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War in Ukraine Could Cut Global Supply of Essential Elements for Making Green Technology
The EU imports 40 percent of its natural gas from Russia, and nearly half of the five million barrels of crude oil Russia exports daily go to Europe. Decisive action by major economies to reduce coal, oil and gas imports from one of the world’s largest sources could accelerate the transition to green energy globally. But there’s a catch. Disruption to the supply of critical metals and other materials caused by the war in Ukraine could stall the roll-out of alternative technologies.
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Electric Truck Hydropower: Flexible Solution to Hydropower in Mountainous Regions
Mountain regions have a large potential for hydropower that cannot be harnessed effectively by conventional technologies. Researchers developed an innovative hydropower technology based on electric trucks that could provide a flexible and clean solution for electricity generation in mountainous regions.
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Armored Transformer Barrier Protects Electric Power Grid
A 2013 sniper attack on an electric power substation in Northern California, which caused more than $15 million in damages and destroyed 17 transformers, led researchers to develop a novel protective solution: the Armored Transformer Barrier system.
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A Systems Approach to Cybersecurity
The frequency and severity of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure is a subject of concern for many governments, as are the costs associated with cyber security, making the efficient allocation of resources paramount. A new study proposes a framework featuring a more holistic picture of the cyber security landscape, along with a model that explicitly represents multiple dimensions of the potential impacts of successful cyberattacks.
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Last-Minute Defense Against an Asteroid: Obliterating It Before Impact
Scientists say that pulverizing a threatening incoming asteroid into tiny pieces is our best bet to protect ourselves from an asteroid on short notice.
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Researchers Show They Can Steal Data During Homomorphic Encryption
Homomorphic encryption is considered a next generation data security technology, but researchers have identified a vulnerability that allows them to steal data even as it is being encrypted.
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Insect-Inspired Robots Can Monitor Hard-to-Reach Spots
There aren’t many spaces that are off-limits to an insect. Researchers have created tiny bug-inspired robots that can carry out tasks in hard-to-reach spaces and inhospitable environments.
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Computer Security Researchers Aim to Prevent Tech Abuse
Tech abuse often exists within a larger web of harm. Assailants can abuse their victims through tech including spyware, also known as stalkerware, and through inappropriate use of location-tracking features in phones and other devices. They harass their former partners on social media, hack into email accounts, and more. Researchers have created a new approach to helping survivors of domestic abuse stop assailants from hacking into their devices and social media to surveil, harass and hurt them.
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Using AI to Find Anomalies Hiding in Massive Datasets
Identifying a malfunction in the nation’s power grid can be like trying to find a needle in an enormous haystack. A new machine-learning technique could pinpoint potential power grid failures or cascading traffic bottlenecks in real time.
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Improving Bay Area Seismic Hazard Maps
Using the Santa Cruz Mountains as a natural laboratory, researchers have built a 3D tectonic model that clarifies the link between earthquakes and mountain building along the San Andreas fault for the first time. The findings may be used to improve seismic hazard maps of the Bay Area.
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A Security Technique Fools Would-Be Cyber Attackers
Multiple programs running on the same computer may not be able to directly access each other’s hidden information, but because they share the same memory hardware, their secrets could be stolen by a malicious program through a “memory timing side-channel attack.” Researchers demonstrate a method that safeguards a computer program’s secret information while enabling faster computation.
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How AI Is Shaping the Cybersecurity Arms Race
The average business receives 10,000 alerts every day from the various software tools it uses to monitor for intruders, malware and other threats. Dealing with this avalanche of alerts is achallenge which underscores the need for better ways to stem the tide of cyber-breaches.
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Can California’s Lithium Valley Power the EV Revolution?
The Salton Sea geothermal field in California potentially holds enough lithium to meet all of America’s domestic battery needs, with even enough left over to export some of it. But how much of that lithium can be extracted in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way? And how long will the resource last?
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Improved Nuclear Accident Code Helps Policymakers Assess Risks from Small Reactors
New software will help the global nuclear industry in assessing the consequences of nuclear accidents. The Maccs code, developed by Sandia researchers, can also evaluate the potential health and environmental risks posed by advanced nuclear reactors and small modular nuclear reactors.
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Users of Unmanned Aircraft Need to View Risk Mitigation More Holistically
A recently published study has found that users of unmanned aircraft, also known as drones, need to take a more holistic approach to identifying and mitigating potential risks before undertaking a flight.
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More headlines
The long view
Artificial Intelligence and Chemical and Biological Weapons
A recent article in Nature offers a disturbing look at the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the creation of chemical and biological weapons. “Anyone unfamiliar with recent innovations in the use of AI to model new drugs will be unpleasantly surprised,” Paul Rosenzweig writes. “The benefits of these innovations are clear. Unfortunately, the possibilities for malicious uses are also becoming clear.”
New National Water Alliance Aims to Predict Water-Related Hazards, Manage U.S. Water Resources
The new Cooperative Institute for Research to Operations in Hydrology (CIROH) is composed of 28 academic institutions, non-profit organizations, and government and industry partners across the United States and Canada, aiming to better predict water-related hazards and manage the nation’s water resources.
New Network to Improve Biosecurity in Livestock
Health and welfare, safety and sustainability are crucial elements for ensuring the future of livestock production. Biosecurity aims to prevent the introduction and spread of pathogens within and between farms and, consequently, results in better welfare, increased food safety and better sustainability. A new network to improve biosecurity in livestock.
You've Heard of Water Droughts. Could “Energy” Droughts Be Next?
In a new modeling study, researchers show how widely wind and solar potential vary by season and year, suggesting that backup energy sources may be needed as the world shifts to renewables to bring carbon emissions to zero.
Machine-Learning Techniques for Predicting the Evolution of Epidemics
Machine learning techniques can provide an assumption-free analysis of epidemic case data with surprisingly good prediction accuracy and the ability to dynamically incorporate the latest data. The techniques used to analyze case data show promise for predicting the evolution of an epidemic.
How Do We Learn to Live with Extreme Events?
From weather dictionaries to AI physics, new approaches try to anticipate the next catastrophic flood, tornado, or hurricane.