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Gone with the Wind? Huskers Investigate Mystery of Last Standing Grain Bin
More than 750,000 steel silos and bins are estimated to pepper rural America, often standing empty before filling up on the annual harvest. Most cannot withstanding winds of 100-plus miles per hour – but some can.
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Swiss “Water Battery” Boosts Europe's Energy Storage Plans
A Swiss company has built what is being called a giant water battery deep under the Alps that provides an energy storage capacity equivalent to 400,000 electric car batteries. It could be a game changer.
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Mathematics Works in Serendipitous Ways
In the digital era and moving towards quantum computing, protecting data against hack attacks is one of our biggest challenges. Mathematical theorem used to crack U.S. government encryption algorithm.
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Carbon-Hungry Microorganisms to Help Battle Climate Change
Scientists have demonstrated a new technique, modeled after a metabolic process found in some bacteria, for converting carbon dioxide (CO2) into liquid acetate, a key ingredient in “liquid sunlight” or solar fuels produced through artificial photosynthesis. New technique could fast-track future carbon-free solar fuels.
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Germany Did Research with North Korea -- Despite UN Sanctions
Kim Jong Un wants to modernize his nuclear weapons. To stop him, the UN has banned research collaboration with North Korea. One Berlin institute continued to collaborate with North Korea on research projects — without flagging the risks.
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Using Blockchain to Increase Electric Grid Resiliency
Blockchain is best known for securing digital currency payments, but researchers are using it to track a different kind of exchange: It’s the first time blockchain has ever been used to validate communication among devices on the electric grid.
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Probable Maximum Flood Events Will Significantly Increase Over Next Decades
The flood capacity of dams could be at greater risk of being exceeded due to out-of-date modelling for potential maximum rainfall. A new study concludes that the rainfall model that engineers use to help design critical infrastructure such as large dams and nuclear power plants need to be updated to account for climate change.
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Top Prosecutors in CA, NY and DC Are Speaking Up for End-to-End Encryption
We all should have the ability to have a private conversation, and it follows that we need ways to communicate privately online as well. In the digital world, end-to-end encryption is our best chance to maintain our privacy and security.
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Simple Hardware to Defend Against Microgrid Attacks
An inexpensive piece of hardware integrated with solar panel controllers can protect isolated power networks from cyberattacks.
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“Safeguarding Science” Toolkit to Help U.S. Research Enterprise Guard Against Threats
The National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) and its partners announced a unique collaboration between elements of the U.S. intelligence and scientific communities to help the U.S. research enterprise mitigate the broad spectrum of risk it faces from nation-state, criminal, and other threat actors.
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With Climate Impacts Growing, Insurance Companies Face Big Challenges
The impacts of climate change are all around us: sea level rise, severe heat waves, drought, extreme rainfall, more powerful storms. These impacts are making natural disasters more intense and more frequent. Losses from each disaster—drought and wildfires in the southwest, severe storms in the Midwest, flooding in Kentucky and Missouri, and hurricanes in the southeast—have exceeded $1 billion, with the cumulative cost of disasters over the last five years reaching $788.4 billion.
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A Growing Threat: Deliberate, Simultaneous Release of Pandemic Viruses Across Travel Hubs
COVID-19 demonstrated how the world is clearly vulnerable to the introduction of a single pandemic virus with a comparatively low case fatality rate. The deliberate and simultaneous release of many pandemic viruses across travel hubs could threaten the stability of civilization. Current trends suggest that within a decade, tens of thousands of skilled individuals will be able to access the information required for them single-handedly to cause new pandemics.
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Examining Vulnerabilities of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure
With electric vehicles becoming more common, the risks and hazards of a cyberattack on electric vehicle charging equipment and systems also increases. Reviewing the vulnerabilities of EV charging infrastructure would help prioritize grid protections and informs policy makers.
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Maintaining Mountain Snowpacks Essential for Preserving Valuable Freshwater Resource
Snowcapped mountains generate mountain water runoff and snowmelt, which flow down to streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans. Around a quarter of the world depends on these natural “water towers” to replenish downstream reservoirs and groundwater aquifers for urban water supplies, agricultural irrigation, and ecosystem support. Carbon mitigation strategies are needed to maintain snowpack throughout the Americas.
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Germany’s China Policy: Has It Learned from Its Dependency on Russia?
The German economy remains heavily dependent on China, its largest trading partner, despite mounting geopolitical tensions between the West and Beijing.
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The long view
Nuclear Has Changed. Will the U.S. Change with It?
Fueled by artificial intelligence, cloud service providers, and ambitious new climate regulations, U.S. demand for carbon-free electricity is on the rise. In response, analysts and lawmakers are taking a fresh look at a controversial energy source: nuclear power.
Huge Areas May Face Possibly Fatal Heat Waves if Warming Continues
A new assessment warns that if Earth’s average temperature reaches 2 degrees C over the preindustrial average, widespread areas may become too hot during extreme heat events for many people to survive without artificial cooling.
Exploring the New Nuclear Energy Landscape
In the last few years, the U.S. has seen a resurgence of interest in nuclear energy and its potential for helping meet the nation’s growing demands for clean electricity and energy security. Meanwhile, nuclear energy technologies themselves have advanced, opening up new possibilities for their use.