• Milestone for a Raytheon bomb which acquires, tracks, and then hits moving targets

    Raytheon said its Small Diameter Bomb II (SDB II) program achieved a milestone when it successfully engaged and hit a moving target during a flight test at the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico; the bomb, released from an F-15E, acquired, tracked, and guided to a moving target using its tri-mode seeker, scoring a direct hit

  • Replacing coal with natural gas would reduce global warming

    A new study finds that a gas substitution scenario, in which natural gas replaces all coal power production and any new oil-powered facilities by midcentury, would realize 40 percent of the reduction in global warming that could be achieved with a full switch to low-carbon fuel sources; this is a less costly, and more feasible, option, than switching all electricity generation immediately and aggressively to non-fossil fuel sources such as solar, wind, and nuclear

  • Using dolphins’ signal processing method for sea-mine detection

    One way for Iran to close the Straits of Hormuz to shipping is to place thousands of sea mines in the water; research examine how dolphins process their sonar signals, using the findings to provide a new system for man-made sonar to detect targets, such as sea mines, in bubbly water

  • Per capita CO2 emissions in China reach EU levels

    Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2)  increased by 3 percent last year; an estimated cumulative global total of 420 billion tons of CO2 has been emitted between 2000 and 2011 due to human activities, including deforestation; scientists suggest that in order to limit the rise in average global temperature to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, cumulative CO2 emissions in the period 2000–50 cannot do not exceed 1,000 to 1,500 billion tons

  • New method for detecting, measuring bridge damage

    Researchers have created a bridge health index, which is a rating system that more accurately describes the amount of damage in a bridge; the health index can extend beyond bridges and apply to other structures, such as gas pipelines, dams, buildings, and airplanes

  • Cutting massive power use at big data companies in a flash

    Big data needs big power; the server farms that undergird the Internet run on a vast tide of electricity — Google, for example, uses enough electricity in its data centers to power about 200,000 homes; now, a team of engineers has a solution that could radically cut that power use — a new type of memory in companies’ servers that demands far less energy than the current systems

  • New rapid diagnostic test for pathogens, contaminants developed

    Using nanoscale materials, researchers have developed a single-step method rapidly and accurately to detect viruses, bacteria, and chemical contaminants; the method could be used to detect pathogens and contaminants in biological mixtures such as food, blood, saliva, and urine

  • Social identification, not obedience, is the motive for unspeakable acts

    What makes soldiers abuse prisoners? How could Nazi officials condemn thousands of Jews to gas chamber deaths? What is going on when underlings help cover up a financial swindle? For half a decade or so, the dominant view – following the famous Milgram experiments – has been that people engage in barbaric acts because they have little insight into what they are doing and conform slavishly to the will of authority; new research suggests that we need to rethink obedience as the standard explanation for why people engage in cruel and brutal behavior

  • World’s top high-school chemistry students to compete in the International Chemistry Olympiad

    On 20 July, nearly 300 high school students from more than seventy countries will arrive in the Washington, D.C., area to compete in the 44th International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) at the University of Maryland, College Park

  • U.S. launches national corps of STEM teachers

    On Tuesday President Barack Obama announced his plan to create a new, national STEM Master Teacher Corps that fosters peer-to-peer professional development; the corps would start with fifty of the nation’s top STEM teachers established in fifty sites and, over four years, expand that core group to 10,000 teachers

  • U.S. students' achievements middling

    A new study of international and U.S. state trends in student achievement growth shows that the United States is squarely in the middle of a group of forty-nine nations in fourth- and eighth-grade test-score gains in math, reading, and science over the period 1995-2009; that rates of improvement varied among states; Maryland had the steepest achievement growth trend, followed by Florida, Delaware, and Massachusetts

  • Studying predator search patterns to improve human searches

    The inspiration for the next Google or search-and-rescue drone may spring from a seemingly unlikely source: Watching how animals sniff out food; innovators in everything from robotics to Internet search engines study patterns that animal predators walk while searching for prey; mathematical models which have been used in the past to study these patterns, however, are in need of a little revamping, researchers say — because in the animal kingdom, scent plays a major role in tracking prey

  • French students win 2012 International Rocketry Challenge

    Lycee Louis Bleriot of France beat out stiff international competition to win the International Rocketry Challenge at the Farnborough International Air Show the other; teams of students 11-18 years old hand-designed, built, and launched rockets to reach exactly 800 feet during a 43- to 47-second flight. The payload, two raw eggs, had to return to the ground by parachute undamaged

  • Competition among political forces, not religious fundamentalism, inflames anti-Americanism in the Muslim world

    Historically, domestic political divisions within Muslim politics have fallen between secular elite and fundamental Islamic elite factions, with both groups laying claims to anti-American grievances; that competition is most intense not in the most deeply observant Islamic countries, but rather in countries where divisions between secular and religious factions are sharpest; in those countries, competition between political forces — not religious fundamentalism — appears to spark the greatest anti-American sentiment

  • Unmanned systems emulate animals’ conditioned fear-response mechanism for self-preservation

    When animals in the wild engage in eating or grazing, their eyes, ears, and sense of smell continuously monitor the environment for any sense of danger; researchers developed a similar conditioned fear-response mechanism for unmanned systems