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Navigating Uncharted Waters: ASU Drives Solutions for Water Resilience
The Southwest has grappled with an ongoing megadrought since 2000, the driest period in the last 1,200 years. In a place already known for extreme heat and an arid climate, a secure water supply is especially crucial in order for humanity to thrive.
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World War I Was the Crucible of Air Power. Ukraine Looks the Same for Drones
We seem to be seeing a new kind of air battle—lower, slower at close quarters and in a physical environment where fighter aircraft cannot intervene affordably or effectively. Could it be that Ukraine is to small unmanned systems what World War I was to aircraft?
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Voters: Here’s How to Spot AI “Deepfakes” That Spread Election-Related Misinformation
For years, people have spread misinformation by manipulating photos and videos with tools such as Adobe Photoshop. These fakes are easier to recognize, and they’re harder for bad actors to replicate on a large scale. Generative AI systems, however, enable users to create content quickly and easily. Domestic and foreign adversaries can use deepfakes and other forms of generative AI to spread false information about a politician’s platform or doctor their speeches.
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Leveraging AI to Enhance U.S. Cybersecurity
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can potentially provide the homeland unprecedented opportunity to enhance its cybersecurity posture. DHS S&T is exploring the possibilities of using new advances in this technology to detect threats, increase resilience and provide more supply chain oversight.
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CyberForce Competition Challenges College Students to Use Cybersecurity Skills to Defend Their Wind Energy System
College teams will work to outsmart a simulated attack on a U.S. wind energy plant. The CyberForce Competition offers students hands-on experience, igniting their passion for cybersecurity.
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Autonomous Disaster Response Technology Successfully Applied to Fire Extinguishing System of a 3,200-ton Vessel
An innovative technology for autonomously responding, without crew intervention, to ruptures to the pipes within the fire extinguishing system of vessels has been successfully verified for the first time in Korea.
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U. of California Faces Lawsuit for Not Hiring Illegal Aliens
UC’s Board of Regents decided by a vote in January to suspend for one year the implementation of its policy that allowed the hiring of illegal aliens. Now, the university faces a lawsuit for not offering jobs to illegal aliens.
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Social Media Platforms Aren’t Doing Enough to Stop Harmful AI Bots, Research Finds
While artificial intelligence (AI) bots can serve a legitimate purpose on social media — such as marketing or customer service — some are designed to manipulate public discussion, incite hate speech, spread misinformation or enact fraud and scams.
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To Make Children Better Fact-Checkers, Expose Them to More Misinformation — with Oversight
“We need to give children experience flexing these skepticism muscles and using these critical thinking skills within this online context,” a psychology researcher said.
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Oversight Revealed in AI Image Recognition Tools
Artificial intelligence can help people process and comprehend large amounts of data with precision, but the image recognition platforms and computer vision models that are built into AI frequently overlook an important back-end feature called the alpha channel. Researchers developed a proprietary attack called AlphaDog to study how hackers can exploit this oversight.
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Reducing Vulnerability to Sea-Level Rise in Virginia
As the climate changes and sea levels rise, there is concern that sinking coastlines could exacerbate risks to infrastructure, as well as human and environmental health in coastal communities. The Virginia Coastal Plain is one of the fastest-sinking regions on the East Coast.
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Why Fracking Matters in the 2024 U.S. Election
The fracking boom has transformed the United States into the world’s leading producer of oil and gas. With presidential candidates Harris and Trump clashing on climate and energy policy, the practice is once again in the spotlight.
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$100 Million to Accelerate R&D and AI Technologies for Sustainable Semiconductor Materials
The U.S. Commerce Deprtment ssued a Notice of Intent (NOI) to announce an open competition demonstrating how AI can assist in developing new sustainable semiconductor materials and processes that meet industry needs and can be designed and adopted within five years.
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The CHIPS Act: How U.S. Microchip Factories Could Reshape the Economy
The CHIPS and Science Act seeks to revitalize the U.S. semiconductor industry amid growing fears of a China-Taiwan conflict. Where is the money going, and how is the effort playing out?
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NNSA Completes and Diamond-Stamps First Plutonium Pit for W87-1 Warhead
During the Cold War, the United States could manufacture hundreds of plutonium pits per year. Pit production ceased in 1989, and NNSA continues to recapitalize production capabilities that atrophied in the post-Cold War era.
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The long view
Technology Evolves the Tactics: Preparing for the Rise of Terrorist AI Harms
Terrorist groups, like the societies they emerge from, adapt to new technologies. As AI capabilities evolve, so too do the tactics of extremist actors. While the full effects may take years to observe, as the technologies continue to develop, we are starting to see them directly alter extremism tradecraft.
Bookshelf: A Tale of American Lawyers and Chinese Engineers
The U.S. and China have fundamental differences, a new book argues. China would be an “engineering state” whereas the U.S. is a “lawyerly society.” Most Chinese Communist Party leaders have been engineers focused on building mega projects such as highways, bridges, fast trains. and airports. In recent decades the U.S. has become a “lawyerly society” as the country’s elite, dominated by lawyers, focused on procedure and process rather than getting things done.
Europe’s Banks Quietly Mobilize for Economic Warfare
For years, banks treated defense as a reputational issue, as well as an environmental, social and governance risk, often lumping it with tobacco or fossil fuels as something to be managed at arm’s length. That era is ending. Russia’s war in Ukraine, China’s coercive trade tactics and the United States’ pressure on Europe to shoulder more of its defense burden have exposed the limits of moralistic restraint. Financial mobilization is the new norm.
A New Generation of Industries Emerges in Texas as Feds Push to Mine More Rare Minerals
The U.S. doesn’t produce the minerals and metals needed for renewable energy, microchips or military technology. Major oil companies are drilling in East Texas again, but not for oil. This time, they’re after lithium for batteries and other rare elements.
U.S. and Australia Deepen Critical-Minerals Engagement to Counter China
Engagement between Australia and the United States on critical minerals has matured from technical cooperation into a strategic partnership, aligning resource security with clean energy and defense priorities.
Bookshelf: Critical Mineral Dilemmas
Whoever controls the production and processing of lithium, copper and other critical minerals could dominate the 21st century economy, much as producers of fossil fuels defined the 20th century, writes Ernest Scheyder in a new book.