• RadSecure 100 Radiological Security Initiative Launched in 100 U.S. Cities

    The RadSecure 100 Initiative focuses on removing radioactive material from facilities where feasible and improving security at the remaining facilities located in 100 metropolitan areas throughout the United States. Partnerships with local medical facilities, industrial firms, and law enforcement will be key to the project.

  • Wave-Powered SeaRAY Set for Hawaii trial

    Offshore industries, like marine research, fish farming, and mineral mining, often rely on big ships with large crews. Without clean energy to power these vessels, each trip out to sea and back to shore is not only expensive but also carbon intensive. You cannot charge that ship by plugging it into the ocean. Or maybe you can.

  • Cybersecurity Experts Worried by Chinese Firm’s Control of Smart Devices 

    From rooftop to basement and the bedrooms in between, much of the technology making consumer products smart comes from a little-known Chinese firm, Tuya Inc. of Hangzhou.More than 5,000 brands have incorporated Tuya’s technology in their products. Cybersecurity experts are worried, and they urge Washington to limit or ban Tuya from doing business in the United States, in part because a broad new Chinese law requires companies to turn over any and all collected data when the government requests it.

  • Emberometer Gauges Threat of Wildfire-Spreading Embers

    Wildfire fronts spread not only on the ground, but also from above, as the fire launching volleys of glowing embers, also known as firebrands, into the air. These specks of burning debris can glide for up to about 24 miles before landing. They cause up to 90 percent of home and business fires during wildfires.

  • Optical Fibers Detect Earthquakes

    Optical fibers, the underground optical cables that transmit a lot of information at a time, are familiar to us. But few would associate optical fibers with earthquake detection.

  • An App for Safe Handling of Drones

    Nearly every day, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents come across drones that may have been used to facilitate the movement of illicit drugs or people across the southern border. These drones usually carry smuggled narcotics and often contain surveillance cameras; however, they could easily be modified to carry other threats or hazards.

  • Small Modular Reactors May Mitigate Climate Change

    The consequences of carbon emissions from the large-scale burning of fossil fuels are all around us, from relentless wildfires to scorching heatwaves to devastating floods to destructive megadroughts. There is renewed interest in nuclear energy, specifically in the new generation of small modular reactors.

  • Studying Spent-Fuel Canister to Support Long-Term Storage

    Nuclear waste is stored in more than sixty dry-cask storage sites in thirty-four states. These facilities store the majority of the more than 90,000 metric tons of nuclear waste in the United States, including nearly 80,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel.

  • With Redesigned “Brains,” W88 Nuclear Warhead Reaches Milestone

    The W88 nuclear warhead entered the stockpile in late 1988 and is deployed on the Navy’s Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile system onboard Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines. The weapon was beyond its original design life, and several updates were required to address aging issues and to maintain its current state of readiness.

  • New Clean Energy Technology Extracts Twice the Power from Ocean Waves

    A prototype technology holds the promise of doubling the power harvested from ocean waves, in an advance that could finally make wave energy a viable renewable alternative. The untapped potential of ocean wave energy is vast—it has been estimated that the power of coastal waves around the world each year is equivalent to annual global electricity production.

  • Parasites Fight Chemical and Biological Weapons

    Harnessing parasites to help soldiers and first responders counter chemical and biological weapon attacks in war zones.

  • Lethal Autonomous Weapons and World War III: It’s Not Too Late to Stop the Rise of “Killer Robots”

    Scientists are pretty good at warning of the dangers facing the planet. Unfortunately, society is less good at paying attention. Artificial intelligence researchers like me have been warning of the advent of lethal autonomous weapons systems, which can make life-or-death decisions without human intervention, for years.

  • Small Towns Should Focus on Resilience

    With heatwaves, bushfires, and floods, small towns and their surrounding communities have confronted a combination of successive disasters fueled by climate change. And it’s predicted to only get worse. “So, the challenge for all of us, but particularly areas at increasing risk of climate-fueled disasters, is to get ahead of what’s coming,” says one expert. “We need to ask: what we can do to reduce or even prevent some of these disasters from happening?”

  • Earthquake Forecasts a Step Closer to Reality

    Earthquakes — like lightning — strike unpredictably. For decades, scientists have struggled to reliably give forecasts for major earthquake hotspots, but now, an international team of scientists has embarked on a new initiative to do just that.

  • Path Towards a Global Pathogen Early Warning System

    The world’s ability to detect, track, and analyze disease threats has improved considerably over the past several decades, the COVID-19 pandemic drove home a terrible reality: the systems we had in place are still deeply insufficient for halting the rapid spread of a novel pathogen fast enough to prevent a staggering level of damage.