• Metal-Free Batteries Raise Hope for More Sustainable and Economical Grids

    Rechargeable batteries that use ammonium cations as charge carriers could provide ecofriendly and sustainable substitutes to metal-ion-based batteries. Metal-ion batteries dominate the market, but they depend on limited and declining resources, which threatens long-term availability.

  • What Killer Robots Mean for the Future of War

    As AI weapons become increasingly sophisticated, public concern is growing over fears about lack of accountability and the risk of technical failure.

  • New Method Tracks Groups of Anomalous Users

    Malicious or fictitious users on internet networks have become the bane of the internet’s existence. Many bemoan the increasing presence of such users, but few have developed methods to track and expose them. Until now.

  • Yeast Material Developed for Training First Responders on Biothreats

    First responders who train for emergencies involving threats from biological agents such as bacterial or viral pathogens, need to do so in a safe and careful manner. To help meet their needs, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a reference material based on yeast cells.

  • Achieving Foundational Security for Food Systems

    U.S. cereal crops such as corn, rice, and wheat feed hundreds of millions of Americans and millions more around the world. Ensuring active defense of these and other staple food grasses is a critical national security priority. New DARPA project seeks advanced threat-detection and warning capabilities for crop defense.

  • Interest in Geothermal Energy is Growing

    These days, some 400 power plants in 30 countries generate electricity using steam generated beneath the earth’s surface, producing a total capacity of 16 gigawatts (GW). Despite its advantages, geothermal energy has seen limited use compared to fossil fuels, but recent energy shocks have increased interest in this energy source.

  • Can Floating Solar Islands Meet the World’s Future Energy Needs?

    Covering less than ten per cent of the world’s hydropower reservoirs with floating solar panels would yield as much energy as all hydropower does today, one researcher says.

  • Calls for More Progress on Space Governance Growing Louder

    Space may seem infinite, but the narrow band that hugs the Earth, where satellites and space stations operate, is not. A recent RAND study described it as congested, contested, and littered with debris. Tens of thousands of additional satellites are scheduled to launch in the next few years, the vanguard of a new space era. Existing space treaties won’t be enough to keep them safe, to prevent crowding and collisions, and to preserve the promise of outer space.

  • Towers in the Storm

    The problem with the U.S. electrical grid is that many transmission towers have exceeded their design life by about 50 years, which means the aging grid today faces bigger chances of failure. One threat to the grid is from damaging winds of extreme storms such as hurricanes.

  • Space Solar Power Technology Demo Launched into Orbit in January

    Space solar power provides a way to tap into the practically unlimited supply of solar energy in outer space, where the energy is constantly available without being subjected to the cycles of day and night, seasons, and cloud cover.

  • China Launches WTO Dispute Over U.S. Chip Export Controls

    Capping a year of increasing tension between Washington and Beijing over advanced chips used in everything from smartphones to weapons of mass destruction, China has initiated a trade dispute at the World Trade Organization (WTO) against the United States for imposing wide-ranging semiconductor export controls on China.

  • What’s Happened to Russia’s Much-Vaunted Battlefield AI?

    So far, Russia’s deployment in Ukraine has been a demonstration of some of the limitations and vulnerabilities of AI-enabled systems. It has also exposed some longer-term strategic weaknesses in Russia’s development of AI for military and economic purposes.

  • Portable Outdoor Gunshot Detection Technology for Law Enforcement

    A new portable Gunshot Detection System can provide critical information about outdoor shooting incidents almost instantaneously to first responders.

  • Hydrogen Changing Power Dynamics in Energy Sector

    As the EU tries to finalize its hydrogen rules, Asian countries are moving fast to secure deliveries and the US is committing money to set up local supply chains. Can the Middle East collaborate with both continents?

  • Pathogen Early Warning

    When COVID-19 struck in late 2019 and early 2020, governments worldwide were caught off guard. The systems that countries and international institutions established, particularly those designed to spot novel threats before they metastasized into something more dangerous, proved insufficient to halt COVID-19’s spread. Since then, the importance of effective early warning systems has only increased.