron for magnets.