• As the Planet Warms, Risks of Geoengineering the Climate Mount

    Because a climate-disrupted future remains possible, another danger needs our attention. As the impacts of warming become more extreme, countries are more likely to turn to riskier measures to combat them, including geoengineering.

  • Improving Security for Smart Systems

    In an increasingly connected and smart world, sensors collect and share large amounts of data to help people make decisions. Researchers has recently developed a way to statistically analyze such complex sensor data, so that the computer algorithms that make data-based decisions can be more resilient and better able to cope with small errors.

  • Vacuuming-Up Rare Metals from the Deep-Sea Floor

    At the bottom of the ocean lie lumps of valuable metals such as copper, manganese, nickel and cobalt - materials crucial to accelerating the energy transition. Researchers are working on a project called ‘Blue Harvesting,’ and they have designed and tested a new collector that can gather these nodules from the deep sea bottom with minimal disturbance to the natural environment.

  • German Ministry Seeks to Block Chinese Chip Factory Takeover

    German Economy Minister Robert Habeck wants to stop the sale of a chip production plant to a Chinese investor. The Green Party politician has expressed concern about giving China control over key infrastructure.

  • Investigating Stockpile Stewardship Applications for World’s Largest Computer Chip

    The Cerebras Wafer-Scale Engine is the largest computer chip in the world, containing 2.6 trillion transistors, 850,000 artificial intelligence cores. Researchers at Sandia and Los Alamos are accelerating advanced simulation and computing applications in support of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship mission.

  • Software Suite Will Bolster Defenses for Soft Targets

    Anyone who has ever gone to a major sporting event or concert, taken public transportation, even visited a farmer’s market on a brisk weekend morning, has likely benefitted from soft-target physical security—and perhaps didn’t even know it. DHS S&T is working developing a suite of decision-support software known as Special Event Planning Tools (SEPT) to help those in charge of securing soft targets.

  • Mobile Data Collected While Traveling Over Bridges Could Help Evaluate Their Integrity

    A new study suggests mobile data collected while traveling over bridges could help evaluate their integrity.

  • China’s Chip Talent Problem Worsens After Layoffs at U.S. Firm Marvell

    Marvell Technology has confirmed that it is eliminating research and development staffs in China – the third U.S. chipmaker that has done so this year as the U.S.-China tech rivalry intensifies. This will hobble China’s chip ambitions and worsen its talent shortfall in the field of designing and manufacturing cutting-edge computer chips.

  • 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.

  • Monitoring Potentially Hazardous Near-Earth Asteroids

    An enormous number of near-Earth asteroids are posing a potential hazard to our planet. Faced with potential threats of to Earth by asteroid impact, researchers have been focusing on asteroid defense. Monitoring of and early warning about near-Earth asteroids is the premise of planetary defense.

  • How China’s Military Plugs into the Global Space Sector

    China is using seemingly civilian and academic Chinese research institutions to advance its military goals in space. International organizations like the International GNSS Service need to be aware that even overtly civilian entities can be intertwined with the Chinese military. Collaboration with high-risk Chinese institutions must be done with extreme care to ensure data and products intended to support international science and commerce are not redirected towards unwanted military uses.

  • Batteries Without Critical Raw Materials

    The market for rechargeable batteries is growing rapidly, but the necessary raw materials are limited. Sodium-ion batteries, for example, could offer an alternative.

  • The Inferred Abundance of Interstellar Objects of Technological Origin

    Five years ago, astronomers noticed a large, strange-looking object streaking across space, tens of millions of miles from Earth. Its trajectory and speed indicated it originated from outside the solar system. Astronomers say there may be 4 quintillion alien spacecraft traveling in – and in and out of — our solar system. That’s 18 zeros, just so that you know.

  • A Drone Wing That Could Learn How to Sense Danger Faster

    The small domes that you press on your soda’s to-go cup lid may one day save a winged drone from a nosedive. Patterns of these invertible domes on a drone’s wings would give it a way to remember in microseconds what dangerous conditions feel like and react quickly.

  • Meeting Surging Demand for National Security Research

    Sandia National Laboratory is embarking on a major expansion of its network of academic partners to meet the surging demand for national security science and engineering. From 2015 to 2021, the Labs’ budget increased more than 50%, from $2.9 billion to $4.5 billion. Over the same period, the Labs increased its workforce by more than 25%, from 11,700 to 15,000. Still, the Lab says that it won’t meet its obligations just by hiring staff.