• New Gels Could Protect Buildings During Wildfires

    Researchers have developed a sprayable gel that creates a shield to protect buildings from wildfire damage. It lasts longer and is more effective than existing commercial options.

  • Hydropower Generation Projected to Rise, but Climate Change Brings Uncertain Future

    A new analysis combines hydrology data with climate change models to help water managers prepare for hydropower’s future.

  • Hydro School: Engaging the Next Generation in Hydropower Discussions

    As one of the many clean energy solutions, hydropower offers a variety of benefits, including affordable renewable energy, generation flexibility and resilience, and flood control, to name a few. Adding hydropower-generating infrastructure to water supply systems or waterways can also bring a variety of community benefits, such as recreation, while avoiding some environmental impacts usually associated with traditional dams.

  • Global AI Adoption Is Outpacing Risk Understanding, Warns MIT CSAIL

    As organizations rush to implement artificial intelligence (AI), a new analysis of AI-related risks finds significant gaps in our understanding, highlighting an urgent need for a more comprehensive approach.

  • The Danger of AI in War: It Doesn’t Care About Self-Preservation

    Recent wargames using artificial-intelligence models from OpenAI, Meta and Anthropic revealed a troubling trend: AI models are more likely than humans to escalate conflicts to kinetic, even nuclear, war.

  • Four Fallacies of AI Cybersecurity

    To date, the majority of AI cybersecurity efforts do not reflect the accumulated knowledge and modern approaches within cybersecurity, instead tending toward concepts that have been demonstrated time and again not to support desired cybersecurity outcomes. 

  • To Get Off Fossil fuels, America Is Going to Need a Lot More Electricians

    To cut greenhouse gas emissions on pace with the best available science, the United States must prepare for a monumental increase in electricity use. Burning fossil fuels to heat homes and get around isn’t compatible with keeping the planet at a livable temperature. Appliances that can be powered by clean electricity already exist to meet all of these needs. The problem is, most houses aren’t wired to handle the load from electric heating, cooking, and clothes dryers, along with solar panels and vehicle chargers. And a shortage of skilled labor could derail efforts to “electrify everything.”

  • Revising the Cost of Climate Change

    Climate scientists have warned of calamitous consequences if global temperatures continue their rise. But macroeconomists have largely told a less alarming story, predicting modest reductions in productivity and spending as the world warms. Until now. New study of economic toll yields projections ‘six times larger than previous estimates’.

  • Yacht Crew’s Decisions Questioned as Investigation Continues

    Investigators continue to piece together the events which led to the sinking of the superyacht Bayesian on 19 August. They focus on two issues: whether the yacht’s keel was lowered to provide stability as the storm raged, and whether large quantities of water managed to flood the yacht and sink it. The crew’s decisions may have contributed to problems with both issues. The captain n and two crew members are being investigated for manslaughter by the Italian police.

  • Floating Piers and Sinking Hopes: China’s Logistics Challenge in Invading Taiwan

    Last month the United States disassembled and removed the floating pier it had assembled at a Gaza beach to take aid deliveries. It took almost a month to assemble, waves damaged it and almost destroyed it, and waves drove ashore boats that serviced it. And all that was nothing compared with the challenges that China’s armed forces would face in trying to deliver a mountain of personnel, equipment and supplies in an invasion of Taiwan.

  • UC Berkeley Making Several Changes to Combat Antisemitism This School Year

    The University of California Berkeley is expanding its antisemitism education in the 2024-25 school year as well as banning encampments and prohibiting masking to conceal one’s identity. University leaders say that Berkeley aims to ‘address the campus culture’.

  • Space Militarization Could Pose a Challenge to Global Security

    Typically, we would not be thinking of killer satellites, space nukes, and orbital debris fields that could lead to global collapse. But maybe we should. In May 2024, Russia launched a satellite that some observers believe is a weapon system that could allow the targeted destruction of other satellites in orbit.

  • China May Be Putting the Great Firewall into Orbit

    The first satellites for China’s ambitious G60 mega-constellation are in orbit in preparation for offering global satellite internet services—and we should worry about how this will help Beijing export its model of digital authoritarianism around the world.

  • How Smart Toys May e Spying on Kids: What Parents Need to Know

    Toniebox, Tiptoi, and Tamagotchi are smart toys, offering interactive play through software and internet access. However, many of these toys raise privacy concerns, and some even collect extensive behavioral data about children.

  • An Electric Grid that Thinks Ahead

    The reliability of the power rid depends on utility operators who have developed control systems and fail-safes to keep the power flowing. PNNL researchers point toward a smart grid that includes machine learning and artificial intelligence inputs, but with human expertise in the loop.