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Sandia Labs technology used to clean up Fukushima after disaster
A Sandia Lab-developed technology — crystalline silico-titanate, or CST — is a molecular sieve that can separate highly volatile elements from radioactive wastewater; the technology has been used to remove radioactive material from more than forty-three million gallons of contaminated wastewater at Japan’s damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant
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NSA launches cyber operations academic program
The NSA has launched National Centers of Academic Excellence (CAE) in Cyber Operations Program; the program is intended to be a deeply technical, inter-disciplinary, higher education program grounded in the computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE), or electrical engineering (EE) disciplines, with extensive opportunities for hands-on applications via labs and exercises
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Robotic jellyfish to patrol oceans, clean oil spills, detect pollutants
Scientists are working on developing life-like autonomous robot jellyfish which will be put in waters around the world; the robot jellyfish would be used for military surveillance, cleaning oil spills, and monitoring the environment
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Movie-like emergency training system for law enforcement
Raytheon’s VIRTSIM law-enforcement training system employs licensed motion-capture technology similar to that used in movies such as “Lord of the Rings,” “Avatar,” and, most recently, “The Avengers”; the system is being offered to the law enforcement community as an affordable, twenty-first century alternative to outdated training practices that do little to replicate real-life situations
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Groundwater depletion in Texas, California threatens US food security
The U.S. food supply may be vulnerable to rapid groundwater depletion from irrigated agriculture; for example, from 2006 to 2009, farmers in the south of California’s Central Valley depleted enough groundwater to fill the U.S. largest man-made reservoir, Lake Mead near Las Vegas — a level of groundwater depletion that is unsustainable at current recharge rates
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Removing CO2 from the flues of coal-fired power plants
The current method of removing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) from the flues of coal-fired power plants uses so much energy that no one bothers to use it; scientists have developed an entirely new catalyst for separating out and capturing CO2, one that mimics a naturally occurring catalyst operating in our lungs
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Explaining uneven rise in sea levels
If there is a global warming trend, one of its consequences would a rise in sea levels, which will require massive mitigation efforts to protect coastal infrastructure; rather than a uniform rise in sea level, however, the records show sea levels rising in some areas and dropping in others; Harvard researchers offer an explanation for this phenomenon
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Solving southwest U.S. water shortage by water cap and trade?
Lake Mead, on the Colorado River, is the largest reservoir in the United States, but users are consuming more water than flows down the river in an average year, which threatens the water supply for agriculture and households; researchers suggest that to solve this imbalance, a water cap-and-trade system, successfully implemented in Australia, should be considered for interstate water trading
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Bios of female terrorists contradict stereotypes: study
Much like their male counterparts, female terrorists are likely to be educated, employed, and native residents of the country where they commit a terrorist act, new research finds
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Groundwater pumping causes sea level rise, canceling out effect of dams
Those in charge of infrastructure protection must now worry about another source of sea level rise: water pumped out of the ground for irrigation, drinking water, and industrial use; this water ends up emptying into the world’s oceans, and scientists calculate that by 2050, groundwater pumping will cause a global sea level rise of about 0.8 millimeters per year
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Groundwater pumping causes sea level rise, canceling out effect of dams
Those in charge of infrastructure protection must now worry about another source of sea level rise: water pumped out of the ground for irrigation, drinking water, and industrial use; this water ends up emptying into the world’s oceans, and scientists calculate that by 2050, groundwater pumping will cause a global sea level rise of about 0.8 millimeters per year
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NASA's new carbon-counting instrument ready for lift-off
Carbon dioxide is the most significant human-produced greenhouse gas and the principal human-produced driver of climate change; new NASA spacecraft will uniformly sample the atmosphere above Earth’s land and ocean, collecting more than half a million measurements of carbon dioxide concentration over Earth’s sunlit hemisphere every day for at least two years
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An 8th grader from Indiana, Massachusetts school team, win 2012 math competition
An 8th grader from Sycamore School Carmel, Indiana won the 2012 Raytheon MATHCOUNTS National Competition; he competed against more than 200 other middle school students in the prestigious academic event; the best and brightest middle school mathematics students engaged in a multi-day competition which included a written exam and culminated in the lightning speed Countdown Round; in the team competition, Massachusetts captured the title of National Team Champion
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An 8th grader from Indiana, Massachusetts school team, win 2012 math competition
An 8th grader from Sycamore School Carmel, Indiana won the 2012 Raytheon MATHCOUNTS National Competition; he competed against more than 200 other middle school students in the prestigious academic event; the best and brightest middle school mathematics students engaged in a multi-day competition which included a written exam and culminated in the lightning speed Countdown Round; in the team competition, Massachusetts captured the title of National Team Champion
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New explosives detection based on micro- and nano-cantilever beam sensors
A team of engineers is investigating micro- and nano-cantilever beam sensors for explosives detection; micro- and nano-cantilever beam sensors offer a distinct advantage in that they are small, very responsive, and very sensitive; their sensitivity and selectivity can also be tuned by modifying the surface treatment
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More headlines
The long view
Autonomous Vehicle Technology Vulnerable to Road Object Spoofing and Vanishing Attacks
Researchers have demonstrated the potentially hazardous vulnerabilities associated with the technology called LiDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging, many autonomous vehicles use to navigate streets, roads and highways. The researchers have shown how to use lasers to fool LiDAR into “seeing” objects that are not present and missing those that are – deficiencies that can cause unwarranted and unsafe braking or collisions.
Tantalizing Method to Study Cyberdeterrence
Tantalus is unlike most war games because it is experimental instead of experiential — the immersive game differs by overlapping scientific rigor and quantitative assessment methods with the experimental sciences, and experimental war gaming provides insightful data for real-world cyberattacks.
Prototype Self-Service Screening System Unveiled
TSA and DHS S&T unveiled a prototype checkpoint technology, the self-service screening system, at Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) in Las Vegas, NV. The aim is to provide a near self-sufficient passenger screening process while enabling passengers to directly receive on-person alarm information and allow for the passenger self-resolution of those alarms.
Falling Space Debris: How High Is the Risk I'll Get Hit?
An International Space Station battery fell back to Earth and, luckily, splashed down harmlessly in the Atlantic. Should we have worried? Space debris reenters our atmosphere every week.
Testing Cutting-Edge Counter-Drone Technology
Drones have many positive applications, bad actors can use them for nefarious purposes. Two recent field demonstrations brought government, academia, and industry together to evaluate innovative counter-unmanned aircraft systems.
Strengthening the Grid’s ‘Backbone’ with Hydropower
Argonne-led studies investigate how hydropower could help add more clean energy to the grid, how it generates value as grids add more renewable energy, and how liner technology can improve hydropower efficiency.