• A New Strategy to Speed Up Cold Case Investigations

    Solving crimes with forensic genetic genealogy is slow and complicated. A new mathematical analysis could crack cases 10 times faster.

  • Security-Focused, 5G Wireless Test Range

    Researchers have opened the nation’s first open-air, 5G wireless test range focused exclusively on security testing, training and technology development. The range will be used by government, academic and industry collaborators. Although limited 5G service is available in selected cities across the country, widespread adoption is still years away.

  • Cracking the Secrets to Earthquake Safety, One Shake Simulation at a Time

    A new experimental capability, designed to replicate realistic earthquakes in the laboratory, paired with the world’s fastest supercomputers, will help lead to resilient buildings and infrastructure across the U.S.

  • More Governments Use Spyware to Monitor Their People, Compromising Privacy

    The right to privacy is under siege as an increasing number of governments are using spyware to keep tabs on their people. Many governments are using modern digital networked technologies to monitor, control and oppress their populations.

  • Gradually, Then Suddenly

    For the past few days we have been witnessing a remarkable Ukrainian offensive in Kharkiv. We have the spectacle of a bedraggled army in retreat It would be premature to pronounce a complete Ukrainian victory in the war because of one successful and unexpected breakthrough. But what has happened over the past few days is of historic importance. This offensive has overturned much of what was confidently assumed about the course of the war.

  • Russia’s Problems on the Battlefield Stem from Failures at the Top

    The blistering Ukrainian advance into Russian-held territory has invited serious questions about the conflict’s conclusion. It is now reasonable to consider the looming possibility of a Russian defeat, not just in terms of their modest objective of consolidating control over the Donbas region, but across the entire conflict. The rigid and inflexible command structure hampering Russian forces on the battlefield can be linked back to both Putin’s coup-proofing efforts and attitudes left over from the nation’s Soviet past.

  • Identifying and Neutralizing New Explosive Threats

    The IED threats from insurgent characterized the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but now the U.S. military is focusing on neutralizing bombs and mines that it could face in future conflicts against more advanced adversaries. DSI October 2022 EOD/IED & Countermine Symposium will highlight current initiatives toward identifying and neutralizing explosive threats to the homeland and critical infrastructure.

  • Kharkiv Offensive Has Shown the West That Ukraine Can Win

    The success of this week’s operation in eastern Ukraine – which he commanded – amounts to the most significant Ukrainian victory of the war so far. With the blitzkrieg liberation of most of the Kharkiv oblast, and the obviously abject and ramshackle state of the Russian armed forces made even more apparent, Ukrainian victory looks truly achievable for the first time.

  • Tide Turned? Ukraine Staggers Russia with Counteroffensive

    Over roughly a six-day period, Ukrainian forces drove east and southeast away from the city of Kharkiv, plowing through what appears to have been undermanned and poorly defended Russian defenses, making a head-snapping counteroffensive to the Oskil River and rewriting the map of the Donbas battlefield. In doing so, experts say, Ukraine may have rewritten the narrative of the entire invasion, nearly seven months since its launch.

  • 9/11 Survivors’ Exposure to Toxic Dust and the Chronic Health Conditions That Followed Offer Lessons That Are Still Too Often Unheeded

    After the 9/11 attack, more than 100,000 responders and recovery workers from every U.S. state – along with some 400,000 residents and other workers around ground zero – were exposed to a toxic cloud of dust that fell as a ghostly, thick layer of ash and then hung in the air for more than three months. The World Trade Center dust plume consisted of a dangerous mixture of cement dust and particles, asbestos and a class of chemicals called persistent organic pollutants. The dust also contained heavy metals that are known to be poisonous to the human body and brain, such as lead and mercury, and PCB.

  • Iran Nuclear Weapons Breakout Time Remains at Zero

    A new report from the Institute for Science and International Security summarizes and assesses information in the (IAEA) quarterly safeguards report for 7 September 2022. The main finding: Iran’s breakout time, that is, the time between a political decision to produce a nuclear weapon and the completion of such weapon, remains at zero.

  • How to Prevent, Prepare for, and Respond to Mass Attacks

    What can people do right now to protect their communities from mass shootings? Researchers at RAND have spent two years working to answer that question. They looked at 640 mass attack plots that endangered, or would have endangered, four or more people in a public place between 1995 and 2020. More than half were thwarted before anyone got hurt—and in two-thirds of those cases, it was because of a tip from the public.

  • Reducing Wildfire Danger

    With the climate crisis increasing the risk of wildfires in the UK and many other parts of northern Europe, scientists from across the world are sharing their expertise to help tackle the dangers.

  • The Oath Keepers Data Leak: Unmasking Extremism in Public Life

    A data leak revealed the information of thousands of people whose names were in an Oath Keepers database as having paid for a membership at some point. The Oath Keepers are an anti-government extremist group associated with the militia movement.

  • Two Constables, Four Police Chiefs and More Than 3,000 other Texans Were Members of the Oath Keepers: Report

    A recent analysis of Oath Keepers’ membership rolls leaked last year found that Texas had more members of the far-right extremist group than any other state — and the most who worked as elected officials, law enforcement officers or members of the military.