• Nobel-Winning Quantum Weirdness Undergirds an Emerging High-Tech Industry, Promising Better Ways of Encrypting Communications and Imaging Your Body

    There are several emerging technologies which rely on the non-intuitive quantum phenomenon of entanglement: Unhackable communications devices, high-precision GPS and high-resolution medical imaging. For the most part, quantum entanglement is still a subject of physics research, but it’s also a component of commercially available technologies, and it plays a starring role in the emerging quantum information processing industry.

  • The Next Generation of Explosives Trace Detection is Here

    Launched in fiscal year 2020, NextGen Explosives Trace Detection (ETD) expands the scope of aviation checkpoints technology, resulting in the advancement of technologies that can quickly and accurately collect and analyze samples in a variety of ways, including from direct contact with the subject, non-contact sampling via vapors, and even through barriers.

  • Greater Resilience Through Nature-Inspired Power Grids

    Researchers are looking to nature to build better power grids that are more resistant to various potential disturbances like natural disasters or cyberattacks.

  • Climate Change Puts Energy Security at Risk

    Climate change, and the more extreme weather and water stress that it causes, is undermining global energy security by directly affecting fuel supply, energy production, and the physical resilience of current and future energy infrastructure. In 2020, 87 percent of global electricity generated from thermal, nuclear, and hydroelectric systems directly depended on water availability. Meanwhile, 33 percent of the thermal power plants that rely on freshwater availability for cooling are in high water stress areas. This is also the case for existing nuclear power plants, 25 percent of which will soon find themselves in high water stress areas.

  • “U.S. Is Not Prepared for Waging” Tech War

    A new book explores the evolution of the current U.S. research and development enterprise, and asks whether the organization of the U.S. R&D efforts and its structure remain appropriate to the challenges the United States face today. “Today, the U.S. is not prepared for waging this war. Absent fundamental changes, our current science and technology advantages will continue to erode,” Daniel Gerstein writes.

  • AI Is Not All Killer Robots. It Is Far More Dangerous

    Whatever Hollywood might say, AI is not all about killer robots in a far-off future. It is more mundane, more everyday - and much more ubiquitous. And thinking it just belongs in a sci-fi film is dangerous, since this leads to a sense it is not relevant or that it is even unreal.

  • Airborne Optical Energy Relays to Create Revolutionary Power Distribution Network

    DARPA’s program aims to design and demonstrate airborne optical energy relays. These relays are a critical component necessary to allow ground-sourced lasers to be coupled with high-altitude, efficient long-range transmission.

  • “Shock-Darkened” Meteorites Offer Clues for Hazardous Asteroid Deflection

    Planetary scientists identified a potential source of a special kind of meteorite. Its characteristics could explain certain discrepancies in how near-Earth asteroids are classified.

  • Magnesium Market Highlights Continuing Fragility of Global Supply Chains

    Magnesium is a critical input for major and emerging economies’ economic and industrial development. It has diverse high-tech applications in a wide range of sectors, from renewable energy to aerospace, defense to transport, and telecommunications to agriculture. The problem is that for both industry and governments, magnesium supply chains are vulnerable to sudden disruptions.

  • The “Hurricane Tax”: Ian Is Pushing Florida’s Home Insurance Market Toward Collapse

    Hurricane Ian has dissipated, but it will bring even more turmoil to the Sunshine State in the coming months. This damage will be financial rather than physical, as ratings agencies and real estate companies have estimated the storm’s damages at anywhere between $30 and $60 billion. The storm is poised to be one of the largest insured loss events in U.S. history.

  • The Cost of Rising Temperatures

    From crop damage to cooling failures at cloud-based data centers, climate change affects a wide variety of economic sectors. The study found that economies are sensitive to persistent temperature shocks over at least a 10-year time frame.

  • Solar Harvesting System May Generate Solar Power 24/7

    With all the research, history and science behind it, there are limits to how much solar power can be harvested and used – as its generation is restricted only to the daytime. A new type of solar energy harvesting system that breaks the efficiency record of all existing technologies. And no less important, it clears the way to use solar power 24/7.

  • China’s Extensive Use of Genetic Information Sounds a Warning

    As China increasingly relies on biometric data collection for public and national security purposes, it is time for democracies to address its role in their systems.

  • Laser Takes Aim at Cockroaches

    Cockroaches are a creepy pest found all around the world. They are famously resilient —- for years people believed they could even survive a nuclear bomb. What they can’t survive is the new laser and artificial intelligence system designed to kill them dead.

  • U.S. Nuclear Testing Moratorium Launched a Supercomputing Revolution

    On 23 September 1992 the U.S. conducted its 1,054th – and last — nuclear weapons test. After the test, and with the Soviet Union gone, the U.S. government issued what was meant to be a short-term moratorium on testing, but the moratorium has lasted to this day. This moratorium came with an unexpected benefit: no longer testing nuclear weapons ushered in a revolution in high-performance computing.