• Critical Minerals Competition Uses AI to Accelerate Analytics

    The United States depends on a variety of raw, non-fuel materials dubbed “critical minerals” to manufacture products considered essential to national security. Increasing demand, coupled with limited domestic supply and increasing reliance on foreign companies to import these critical minerals, poses significant risks to the U.S. supply chain. DARPA is offering prizes for automating aspects of USGS critical mineral assessments.

  • Predicting Landslides Along Wildfire Burn Scars

    A wildfire followed by an intense rainstorm is often a recipe for disaster. Without vegetation to cushion rainfall, water runoff can turn into fast-moving, highly destructive landslides. Simulations could become an early warning system for people living in high-risk areas.

  • Multiform Floods: A Growing Climate Threat

    We are in the thick of danger season (aka summer), that time of year when droughts, heat waves, wildfires, floods and hurricanes are more likely to happen. Not only that; climate change has made these disasters more severe and more likely to occur.

  • Risks of Megafloods in California Increase

    California is currently contending with historic drought, but climate change is sharply increasing the risk of a catastrophic megaflood that could submerge large swaths of the state and displace millions of residents. The frequency of catastrophic deluges increases as temperatures rise.

  • World's Biggest Ice Sheet Could Cause Massive Sea Rise Without Action

    A new study shows that the worst effects of global warming on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) could be avoided. That depends upon temperatures not rising by more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

  • Deepfakes Expose Vulnerabilities in Facial Recognition Technology

    Mobile devices use facial recognition technology to help users quickly and securely unlock their phones, make a financial transaction or access medical records. But facial recognition technologies that employ a specific user-detection method are highly vulnerable to deepfake-based attacks that could lead to significant security concerns.

  • More Than 107M Americans Will Soon Live inside an Emerging “Extreme Heat Belt” with Temperatures above 125 F

    Fifty U.S. counties, home to 8.1 million residents, are expected to experience temperatures above 125°F in 2023, the highest level of the National Weather Services’ heat index. By 2053, 1,023 U.S. counties are expected to exceed this temperature, an area that is home to 107.6 million Americans and covers a quarter of the U.S. land area.

  • Thinking Like a Cyber-Attacker to Protect User Data

    Researchers found that an understudied component of computer processors is susceptible to attacks from malicious agents. Then, they developed mitigation mechanisms.

  • Wealthiest Homeowners Most at Risk of Wildfire Hazard

    The top 10 cent most valuable homes in the western United States are 70% more likely to be in high wildfire hazard areas than median-value properties, measured by county.

  • California Mining Firms Seek to Clean Up Lithium's Production Footprint

    Three large mining projects based in California’s “Lithium Valley” aim to recover lithium with minimal environmental impacts. They have the potential to simplify the global lithium supply chain.

  • Brain-Monitoring Tech Advances Could Change the Law

    There is an ankle-bracelet for offenders. What about a brain-bracelet? A new reportscrutinizes advances in neurotechnology and what it might mean for the law and the legal profession.

  • Growing the Impacts of Climate-Smart Agriculture

    A range of ‘climate-smart’ farming practices have the potential to lower that impact, and also help sequester carbon dioxide emitted by other parts of the economy. For example, planting cover crops in between plantings of cash crops can absorb CO2 into the soil, among other benefits. However, cover crops and other climate-smart practices aren’t yet the norm.

  • An AI Pilot May Be Able to Navigate Crowded Airspace

    Researchers believe they have developed the first AI pilot that enables autonomous aircraft to navigate a crowded airspace. The artificial intelligence can safely avoid collisions, predict the intent of other aircraft, track aircraft and coordinate with their actions, and communicate over the radio with pilots and air traffic controllers.

  • Artificial Intelligence Isn’t That Intelligent

    In the world of information security, social engineering is the game of manipulating people into divulging information that can be used in a cyberattack or scam. Cyber experts may therefore be excused for assuming that AI might display some human-like level of intelligence that makes it difficult to hack. Unfortunately, it’s not. It’s actually very easy.

  • Origins of Unconventional War

    Flamethrowers, poison gases, incendiary bombs, the large-scale spreading of disease: are these terrifying agents of warfare modern inventions? Not by a long shot. Societies around the world have used biological and chemical weapons for thousands of years. “One sobering result of writing this book is the realization that there was no time or place when biological weapons were unthinkable,” says Adrienne Mayor, the author of a new book on the subject.