• Concerns about science are unprecedented: AAAS president, CEO

    Researchers are concerned at unprecedented levels about how a new presidential administration may undermine scientific work and delay its benefits, AAAS President Barbara Schaal and AAAS CEO Rush Holt said at a press event at the AAAS Annual Meeting. “It used to be when someone would say they were concerned about the state of science, they were talking about funding for research … these concerns about funding are not the ones being brought to me,” said Holt. “What I hear now are concerns about what I would call an ongoing trend that goes back many years, even decades, where ideology and ideological assertions have been crowding out evidence in public and private debates and policymaking.”

  • First Israeli nanosatellite launched

    “BGUSAT,” the first nanosatellite for Israeli academic research, was launched Wednesday, 15 February as part of a collaboration between Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), and the Israel Ministry of Science, Technology and Space. It will provide researchers with data on climate change, agricultural developments, and other scientific phenomena. The nanosatellite is slightly larger than a milk carton (4x4x12 inches) and weighs only eleven pounds.

  • Sea-level rise in Southeast Asia 6,000 years ago relevant for coastal dwellers today

    For the 100 million people who live within three feet of sea level in East and Southeast Asia, the news that sea level in their region fluctuated wildly more than 6,000 years ago is important, according to researchers. This is because those fluctuations occurred without the assistance of human-influenced climate change. Such a change in sea level could happen again now, on top of the rise in sea level that is already projected to result from climate change. This could be catastrophic for people living so close to the sea.

  • Last year’s El Niño resulted in unprecedented erosion of the Pacific coastline

    Last winter’s El Niño might have felt weak to residents of Southern California, but it was in fact one of the most powerful climate events of the past 145 years. If such severe El Niño events become more common in the future as some studies suggest they might, the California coast — home to more than twenty-five million people — may become increasingly vulnerable to coastal hazards. And that’s independent of projected sea level rise.

  • Humans now affect Earth system more than natural forces

    Humans are causing the climate to change 170 times faster than natural forces, new research finds. The study for the first time came up with a mathematical equation to describe the impact of human activity on the Earth system, known as the Anthropocene equation. Over the past 7,000 years the primary forces driving change have been astronomical — driving a rate of change of 0.01 degrees Celsius per century. “Human-caused greenhouse gas emissions over the past forty-five years have increased the rate of temperature rise to 1.7 degrees Celsius per century, dwarfing the natural background rate,” the researchers say.

  • Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity unveils 2017 research grantees

    The Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity (CLTC) has announce the recipients of its 2017 research grants. In total, twenty-seven different groups of researchers will share a total of nearly $1 million in funding. CLTC says that the projects span a wide range of topics related to cybersecurity, including new methods for making crypto-currencies more secure; protecting health information stored on mobile devices; teaching high-school computer science students how to “program for privacy”; and exploring potential limits on the use of digital controls in nuclear reactors.

  • Current climate change models understate the problem

    A new study on the relationship between people and the planet shows that climate change is only one of many inter-related threats to the Earth’s capacity to support human life. An international team of distinguished scientists, including five members of the National Academies, argues that there are critical components missing from current climate models that inform environmental, climate, and economic policies.

  • SideArm prototype catches full-size drones flying at full speed

    Few scenes capture the U.S. Navy’s prowess as effectively as the rapid-fire takeoff and recovery of combat jets from the deck of an aircraft carrier. The ability to carry air power anywhere in the world, and both launch those aircraft to flight speed and bring them to a stop over extremely short distances, has been essential to carriers’ decades-long dominance of naval warfare. To help provide similar capabilities—minus the 90,000-ton carriers—to U.S. military units around the world, DARPA’s SideArm research effort seeks to create a self-contained, portable apparatus able to horizontally launch and retrieve unmanned aerial systems (UASs) of up to 900 pounds. The self-contained, portable apparatus can be used to launch and retrieve unmanned aircraft from trucks, ships, and fixed bases.

  • Storms filled 37 percent of California snow-water deficit

    The “atmospheric river” weather patterns that pummeled California with storms from late December to late January may have recouped 37 percent of the state’s five-year snow-water deficit. Researchers estimate that two powerful recent storms deposited roughly 17.5-million acre feet (21.6 cubic kilometers) of water on California’s Sierra Nevada range in January. Compared to averages from the pre-drought satellite record, that amount represents more than 120 percent of the typical annual snow accumulation for this range.

  • Electricity costs to surge in a warming world

    Climate change is likely to increase U.S. electricity costs over the next century by billions of dollars more than economists previously forecast, according to a new study. The study shows how higher temperatures will raise not just the average annual electricity demand, but more importantly, the peak demand. And to avoid brownouts and absorb these surges, utilities will need to spend between $70 billion and $180 billion in grid upgrades—power plants and futuristic energy storage systems for which ratepayers would ultimately foot the bill.

  • Sandia adds augmented reality to training toolbox

    When you hear the term “serious gaming” you might envision professional eSports competitors gearing up for a League of Legends World Championship in front of tens of thousands of live fans and tens of millions of streaming fans. At Sandia National Laboratories, serious gaming means something else entirely. Experts on physical security at Sandia apply the technology and methods of the game industry to real-world national security problems.

  • Federally developed technologies go to work

    A tool to assess and address cyber and physical security issues and an inexpensive way to create a microscope out of a cell phone are being used by businesses and individuals, thanks to teams who worked to move them out of the laboratory and into the marketplace.

  • Low-cost imaging system detects natural gas leaks in real time

    Researchers have developed an infrared imaging system that could one day offer low-cost, real-time detection of methane gas leaks in pipelines and at oil and gas facilities. Leaks of methane, the primary component of natural gas, can be costly and dangerous while also contributing to climate change as a greenhouse gas. Infrared device enables reliable monitoring under a range of environmental conditions.

  • How political science helps combat terrorism

    Richard Nielsen, an MIT expert on Islamic terrorism, estimates that about 10 percent of Muslim clerics on the Internet are jihadists. “I don’t know if this number should strike readers as high or low; it’s higher than I expected,” he says. The question he tackles is the internet changing the nature of religious authority in Islam? “The problem of modern jihadism is rooted in an ongoing crisis of Islamic authority brought about by the rise of media — first print, then cassette tapes, and now the online Fatwa Bank.” He adds that data show that the odds of dying violently are lower now than they’ve ever been. “This isn’t to say that terrorism isn’t a problem, but we should keep the true level of threat posed by terrorism in perspective.”

  • Dual-use sciene, technological innovation

    Scientific research can change our lives for the better, but it also presents risks – either through deliberate misuse or accident. Think about studying deadly pathogens; that’s how we can learn how to successfully ward them off, but it can be a safety issue too, as when CDC workers were exposed to anthrax in 2014 after an incomplete laboratory procedure left spores of the bacterium alive. Making decisions about the security implications of science and technology can be complicated. That’s why scientists and policymakers need clarity on the dual-use distinction to help consider our options.