• $30.5 billion U.S. loan guarantees for advanced energy technology

    The U.S. Department of Energy issues three solicitations for a total of up to $30.5 billion in loan guarantees for projects that employ advanced energy technologies that avoid, reduce, or sequester air pollutants or greenhouse gas emissions

  • Melting ice menaces Russia's critical infrastructure

    Russian scientists say that the hard permafrost covering the ground year-round across Russia’s far north will melt by 2030; government officials say that if this happens, critical infrastructure, including key airfields, oil storage facilities, and strategic oil reservoirs, could all be destroyed

  • Shape-shifting, self-powered skyscraper

    Architect unveils design for a moving, shape-shifting skyscraper; each floor would rotate independently; tower would be self-powered, generating its own electricity, as well as power for other nearby buildings

  • Purifying farm-yard waste water

    Scottish researchers develop a method for turning farm-yard waster into water fit to bathe in; new method also prevents loss of contaminants to rivers and lakes, where they may be detrimental to animal or human health

  • Breakthrough: Universal detection system

    Livermore researchers work on developing a universal detection system — a system that can monitor the air for virtually all of the major threat agents that could be used by terrorists: biological, chemical, explosives, and radiological — along with illicit drugs

  • Robot car competition winner on display

    Stanley, a robotic, driver-less car developed by Stanford University and Volkswagen, won the DARPA Grand Challenge in the Mojave Desert in the fall of 2005; it is now on display — appropriately, at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose

  • Robot sub recharger

    Autonomous underwater vehicles perform more and more missions for both scientific research and security; charging their batteries, though, has always been a problem; a new patent application offers a solution

  • Weight-sensitive aircraft seats

    New plane or helicopter seats will rely on active suspension to sense the forces on the seat and change its levels of cushioning; the seat uses a magnetorheological fluid damper

  • Smith Detection shows peroxide vapor detector

    Peroxide is used in many household chemicals — and by terrorists; Smith Detection shows a hand-held detector which allows for fast detection of IEDs; military and airline industry are primary markets

  • U.S. federal agencies ready for IPv6 D-Day (which is today)

    Agencies expect to meet 30 June deadline; future of IPv6 awaits new president; IPv4 — the current version of the Internet — is running out of address space; IPv6 provides many more addresses — 2 to the 128th power

  • Airless tires may be a lifesaver in military combat

    A Wisconsin company and Badgers researchers develop an airless tire that can withstand extreme punishment, even those meted out in military combat zones

  • Acoustic cloak silences nuisance noise

    Spanish researchers prove metamaterials can be designed to produce an acoustic cloak — a cloak that can make objects impervious to sound waves

  • U.S. intelligence agencies: Climate change threatens national security

    Climate change could threaten U.S. security in the next twenty years by causing political instability, mass movements of refugees, terrorism, or conflicts over water and other resources in specific countries

  • Super-sensitive explosives detector

    Innovative explosives detector can detect explosives at distances exceeding 20 yards; the technology is a variation of photoacoustic spectroscopy but overcomes a number of problems associated with this technique

  • New biological, chemical decontamination solution

    An airborne and surface decontamination system delivers a decontaminant mist that results in rapid surface area contact and full non-line-of-sight coverage