• Ultrafast Devices to Protecting the Grid from EMPs

    Scientists from Sandia National Laboratories have announced a tiny, electronic device that can shunt excess electricity within a few billionths of a second while operating at a record-breaking 6,400 volts — a significant step towards protecting the nation’s electric grid from an electromagnetic pulse.

  • Drone Warfare Is Increasingly Sophisticated, Deadly

    Policymakers, legislators and military strategists must prepare for the consequences of other countries and actors such as the Islamic State using unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, in the Ukraine-Russia conflict and others.

  • Food Crisis Due to Ukraine War Calls for Demand-Side Action

    The global food system is impacted by the war in Ukraine, adding to the direct humanitarian and security crisis caused by the Russian aggression. Ukraine and Russia are major producers of grains and fertilizers. Experts say that focusing on short-term supply-side solutions is not the way to go. Rather, changes to the demand side of the global food system can lead to both a more resilient and more sustainable global food system.

  • Artificial Intelligence’s Promise: Discovering New Rare-Earth Compounds

    Rare earth elements have a wide range of uses including clean energy technologies, energy storage, permanent magnets, defense technology, and much more. Artificial intelligence advances how scientists explore materials, and researchers have developed an AI-based framework for experimenting with compounds and understanding chemical instabilities.

  • Setting Carbon Management in Stone

    Keeping global temperatures within limits deemed safe by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change means doing more than slashing carbon emissions. It means reversing them. And when it comes to carbon storage, some MIT scientists think the best solution is to find the fastest way to turn carbon into rock.

  • Warning: Objects in Driverless Car Sensors May Be Closer Than They Appear

    Researchers have demonstrated the first attack strategy that can fool industry-standard autonomous vehicle sensors into believing nearby objects are closer (or further) than they appear without being detected.

  • As Sea Levels Rise, Coastal Megacities Will Need More Than Flood Barriers

    Sea level rise is expected to worsen in the next few decades, especially for many of the world’s largest cities in lower and middle income countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. These cities are already improving their infrastructure. But most of the focus remains on big engineering solutions (like flood walls and embankments) rather than a more holistic plans.

  • CO2 Could Be Stored Below Ocean Floor

    Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges facing humanity. To combat its potentially catastrophic effects, scientists are searching for new technologies that could help the world reach carbon neutrality. One potential solution that is drawing growing attention is to capture and store carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the form of hydrates under ocean floor sediments.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.