• 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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?

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Chinese “Space Cleaner” Grabbing and Throwing Away Old Satellite

    A Chinese satellite was spotted in late January grabbing another long-dead satellite and days later throwing it into a “graveyard” orbit 300 km away, where objects are less likely to hit spacecraft. There’s nothing wrong with throwing out the trash — many other countries have launched or are currently developing technologies to clear space junk. However, despite the seeming ubiquity of efforts to develop and implement space junk disposal technology, some U.S. officials have expressed worry over Chinese trash disposal satellites.

  • We Need Hydropower for a Resilient Grid

    The shift in power source mix and climate change-driven natural disasters make America’s most critical piece of energy infrastructure—the grid—more vulnerable than ever before. That’s where hydropower plays a pivotal role: When other types of power plants go dark, hydropower provides a fast, crucial response in seconds.

  • Computing Carbon Storage

    The road to a stabilized climate is challenging and contentious. A number of solutions will be needed to enable a fast, equitable transition away from fossil fuels: among them the development of sustainable energy sources, greener materials, and methods to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere.

  • Fog Detection Software Helps Keep Travelers Safe

    Fog and low stratus clouds over airports can create dangerous travel conditions that result in costly delays and disrupted travel plans. A new fog detection software will help.

  • Broad, and Likely Unauthorized, Use of Pegasus Spyware by Israel's Police Shocks Israel

    Since 2015, Israel’s police has employed the intrusive Pegasus spyware to spy on businesspeople, journalists and editors, senior managers of government ministries and agencies, leaders of protest movements, and more – and it appears that in many, if not most, of these cases, the spying was done without judicial approval or after judges were misled by the police about the nature of the monitoring technology. The Pegasus software has been used by authoritarian governments around the world to spy on political opponents, human rights activist, journalists – and in at least one case, to spy on U.S. diplomats. The U.S. has blacklisted the Israeli company NSO, Pegasus maker, and American companies are not allowed to sell their technology to NSO or do business with it

  • Automated Approach to Extract Security Policies from Software

    Researchers are exploring how a new automated approach could prevent software security vulnerabilities. The researchers sought to develop a deep learning model that could teach software how to extract security policies automatically.

  • Improving the Flow of Renewable Energy to Power Plants

    Integrating renewable energy with the power grid continues to be a big challenge for the electrical grid infrastructure in the United States. The solution is not simple, but it is not impossible, either.