• Chemical Fingerprint for Explosives in Forensic Research

    The police frequently encounter explosives in their forensic investigations related to criminal and terrorist activities. Chemical analysis of explosives can yield valuable tactical information for police and counterterrorist units.

  • Sea Level Rise Matches Worst-Case Scenario

    Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica whose melting rates are rapidly increasing have raised the global sea level by 1.8cm since the 1990s, and are matching worst-case climate warming scenarios. “The melting is overtaking the climate models we use to guide us, and we are in danger of being unprepared for the risks posed by sea level rise,” says one expert.

  • U.S. Flood Strategy Shifts to ‘Unavoidable’ Relocation of Entire Neighborhoods

    For years, even as seas rose and flooding worsened nationwide, policymakers stuck to the belief that relocating entire communities away from vulnerable areas was simply too extreme to consider — an attack on Americans’ love of home and private property as well as a costly use of taxpayer dollars. Christopher Flavelle writes that now, however, that is rapidly changing amid acceptance that rebuilding over and over after successive floods makes little sense. Using tax dollars to move whole communities out of flood zones is swiftly becoming policy, marking a new and more disruptive phase of climate change.

  • Ultrasensitive Measurements Detect Nuclear Explosions

    Imagine being able to detect the faintest of radionuclide signals from hundreds of miles away. Scientists have developed a system which constantly collects and analyzes air samples for signals that would indicate a nuclear explosion, perhaps conducted secretly underground. The system can detect just a small number of atoms from nuclear activity anywhere on the planet. In terms of sensitivity, the capability – in place for decades – is analogous to the ability to detect coronavirus from a single cough anywhere on Earth.

  • Warming May Force Some Favorite Produce Crops to Get a Move On

    Record drought and heat have some farmers worried about where and when crops can be grown in the future, even in California where unprecedented microclimate diversity creates ideal growing conditions for many of the most popular items in America’s grocery stores Warmer California temperatures by mid-century will be too hot for some crops, just right for others.

  • Can Anonymous Classrooms Protect Students from Beijing’s Snooping?

    With many American universities holding online courses this semester because of the pandemic, faculty members at Princeton, Harvard and other elite schools are looking for ways to protect the privacy and identity of students logging in from Hong Kong and China, where they are subject to China’s repressive rules on self-expression.  

  • Water Efficiency Achievable Throughout U.S. without Decrease in Economic Activity

    A recent study showed that targeted efforts to increase water efficiency could save enough water annually to fill Lake Mead. It could happen without significantly compromising economic production, jobs or tax revenue.

  • The World's Biggest Waves: How Climate Change Could Trigger Large Landslides and “Mega-Tsunamis”

    Natural hazards which are triggered, made more frequent, or exacerbated by climate change can’t be prevented, but damage to infrastructure and populations can be minimized. This can be achieved through scientific understanding of the physical processes, site-specific engineering risk analysis and coastal management of hazard-prone regions.

  • New Technique to Prevent Medical Imaging Cyberthreats

    Complex medical devices such as CT (computed tomography), MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and ultrasound machines are controlled by instructions sent from a host PC. Abnormal or anomalous instructions introduce many potentially harmful threats to patients, such as radiation overexposure, manipulation of device components or functional manipulation of medical images. Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have developed a new artificial intelligence technique that will protect medical devices from malicious operating instructions in a cyberattack as well as other human and system errors.

  • FDA OKs Use of Convalescent Plasma for COVID-19

    On Sunday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it has approved plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients to be used as a hospital-based treatment for the novel coronavirus under an emergency use authorization (EUA). In a White House press conference, President Trump and FDA director Stephen Hahn both claimed that treatment with convalescent plasma “reduced mortality in hospitalized patients by 35%,” but the FDA’s own press release was much more circumspect. Many scientists pointed out that the Mayo Clinic study cited by both Trump and Hahn clearly stated that 3.2 people out of 100—not 35—would be saved by the administration of convalescent plasma, and that even to achieve this result, the plasma must be administered within three days of infection. Still, even without the hype, and subject to additional controlled, randomized clinical trials, scientists say, this is welcome news.

  • First Oral Anthrax Vaccine for Livestock, Wildlife

    Anthrax, a disease caused by a bacterium called Bacillus anthracis, contaminates surface soil and grasses, where it may be ingested or inhaled by livestock or grazing wildlife. This is especially common in the western Texas Hill Country, where each year the disease kills livestock and wildlife. There may soon be a new weapon in the centuries-old battle against anthrax in wildlife.

  • Next-Generation Explosives Trace Detection Technology

    Explosive materials pose a threat whether they are used by domestic bad actors or in a theater of war. Staying ahead of our adversaries is a job that DHS DOD share. The two departments’ research and development work is no different.

  • Warming Greenland Ice Sheet Passes Point of No Return

    Nearly forty years of satellite data from Greenland shows that glaciers on the island have shrunk so much that even if global warming were to stop today, the ice sheet would continue shrinking. The finding means that Greenland’s glaciers have passed a tipping point of sorts, where the snowfall that replenishes the ice sheet each year cannot keep up with the ice that is flowing into the ocean from glaciers.

  • Thwarting Illicit Cryptocurrency Mining with Artificial Intelligence

    Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, are forms of digital money. Instead of minting it like coins or paper bills, cryptocurrency miners digitally dig for the currency by performing computationally intense calculations. A new artificial intelligence algorithm is designed to detect cryptocurrency miners in the act of stealing computing power from research supercomputers.

  • EU Payments to Farmers Fail to Deliver on Competitiveness, Sustainability

    Over 40 billion euro is given annually to European agriculture as direct payments under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Yet, the policy fails to deliver on what EU citizens are promised. The majority of payments are going to the regions causing the most environmental damage and the farmers in the least need of income support.