• New Irrigation Tool Promotes Efficient Water Use and Environmental Stewardship

    Irrigation technology has developed to the point where pressurized pipes can deliver water for irrigation while generating in-conduit hydropower that can be used to power electric pumps that currently rely on diesel, and in the future, also power electric tractors and combines.

  • A Simple Simulation Helps Coastal Towns Plan for Rising Sea Levels

    Climate change causes sea level rise and increasingly strong coastal storms. Knowing how water moves through coastal structures can yield important insights for residents and planners.

  • Rethinking Research Security

    How can or should the United States protect the gains of innovation without damaging the very research base it wants to protect? Ainikki Riikonen and Emily Weinstein write that the U.S. government has rightfully identified the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as an adversary intent on stealing technology for its national interests, and the Department of Justice established the China Initiative as a countermeasure. “But the China Initiative misses the mark on an effective approach to research security. It is out of alignment with evolving research security initiatives in the rest of the federal government…. In its current form, research security under the China Initiative may damage America’s ability to innovate and continue defining the cutting edge of technological research in the long term.”

  • Making Our Computers More Secure

    Corporations and governments rely on computers and the internet to run everything, but security hacks just this past month —  including the Colonial Pipeline security breach and the JBS Foods ransomware attacks  — demonstrated, yet again, how vulnerable these systems are. Researchers presented new systems to make computers safer.

  • Natural Hazards Threaten 57% of U.S. Structures

    As a result of increasing temperatures and environmental changes, more than half of the structures in the contiguous United States are exposed to potentially devastating natural hazards—such as floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and wildfires.

  • Developing Drones to Address Pandemic-Related Challenges in Scandinavia

    The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic spurred an immediate need to develop new, innovative systems in supply chains and infrastructure. And for three Norwegian graduate students enrolled in the MIT Professional Education Advanced Study Program (ASP), spring 2020 was the moment when technology, innovation, and preparation met opportunity. The students began working together to transport biological samples using autonomous vehicles.

  • Can China Keep Rising?

    “The East is rising,” Chinese leaders took to declaring around the time U.S. President Joe Biden entered office, “and the West is declining.” Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, the executive editor of Foreign Affairs, writes that while the second part of that declaration may draw eye rolls or angry objections in Washington and allied capitals, “the first has become a point of near consensus: a self-assured China, bolstered by years of dazzling economic performance and the forceful leadership of Xi Jinping, has claimed its place as a world power and accepted that long-term competition with the United States is all but inevitable as a result.” He notes, though, that “past performance does not guarantee future results.”

  • Role of Managed Retreat as a Climate Change Response

    Managed retreat—the climate adaptation response of moving people and property out of harm’s way— is becomig more appealing as one of several responses to sea-level rise. Researchers explore what it would take for managed retreat to be supportive of people and their priorities. The key is to consider retreat alongside other responses like coastal defenses, and not just as an option of last resort.

  • “Managed Retreat” Can Reinvent Cities While Protecting Lives When Climate Change Floods, Burns or Bakes the Land

    Record-breaking heat waves; megadroughts, drying fresh-water sources; hotter and more frequent wildfires; intensifying hurricanes — this is what climate change looks like, and communities need to be prepared. Sometimes small adaptations can help reduce the heat or minimize the damage. But when the risks get too high, one strategy that has to be considered is managed retreat – the purposeful movement of people, buildings and other infrastructure away from highly hazardous places.

  • How Will We Protect American Infrastructure from Cyberattacks

    As the Colonial Pipeline hack and subsequent shutdown reminded us so recently, our infrastructure’s digital connectedness — while bringing benefits like convenience, better monitoring and remote problem-solving — leaves it vulnerable to cyberattacks.

  • Digital Forensics Student on Pace to Be on 1st U.S. Cyber Team

    UCF graduate student Cameron Whitehead is on track to become a member of the first U.S Cyber Team to represent the nation in the inaugural International Cyber Security Challenge later this year in Athens, Greece. Whitehead, who is studying for his master’s degree in digital forensics, recently placed second out of 688 competitors in the U.S. Cyber Open, the first qualifying step to join the team.

  • Explaining Shortages in STEM Careers

    A new study by the University of Georgia revealed that more college students change majors within the STEM pipeline than leave the career path of science, technology, engineering and mathematics altogether.

  • Texas Must Address Groundwater Future: Study

    Long-term water security is essential for the future of Texas, and the state acutely needs a common law system that can balance world-scale agricultural activity, industrial development and urban growth while also protecting private property rights, according to new research.

  • Overseas Climate Change Could Devastate U.K.

    The effects of climate change overseas could have a potentially devastating impact on the economy here in the UK. The UK economy is particularly exposed to risks because of London’s prominent role at the center of the global insurance market. Climate change will lead to rising sea levels and wildfires, as well as an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, and severe storms.

  • Why Gain-of-Function Research Matters

    There are unanswered questions about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, so both the U.S. government and scientists have called for a deeper examination of the validity of claims that a virus could have escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China. Much of the discussion surrounds “gain-of-function” research. What is gain-of-function research? What are the benefits of this research, and how risky is it?