• Functionally Graded Material Resistant to Blasts, Fire in buildings

    When a bomb goes off or fire breaks out, a building constructed or retrofitted with an engineered composite currently confined to special applications could buy the surviving occupants extra time to get out. Functionally graded material (FGM), a recently developed composite characterized by the gradual variation of material properties across its thickness, is an effective bomb-resistant material in structural uses.

  • Nobody Saw It Coming: How Scenarios Can Help Us Prepare for the Future in an Uncertain World

    The problem with planning for the future is that it is fundamentally uncertain, and predictions often fall flat when compared with reality. This gap—between the limits of what we can know about the future and the need to plan for it—has led to the development of a variety of tools for futures thinking.

  • Low-Cost Radio System Could Help Trace Disease Spread

    In efforts to limit the spread of disease while preserving privacy, an interdisciplinary research team at NIST has designed and tested low-cost devices and methods that can detect when people or animals come into close contact with each other.

  • Assessing Bridge Support Repairs After Earthquakes

    Steel-reinforced concrete columns that support many of the world’s bridges are designed to withstand earthquakes, but always require inspection and often repair once the shaking is over. Engineers simulate restoration strategies for reinforced concrete columns.

  • Dolphins Guard U.S. Nukes

    Despite all the technological advancements warfare has seen in the last century, the U.S. Navy demonstrates that sometimes, nature offers intriguing options – like using dolphins to protect the waters around Bangor, Washington, which is the largest single nuclear weapons site in the world.

  • Using IT to Defeat Evolving Threats: The Case of the Marine Corps

    Since the dawn of the 21st century, the Marine Corps has progressively placed a greater emphasis on leveraging IT components. It has since become nestled within the Corps’ supply chain and is integral in achieving present and future goals.

  • $3.5 Million NSF Grant to Fund Cybersecurity Scholarships

    A $3.5 million grant will fund new scholarships at Binghamton University over the next five years for two dozen students who plan to join the workforce as cybersecurity professionals. The NSF’s CyberCorps Scholarship for Service program trains the next generation of information technology experts and security managers.

  • Demand for Rare Minerals and Metals Creates Eco-Dilemma

    The world is crying out for rare minerals for the manufacture of electric cars, wind turbines and other technologies that we simply need more of. But how can we guarantee access to these resources without threatening the natural world and mankind as we know it?

  • Smart Electric Grid to Power Our Future

    A novel plan that offers partnership in keeping the United States electric grid stable and reliable could be a win-win for consumers and utility operators.

  • Competition and Collaboration: Understanding Interacting Epidemics Can Unlock Better Disease Forecasts

    A new algorithm increases scientists’ abilities to accurately model mutually dependent spreading processes, from virus outbreaks to disinformation on social media.

  • Opening Architecture to Make Air Travel Safer, Easier

    Researchers have developed an open architecture for airport screening systems, which will allow air travelers to experience faster and safer security checkpoints — no need to open bags or remove liquids or shoes.

  • Ensuring Safe Nuclear Waste Disposal

    Disposal concepts call for the waste to be isolated a third of a mile belowground for safe storage, enclosed within engineered barrier systems and surrounded by subsurface rock. But there’s still the chance radionuclides might leak out if these systems lose their protective properties as it heats up due to radioactive decay. International nuclear waste disposal research effort evaluates maximum allowable temperature for buffer material.

  • Addressing the Microchip Shortage

    The U.S. semiconductor chip shortage is likely to continue well into 2022, and experts predict that the U.S. will need to make major changes to the manufacturing and supply chain of these all-important chips in the coming year to stave off further effects. That includes making more of these chips here at home. 

  • Next Renewable Energy Source: An Artificial Leaf

    Solar energy is not a new concept and has been implemented on a grand scale world-wide. But researchers are looking at another possible renewable method of harnessing the power of the Sun: photosynthesis.

  • Reasserting U.S. Leadership in Microelectronics

    The global semiconductor shortage has grabbed headlines and caused a cascade of production bottlenecks that have driven up prices on all sorts of consumer goods, from refrigerators to SUVs. The chip shortage has thrown into sharp relief the critical role semiconductors play in many aspects of everyday life. But years before the pandemic-induced shortage took hold, the United States was already facing a growing chip crisis. MIT researchers lay out a strategy for how universities can help the U.S. regain its place as a semiconductor superpower.