• With Cyberattacks Growing More Frequent and Disruptive, a Unified Approach Is Essential

    Coordinated cyberattacks can create massive disruptions to infrastructure and supply chains. New treaties are needed to prevent cyberwarfare, but it’s challenging to predict technological advances.

  • Building a Better “Canary Trap”

    A new artificial intelligence system generates fake documents to fool adversaries. The system automatically creates false documents to protect intellectual property such as drug design and military technology.

  • Better Method to Predict Offshore Wind Power

    Offshore wind is maturing into a major source of renewable energy, and is projected to grow 15-fold by 2040 to become a $1 trillion industry. Researchers have developed a machine learning model using a physics-based simulator and real-world meteorological data to better predict offshore wind power.

  • An Expert on Search and Rescue Robots Explains the Technologies Used in Disasters Like the Florida Condo Collapse

    Different types of robots may be used to search and rescue victims of disasters, such as the condo collapse in Surfside, Florida. A robotics experts says that the current state of the practice for searching the interior of rubble is to use either a small tracked vehicle, such as an Inkutun VGTV Extreme, which is the most commonly used robot for such situations, or a snakelike robot, such as the Active Scope Camera developed in Japan. Teledyne FLIR is sending a couple of tracked robots and operators to the site in Surfside, Florida.

  • Matt Hancock and the Problem with China’s Surveillance Tech

    Matt Hancock, Britain’s Health Secretary, resigned last week – and informed his wife that he was divorcing her – after CCTV footage emerged of him snogging his assistant outside his office. Ian Williams writes that the Hancock affair raises serious questions involving surveillance and national security: The cameras involved were made by the Chinese company Hikvision, one of the 1.3 million Hikvision cameras installed across the U.K. Hikvision has close links to the Chinese Communist Party and China’s intelligence services. Even if the Chinese intelligence services were not involved in leaking the compromising Hancock video to the press, the episode is one more indication, if one were needed, of the security risks involved in allowing an unregulated access by Chinese technology companies access unfettered and unregulated access to Western markets.

  • Physics-Based Instruction Leads to Success for Geothermal Drilling

    Using the earth’s subsurface heat to change water to steam and power generators to produce electricity is not a new idea. The first large-scale geothermal electricity-generating plant opened in the U.S. in 1960 and has grown to become the most significant energy complex of its kind in the world. But while advances in technology have improved energy production efficiency, one aspect of tapping this renewable resource is still highly cost-prohibitive to those wanting to invest in it: Drilling into the earth.

  • UFOs and Aliens in Germany

    The U.S. government’s release of a report on unidentified aerial sightings has been met with much interest in Germany. Enthusiasts believe UFOs have been sighted here, too. “We’re just a small blue planet in the middle of an infinite universe,” UFO researcher Robert Fleischer says. “Anything is possible out there.”

  • Florida Condo Collapse – Searching for Answers about What Went Wrong in Surfside Can Improve Building Regulation

    How does a building stand for 40 years and then collapse, perhaps with little or no warning? Why did it collapse so that part of the building stayed up, sparing many lives? It might take months or longer for engineers to find answers to these questions. But those reports, when they do come, are important because engineers can use them to improve building codes and other safety measures – and hopefully prevent future collapses.

  • Using Radio Signals to Image Hidden and Speeding Objects

    Radio signals can create real-time images and videos of hidden and moving objects, helping firefighters find escape routes or victims inside buildings filled with fire and smoke. The technique could also be used to track hypersonic objects such as missiles and space debris.

  • Colorado River’s Low-Flow Sheds Light on Eventual New Normal for Grand Canyon

    The Colorado River follows a 1,450-mile route generally southwest from north central Colorado to just east of Las Vegas. From there it turns south to form Arizona’s western border with Nevada and California, and then the border between Mexican states Sonora and Baja California before emptying into the Gulf of California. Between the U.S. and Mexico, 40 million people depend on water from the Colorado.As the climate continues to warm and the amount of water available for humans continues to drop, low flows may become the new normal, he added.

  • June Ends with Exceptional Heat

    As an exceptional and dangerous heatwave is baking the Northwestern U.S. and Western Canada, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says that so many records have been broken that it is difficult to keep track.

  • Disaster Response and Mitigation in an AI World

    Accurately forecasting the movement of natural disasters—wildfires, floods, hurricanes, windstorms, tornados, and earthquakes—gives first responders a jump, allowing them to take measures to reduce damage, conduct advanced resource planning, and increase infrastructure restoration time.

  • Using Intelligent Drones for Search and Rescue

    Finding people lost (or hiding) in the forest is difficult because of the tree cover. People in planes and helicopters have difficulty seeing through the canopy to the ground below, where people might be walking or even laying down. The same problem exists for thermal applications—heat sensors cannot pick up readings adequately through the canopy. New drone technology helps search and rescue teams locate missing persons - even in dense forests.

  • For Flood-Prone Cities, Seawalls Raise as Many Questions as They Answer

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, whose mission includes maintaining waterways and reducing disaster risks, has recently proposed building large and expensive seawalls to protect a number of U.S. cities, neighborhoods and shorelines from coastal storms and rising seas. As a scientist who studies the evolution and development of coastlines and the impacts of sea level rise, I believe that large-scale seawalls, which cost billions of dollars to build, are almost certainly a short-term strategy that will protect only a few cities, and will protect only selected portions of those cities effectively.

  • Harvesting Fresh Water from Humidity around the Clock

    Fresh water is scarce in many parts of the world and must be obtained at great expense. Communities near the ocean can desalinate sea water for this purpose, but doing so requires a large amount of energy. Further away from the coast, practically often the only remaining option is to condense atmospheric humidity through cooling. Current technologies allow water harvesting only at night, but a new technology, for the first time, allows water harvesting 24 hours around the clock, even under the blazing sun.