• Black carbon’s contribution to climate change underestimated

    Black carbon is the second largest man-made contributor to global warming and its influence on climate has been greatly underestimated, according to the first quantitative and comprehensive analysis of this issue; black carbon is believed to have a warming effect of about 1.1 Watts per square meter (W/m²), approximately two thirds of the effect of the largest man made contributor to global warming, carbon dioxide.

  • New approach to military manufacturing

    In the past, fighter aircraft, tanks, and other complex military systems have been built in a craftsman-like process by a small number of highly specialized contractors. This is a costly approach and DARPA is attempting to replace it with a more efficient “correct by construction” process similar to that practiced by the semiconductor industry, which has an impressive track record in getting systems right in the first place.

  • Black carbon’s contribution to climate change underestimated

    Black carbon is the second largest man-made contributor to global warming and its influence on climate has been greatly underestimated, according to the first quantitative and comprehensive analysis of this issue; black carbon is believed to have a warming effect of about 1.1 Watts per square meter (W/m²), approximately two thirds of the effect of the largest man made contributor to global warming, carbon dioxide.

  • NASA: 2012 sustained long-term climate warming trend

    NASA scientists say 2012 was the ninth warmest of any year since 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures. With the exception of 1998, the nine warmest years in the 132-year record all have occurred since 2000, with 2010 and 2005 ranking as the hottest years on record. Scientists emphasize that weather patterns always will cause fluctuations in average temperature from year to year, but the continued increase in greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere assures a long-term rise in global temperatures. Each successive year will not necessarily be warmer than the year before, but on the current course of greenhouse gas increases, scientists expect each successive decade to be warmer than the previous decade.

  • Metamaterial sensor improves security, collision avoidance

    Engineers have developed a novel sensor which is more efficient, versatile, and cheaper for potential use in such applications as airport security scanners and collision avoidance systems for aircraft, cars, or maritime vessels.

  • Police experience enlivens classroom teaching

    Dennis Marsili spent twenty-seven years as a police officer in the Pittsburgh area, and has attained a vast amount of knowledge which he is now passing on to people who want to work in law enforcement in the future.

  • Aerial platform helps in developing lightweight sensors for UAVs

    A research team at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is developing an airborne testing capability for sensors, communications devices, and other airborne payloads. This aerial test bed, called the GTRI Airborne Unmanned Sensor System (GAUSS), is based on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) made by Griffon Aerospace and modified by GTRI.

  • Global demand for food and energy is growing, and so does land and water “grabbing”

    As world food and energy demands grow, nations and some corporations increasingly are looking to acquire quality agricultural land for food production. Some nations are gaining land by buying up property — and accompanying water resources — in other, generally less wealthy countries.

  • The humble jute serves as a sustainable reinforcement for concrete

    Fashionable people may turn up their noses at jute, the cheap fiber used to make burlap, gunny sacks, twine, and other common products, but new research is enhancing jute’s appeal as an inexpensive, sustainable reinforcement for mortar and concrete.

  • New design for clean nuclear fusion reactor unveiled

    Researchers have patented a nuclear fusion reactor by inertial confinement which, in addition to being used to generate electric power in plants, could be applied to propel ships. The fusion chamber shape and size can adapt to the type of fuel being used.

  • Social media helped but did not cause Arab Spring

    Social psychological research has concluded that social media accelerated but did not cause the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

  • Military systems hibernate on the sea floor, then woken up remotely

    Almost half of the world’s oceans are more than four kilometers deep. This provides considerable opportunity for cheap stealth, but the vastness and depth make retrieval costs prohibitive. DARPA wants to developing deployable, unmanned, distributed systems which hibernate on the deep-ocean floor in special containers for years at a time. These deep-sea nodes would then be woken up remotely when needed and recalled to the surface

  • DARPA’s first FANG Challenge begun yesterday

    More than 700 participants, organized in 150 teams, yesterday begun collaboration to design the mobility and drivetrain systems of a next-generation, amphibious infantry fighting vehicle. The goal of the competition is to compress the design-to-production time of a complex defense system by up to a factor of five.

  • Better screening for bacteria for safer food

    There are around 5.4 million cases of food-borne gastroenteritis in Australia every year. Of these cases, it is estimated that around 200,000 are associated with the bacteria Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli. Chicken meat and other foods will be able to be screened for bacteria even faster and more effectively than ever, thanks to breakthrough nanobiotechnology research.

  • Global warming threatens U.K. diet

    The number of days with temperatures over 32 degrees C has more than doubled in some parts of France over the last fifty years. Many other land areas show similar increases. By the 2020s, temperatures over 32 degrees C could occur over large areas of France where previously they were uncommon. Maize yields are reduced significantly for each day with temperatures over around 32 degrees Celsius. The United Kingdom imports more maize from France than anywhere else in the world, and declining crop yields in France mean that U.K. consumers will have to pay more for maize-based foods, or change their diets.