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 …

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, …

Traditional missiles powered by rocket motors typically carry both fuel and oxidizer. An air-breathing ramjet missile can dispense with the separate oxidizer payload, reducing the size of a propulsion package.  Thanks to ramjets, smaller missiles use that space for other things, like a bigger warhead or more fuel. Ramjets, according to …

A database is an organized collection of data, generally stored and accessed electronically from a computer system. Where databases are more complex they are often developed using formal design and modeling techniques. The database management system (DBMS) is the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to …

Broadly speaking, cloud computing refers to the practice of remotely storing and accessing information and software programs on demand, instead of storing data on a computer’s hard drive or accessing it through an organization’s intranet. This practice relies on a cloud infrastructure, a collection of hardware and software that may …

New data from SIPRI’s Arms Industry Database shows that arms sales by the world’s 25 largest arms-producing and military services companies (arms companies) totalled US$361 billion in 2019. This represents an 8.5 per cent increase in real terms over the arms sales of the top 25 arms companies in 2018. Among …