• New Weapons Testing Capability Produces Richer Data, Saves Time, Cost

    A team of Sandia National Laboratories engineers developed a new testing capability in support of the lab’s nuclear weapons mission. The new weapons testing capability produces richer data, and saves time and cost. “Superfuge” test combines multiple environments on a full-scale weapons system.

  • Pegasus Project Shows the Need for Real Device Security, Accountability and Redress for those Facing State-Sponsored Malware

    It is no surprise that people around the world are angry to learn that surveillance software sold by NSO Group to governments has been found on cellphones worldwide. People all around the world deserve the right to have a private conversation. Communication privacy is a human right, a civil liberty, and one of the centerpieces of a free society. And while we all deserve basic communications privacy, the journalists, NGO workers, and human rights and democracy activists among us are especially at risk, since they are often at odds with powerful governments.

  • Spyware: Why the Booming Surveillance Tech Industry Is Vulnerable to Corruption and Abuse

    The latest revelations about NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware are the latest indication that the spyware industry is out of control, with licensed customers free to spy on political and civilian targets as well as suspected criminals. We may be heading to a world in which no phone is safe from such attacks.

  • Bringing the Jury to the Crime Scene Via a 3D Headset

    Delivering the correct verdict on car accident and murder cases is contingent on good spatial awareness, but short of being at the scene of the crime, jurors confined to the court room may be more prone to errors. Thanks to the advent of virtual reality (VR), jurors now have a better chance of making the right decision.

  • Smartphone Screens Effective Sensors for Soil or Water Contamination

    The touchscreen technology used in billions of smartphones and tablets could also be used as a powerful sensor, without the need for any modifications.

  • Growing Unease in Israel over Pegasus Case

    Israel is worried that the Pegasus spyware revelations may turn a PR black eye into a diplomatic crisis. Israel never exhibited any qualms about dealing with and selling arms to pretty unsavory regimes, but such deals were typically kept secret. The fact that the Israeli Ministry of Defense authorized the NSO Group to sell the Pegasus spyware to regimes which then used it to spy on opposition figures, civil society activists, and journalists – and, in the case of Saudi Arabia, to track Jamal Khashoggi and kill him — has raised questions about what did the government know and when did it know it.

  • Detecting, Blocking Grid Cyberattacks

    Researchers have designed and demonstrated a technology that can block cyberattacks from impacting the nation’s electric power grid.

  • Macron’s Secure Mobile Phone Compromised by Pegasus Spyware

    The secure smartphone of French president Emmanuel Macron was compromised by the Pegasus surveillance malware. It was surreptitiously installed by Moroccan intelligence operatives, who introduced the virus into the phones of former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and fourteen other current and former French cabinet ministers.

  • The U.S. Army Tried Portable Nuclear Power at Remote Bases 60 Years Ago – It Didn’t Go Well

    The U.S. military’s Camp Century was a series of tunnels built into the Greenland ice sheet and used for both military research and scientific projects. The military boasted that the nuclear reactor there, known as the PM-2A, needed just 44 pounds of uranium to replace a million or more gallons of diesel fuel. Heat from the reactor ran lights and equipment and allowed the 200 or so men at the camp as many hot showers as they wanted in that brutally cold environment. The PM-2A was the third child in a family of eight Army reactors, several of them experiments in portable nuclear power.

  • Journalists, Activists among 50,000 Targets of Israeli Spyware: Reports

    Israeli cyber firm NSO Group claims that its Pegasus surveillance malware is sold to governments so they can better track terrorists and criminals, but many of the 45 governments deploying the surveillance software use it to track journalists, opposition politicians, and civil society activists. Some of these governments are authoritarian (for example, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, UAE, Saudi Arabia). Other are democracies (for example, India, Mexico, South Africa). The only EU member country to deploy the surveillance malware is Hungary, which places it in violation of the EU’s strict privacy and surveillance regulations.

  • New Material Could Mean Lightweight Armor, Protective Coatings

    Researchers identified a new material that may lead to lightweight armor, protective coatings, blast shields, and other impact-resistant structures.

  • Exploring Hydrogen Storage

    Hydrogen is emerging as a low-carbon fuel option for transportation, electricity generation, manufacturing applications and clean energy technologies that will accelerate the United States’ transition to a low-carbon economy. However, a key challenge is to ensure the safe and effective storage of hydrogen.

  • Will China Retaliate Against U.S. Chip Sanctions?

    In response to a series of Chinese trade infractions (intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers, cyber espionage, and WTO violations), the U.S. government implemented a sanctions regime which has inflicted increasing pain on China’s semiconductor industry. The Biden administration has doubled down on the Trump’s sanction strategy against China’s high-tech sector. Terry Daly and Jordan Schneider write that China has so far abstained from taking major retaliatory measures against the United States, but this is not likely to last. “The prudent course in a period of uncertainty is risk mitigation. This applies to countries and companies alike,” Daly and Schneider write.

  • Tackling Climate Change by Storing up the Sun

    “This is the key, the linchpin that will set a lot of things in the right direction,” says Asegun Henry, an MIT mechanical engineering professor.

  • Exploring Rare Earth Elements Opportunities

    The purified form of REE is primarily sourced from foreign nations, so the U.S. supply chain of the rare earth elements presents a problem. Justin Wilson, a Cornell chemistry professor, has received a DOE grant to develop more efficient methods of separating rare earth elements that will make their domestic availability economically viable.