• Batteries: Reshaping the Future of the Electric Grid

    Research begun at the Department of Energy’s Joint Center for Energy Storage Research and continued at spinoff company Form Energy may launch a new era of renewable energy.

  • The Cost of a Key Climate Solution

    Perhaps the best hope for slowing climate change – capturing and storing carbon dioxide emissions underground – has remained elusive due in part to uncertainty about its economic feasibility. Researchers have estimated the energy demands involved with a critical stage of the process.

  • A Sponge to Soak Up Carbon Dioxide in the Air

    Human activity is now leading to the equivalent of 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere each year, putting us on track to increase the planet’s temperature by 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels by 2040. Increasingly, scientists are recognizing that negative emissions technologies (NETs) to remove and sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere will be an essential component in the strategy to mitigate climate change.

  • Adding AI to Autonomous Weapons Increases Risks to Civilians in Armed Conflict

    Earlier this month, a high-level, congressionally mandated commission released its long-awaited recommendations for how the United States should approach artificial intelligence (AI) for national security. The recommendations were part of a nearly 800-page report from the National Security Commission on AI (NSCAI) that advocated for the use of AI but also highlighted important conclusions on key risks posed by AI-enabled and autonomous weapons, particularly the dangers of unintended escalation of conflict. Neil Davison and Jonathan Horowitz write that “The NSCAI recommends that the United States excludes the use of autonomous nuclear weapons.”

  • Solving Problems for the World’s Freshwater Supply

    Water’s value to society goes far beyond quenching thirst. An indispensable resource, it is required not only to sustain life, but also for economic prosperity. Water, for example, is needed to generate energy and to manufacture nearly everything, from food to clothes, cars and electronics. Our future economy and national security highly depend on the availability of clean water. But there is a limited supply of renewable fresh water when and where it is needed.

  • New Fire-Simulating Tool Could Improve In-Flight Fire Safety

    Some of the most dangerous fires are the ones you don’t see coming. That goes not only for fires in buildings but for those kilometers off the ground, aboard commercial airliners. Many aircraft have systems to detect fires early on, but fires that spark in their attics, or overhead compartments — spaces with curved ceilings, filled with air ducts, electrical wiring and structural elements — could potentially sneak past them.

  • Computer Chip Pitted against 500+ Hackers. The Chip Won.

    An “unhackable” computer chip lived up to its name in its first bug bounty competition, foiling over 500 cybersecurity researchers who were offered tens of thousands of dollars to analyze it and three other secure processor technologies for vulnerabilities. MORPHEUS technology from the University of Michigan emerged unscathed from a DARPA virtual hackathon.

  • Stepped-Up U.S. Investment in Fusion Energy

    An influential Department of Energy (DOE) advisory committee has recommended that the nation move aggressively toward the deployment of fusion energy, including investments in technology and equipment to support one of the missions of LLNL’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) — laying the groundwork for the development of inertial fusion energy (IFE).

  • Expanding Domestic Manufacturing of Secure, Custom Chips for Defense Needs

    DARPA announced the Structured Array Hardware for Automatically Realized Applications (SAHARA) program, which aims to expand access to domestic manufacturing capabilities to tackle challenges hampering the secure development of custom chips for defense systems. DARPA selected Intel and university researchers to automate conversion of Structured ASICs with leading-edge, domestic foundry capabilities for defense electronic systems.

  • Is It Worth Investing in Solar PV with Batteries at Home?

    Solar energy is a clean, renewable source of electricity that could potentially play a significant part in fulfilling the world’s energy requirements, but there are still some challenges to fully capitalizing on this potential. Researchers looked into some of the issues that hamper the uptake of solar energy and proposed different policies to encourage the use of this technology.

  • Innovative Chemical Weapons Detection Technology

    An innovative new chemical detection technology called SEDONA, or SpEctroscopic Detection of Nerve Agents, was recognized as a 2020 R&D 100 Award-winner.When deployed at security checkpoints, border crossings, and ports of entry across the country, SEDONA will enhance DHS’s abilities to detect and intercept dangerous chemicals and nerve agents. 

  • Harnessing Earth’s Magnetic Field to Detect Chemicals

    A newly designed spectroscopy instrument allows scientists, industry, and governments to decipher even trace amounts of chemicals using the Earth’s own magnetic field. The portable tool will help scientists, industry, and governments easily detect and identify trace amounts of chemicals.

  • New Tool Reveals Security and Privacy Issues with Contact Tracing Apps

    Researchers have developed a tool to identify security and privacy risks associated with Covid-19 contact tracing apps. COVIDGuardian, the first automated security and privacy assessment tool, tests contact tracing apps for potential threats such as malware, embedded trackers and private information leakage.

  • Accelerating Use of Fully Homomorphic Encryption

    Protecting and preserving personally identifiable information (PII), intellectual property, intelligence insights, and other forms of sensitive information has never been more critical. A steady cadence of data breaches and attacks are reported seemingly daily. As the use of cloud computing and virtual networks becomes increasingly pervasive for storing, processing, and moving information, concerns around data vulnerability, access, and privacy are similarly on the rise. Four research teams take on development of novel hardware accelerator to enable new levels of data and privacy protection.

  • Spotting Deepfakes by Looking at Light Reflection in the Eyes

    Computer scientists have developed a tool that automatically identifies deepfake photos by analyzing light reflections in the eyes. The tool proved 94 percent effective with portrait-like photos in experiments.