According to the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database, there were a total of 143 attacks – 35 biological, 95 chemical, and 13 radiological – using CBRN weapons across the world from 1970 to 2014. The relative ease with which malicious actors could obtain many of the materials and know-how …

Underwater communication is vital for undersea exploitation and modern communication. Conventional ways which employ acoustical technique for underwater communication have their drawbacks  including high path loss, narrow bandwidth, high bit error rate, among which unconditional security is more demanding due to commercial and secure interest.   Submarine communications have always been a challenge …

Metamaterials are artificially structured materials designed to control and manipulate physical phenomena such as light and other electromagnetic waves, sound waves and seismic waves in unconventional ways, resulting in exotic behavior that’s not found in nature. They are predicted to be able to protect the building from earthquakes by bending …

Nuclear power—with its high energy density and low carbon footprint—is a source with which the international community has decades of experience. However, the challenges that come along with the technology have kept it from becoming a more dominant factor in the global energy mix. Geopolitical issues lie at the center …

Alexander Graham Bell discovered photoacoustics by accident when he was working on the development of the photophone, a followup to his recently developed telephone that operated via modulated sunlight instead of electricity. You would operate a photophone by speaking into its transmitter toward a mirror placed inside of it. The vibrations …

Gallium nitride (GaN) is hot. Even hotter is a race to integrate GaN with other materials to boost GaN’s performance further.   The power electronics industry has seen the theoretical performance limit reached by silicon MOSFETs and now needs to move to a new element. GaN is a wide bandgap, …

As the space domain has become more congested, the potential for intentional and unintentional threats to space system assets has increased. Space is also becoming another domain of conflict due to enhanced militarization and weaponization of space. There has been enhanced testing of Anti-satellite weapons (ASAT) and space weapons designed …

The world, say many experts, is on the verge of a second quantum revolution. Energy quantization gave us modern electronics via the transistor and the laser, but humans’ burgeoning ability to manipulate individual atoms and electrons could potentially transform industries ranging from communications and energy to medicine and defense. The most …

Understanding the complex and increasingly data-intensive world around us relies on the construction of robust empirical models, i.e., representations of real, complex systems that enable decision makers to predict behaviors and answer “what-if” questions. Empirical models lie at the heart of much science (e.g., quantitative physics, material science, chemistry, biology/medicine, …