-
ChatGPT Could Help First Responders During Natural Disasters
A little over a year since its launch, ChatGPT’s abilities are well known. The machine learning model can write a decent college-level essay and hold a conversation in an almost human-like way. But could its language skills also help first responders find those in distress during a natural disaster?
-
-
Innovative Long-Duration Energy Storage Project
Argonne and Idaho National Laboratories have been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy for a project to validate CMBlu Energy’s battery technology for microgrid resilience and electric vehicle charging. U.S. Department of Energy selects national labs to validate the company’s battery technology for microgrid resilience and electric vehicle charging.
-
-
AI Networks Are More Vulnerable to Malicious Attacks Than Previously Thought
Artificial intelligence tools hold promise for applications ranging from autonomous vehicles to the interpretation of medical images. However, a new study finds these AI tools are more vulnerable than previously thought to targeted attacks that effectively force AI systems to make bad decisions.
-
-
Smart Microgrids Can Restore Power More Efficiently and Reliably in an Outage
It’s a story that’s become all too familiar — high winds knock out a power line, and a community can go without power for hours to days, an inconvenience at best and a dangerous situation at worst. Engineers developed an AI model that optimizes the use of renewables and other energy sources to restore power when a main utility fails.
-
-
Seaworthy Solution Yields Green Energy, Fresh Water
Engineers have refined a model that not only cultivates green energy, but also desalinates ocean water for large, drought-stricken coastal populations.By pumping seawater to a mountaintop reservoir and then employing gravity to send the salty water down to a co-located hydropower plant and a reverse osmosis desalination facility, science can satisfy the energy and hydration needs of coastal cities with one system.
-
-
Researchers Fabricate Commercial Grade Uranium Dioxide HALEU Fuel
As the world clamors for carbon-free power, U.S. nuclear reactor developers have responded with several advanced reactor designs. Nuclear energy from light water reactors already ranks among the safest forms of energy production, and most advanced reactors will use safety systems that rely on the laws of physics to virtually eliminate the possibility of a serious accident.
-
-
National Opportunities to Remove Carbon Dioxide at the Gigaton Scale
Researchers have completed a first-of-its-kind high-resolution assessment of carbon dioxide (CO2) removal (CDR) in the United States. The report concludes that with today’s technologies, removing 1 billion metric tons of CO2 per year will annually cost roughly $130 billion in 2050, or about 0.5% of current GDP.
-
-
What if Law Enforcement Could ‘See’ Through Walls?
New technology allows law enforcement to easily and safely identify whether any individuals are inside a room when direct line-of-sight is not an option. This is especially critical when conducting breaching operations, searching for trafficked individuals or in potential hostage situations, where the device gives responders precious intelligence and situational awareness while reducing the risk of physical harm to themselves.
-
-
A Self-Service Screening Option Coming to the Airport Near You
Self-service screening is coming to airport checkpoints, thanks to the Science and Technology Directorate’s Screening at Speed Program. A pilot of a new self-service screening system is scheduled to begin in January at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada.
-
-
Modeling Geothermal Systems’ Viability
Geothermal power has a lot of promise as a renewable energy source that is not dependent on the sun shining or the wind blowing, but it has some obstacles to wide adoption. One challenge is that a limited number of locations in the U.S. naturally have the right conditions: hot rock relatively close to the surface and with plentiful groundwater to heat up. Web tool looks belowground for an economically viable renewable energy source.
-
-
Huawei’s New Mate 60 Phones Are a Lesson in Unintended Consequences
In October 2022, the Commerce Department introduced a set of export-control measures designed to prevent the use of American chip technology for Chinese military purposes. Rules were also imposed that aimed to restrict China’s semiconductor production to older 14-nm technology. These controls have had varying degrees of success, but the 14-nm restriction is one of the more overt failures, as the 7-nm chips in the new Huawei’s Mate 60 phones shows.
-
-
A New Blueprint for Designing High-Performance Batteries
Cooperative behavior among components in batteries points to an exciting new approach to designing next-generation technologies, pointing the way to better electric vehicle batteries and storage of renewable energy on the grid.
-
-
Using Machine Learning to Help Refugees Succeed
A new set of machine learning tools is helping countries place refugees where they’re most likely to find employment.
-
-
Bioengineered Potato Plant Detects Gamma Radiation
A researcher in the University of Tennessee Herbert College of Agriculture has developed a potato plant that can detect gamma radiation, providing reliable indications of harmful radiation levels without complex monitoring technologies. The natural radiation sensor is affordable, too.
-
-
Non-powered Dams Offer Opportunity for Clean Energy
The era of building big dams may be over in the United States, but hydroelectricity still has a significant and untapped role to play in the nation’s energy future. Trouble is, 97 percent of U.S. dams don’t make electricity. A new tool could help tap that resource.
-
More headlines
The long view
Autonomous Vehicle Technology Vulnerable to Road Object Spoofing and Vanishing Attacks
Researchers have demonstrated the potentially hazardous vulnerabilities associated with the technology called LiDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging, many autonomous vehicles use to navigate streets, roads and highways. The researchers have shown how to use lasers to fool LiDAR into “seeing” objects that are not present and missing those that are – deficiencies that can cause unwarranted and unsafe braking or collisions.
Tantalizing Method to Study Cyberdeterrence
Tantalus is unlike most war games because it is experimental instead of experiential — the immersive game differs by overlapping scientific rigor and quantitative assessment methods with the experimental sciences, and experimental war gaming provides insightful data for real-world cyberattacks.
Prototype Self-Service Screening System Unveiled
TSA and DHS S&T unveiled a prototype checkpoint technology, the self-service screening system, at Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) in Las Vegas, NV. The aim is to provide a near self-sufficient passenger screening process while enabling passengers to directly receive on-person alarm information and allow for the passenger self-resolution of those alarms.
Falling Space Debris: How High Is the Risk I'll Get Hit?
An International Space Station battery fell back to Earth and, luckily, splashed down harmlessly in the Atlantic. Should we have worried? Space debris reenters our atmosphere every week.
Testing Cutting-Edge Counter-Drone Technology
Drones have many positive applications, bad actors can use them for nefarious purposes. Two recent field demonstrations brought government, academia, and industry together to evaluate innovative counter-unmanned aircraft systems.
Strengthening the Grid’s ‘Backbone’ with Hydropower
Argonne-led studies investigate how hydropower could help add more clean energy to the grid, how it generates value as grids add more renewable energy, and how liner technology can improve hydropower efficiency.
The Tech Apocalypse Panic is Driven by AI Boosters, Military Tacticians, and Movies
From popular films like a War Games or The Terminator to a U.S. State Department-commissioned report on the security risk of weaponized AI, there has been a tremendous amount of hand wringing and nervousness about how so-called artificial intelligence might end up destroying the world. There is one easy way to avoid a lot of this and prevent a self-inflicted doomsday: don’t give computers the capability to launch devastating weapons.
The Tech Apocalypse Panic is Driven by AI Boosters, Military Tacticians, and Movies
From popular films like a War Games or The Terminator to a U.S. State Department-commissioned report on the security risk of weaponized AI, there has been a tremendous amount of hand wringing and nervousness about how so-called artificial intelligence might end up destroying the world. There is one easy way to avoid a lot of this and prevent a self-inflicted doomsday: don’t give computers the capability to launch devastating weapons.