• Boeing successfully tests airborne tactical laser

    Silent death ray from the skies may usher in a new chapter in warfare: the laser may cause a cell tower to stop working, a vehicle’s fuel tank to suddenly explode, or a single person to inexplicably be incinerated — all completely silently and tracelessly, without anyone knowing they were ever there and not so much as a spent bullet left behind

  • Saving the planet: Plan B

    Top U.K. science organization calls for coordinated geoengineering efforts as Plan B for protecting the planet from the negative consequences of climate change

  • Protecting DNA privacy

    New mathematical tool protects genetic privacy while giving genomic data to researchers

  • Understanding nuclear ignition better

    The U.S. nuclear warheads are aging; researchers looking for new ways to figure out safe and reliable ways to estimate their longevity and to understand the physics of thermonuclear reactions in the absence of underground testing currently prohibited under law

  • Handwriting analysis offers alternate lie detection method

    Israeli researchers discover that with the aid of a computerized tool, handwriting characteristics can be measured more effectively; they have found that these handwriting characteristics differ when an individual is in the process of writing deceptive sentences as opposed to truthful sentences

  • New disappearing ink developed

    Nanoparticle inks that fade away in hours could be ideal for secure communications, top-secret maps, and other sensitive documents

  • Throwable robots for U.S. Navy SEALs

    The U.S. military has ordered 150 Recon Scout devices (at a cost of $9,000 each) for the special forces; the beer can-sized robot is equipped with infrared night sight video; the robot is tough enough to be thrown through a door or window, dropped down a chimney, etc. before being driven about to see what it can see

  • Space technology to benefit defense, health care markets

    Technology developed for the Mars lander could prove useful in defense and health care applications

  • DARPA looking for "Precision Electronic Warfare"

    “Surgical jamming” bubble would follow enemy soldiers; the system would be able to lock onto the other side’s soldiers’ cellphones and hold these soldiers within a bubble of jamming no matter how they moved about, denying them any communications or navigation services

  • Active cloaking offers an alternative to metamaterials

    New cloaking method someday might shield submarines from sonar or planes from radar

  • How life will survival in a post-apocalypse blackout

    What if asteroid impacts, massive volcanic eruptions, or large-scale wildfires were to plunge our planet into abnormal darkness” It happened several times in the past; life will continue with a little help from organisms that can switch to another source of energy while they wait for sunlight to pierce the darkness once more

  • UCSD agile robots catch the eye at national robotics conference

    UCSD researchers demonstrate Switchblade, a hopping robot with a sense of balance; the robot can detect when it is about to fall over, and figure out how to shift its weight appropriately so it does not

  • Unmanned ground vehicles patrol city streets

    Designing air or sea unmanned vehicles is relatively straightforward because at sea, and in the air, there are hardly any obstacles; designing an unmanned ground vehicle, however, is much tougher; the U.S. Army, after decades of trying, has succeeded in building one

  • St. Andrews professor working on practical cloaking device

    Professor Ulf Leonhardt is working on a blueprint for a practical cloaking device that could even protect coastlines from water waves; a Royal Society’s Theo Murphy Blue Skies award will allow Leonhardt to pursue full time for the next two years “turning science fiction into a reality”

  • Viz Lab, Defentech show perimeter security system

    Defentect’s gamma radiation detection technology is used in a perimeter security system that can detect radiological materials