Cybersecurity educationUtah State University’s Seth Manesse Wins First Individual CyberForce Competition Published 25 November 2020 After a tough, day-long contest, Seth Manesse from Utah State University won the sixth CyberForce Competition. Each CyberForce Competition presents a real-world scenario in which participants must defend cyber-physical infrastructure against threats modeled on those faced by the energy sector

Nuclear weaponsFlight Tests to Show B61-12 Will Work on Air Force’s Newest Fighter Jet Published 25 November 2020 A mock B61-12’s strike in the dusty Nevada desert successfully completed the first in a series of flight tests with the U.S. Air Force’s newest fighter jet, demonstrating the bomb’s first release from an internal bomb bay

Nuclear fuelNovel Chemical Process a First Step to Making Nuclear Fuel with Fire Published 25 November 2020 Uranium dioxide, a radioactive actinide oxide, is the most widely used nuclear fuel in today’s nuclear power plants. A new “combustion synthesis” process recently established for lanthanide metals—non-radioactive and positioned one row above actinides on the periodic table—could

Water securityImproving Water Security for People in Africa and Asia by 2024 Published 25 November 2020 New funding from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) will support global research and practice to improve water security for 10 million people in Africa and Asia. The FCDO’s grant to the University of Oxford will now extend

Terrorism2020 Global Terrorism Index: Deaths from Terrorism Reach 5-Year Low Published 25 November 2020 Globally, deaths from terrorism fell for the fifth consecutive year in 2019, to 13,826 — a 15 percent decrease from the prior year. In North America, Western Europe and Oceania, far-right attacks have increased by 250 percent since 2014 – they

Cybersecurity educationUtah State University’s Seth Manesse Wins First Individual CyberForce Competition Published 25 November 2020 After a tough, day-long contest, Seth Manesse from Utah State University won the sixth CyberForce Competition. Each CyberForce Competition presents a real-world scenario in which participants must defend cyber-physical infrastructure against threats modeled on those faced by the energy sector

VaccinesHere’s How the Three COVID-19 Vaccines Compare By Steve Baragona Published 24 November 2020 With pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca’s announcement Monday that its vaccine successfully prevented coronavirus infection, three candidates appear to be promising vital tools to curtail the COVID-19 pandemic. However, scientists caution that all they know about these vaccines is what the companies have

Face masksFace Masks Cut Disease Spread in the Lab, but Have Less Impact in the Community. We Need to Know Why By Paul Glasziou and Chris Del Mar Published 24 November 2020 In controlled laboratory situations, face masks appear to do a good job of reducing the spread of coronavirus (at least in hamsters) and

China syndromeChina-Sensitive Topics at US Universities Draw More Online Harassment By Lin Yang Published 21 November 2020 Last week, students at Brandeis University hosted an online discussion about China’s controversial Xinjiang policies, hearing experts discuss the detention, abuse and political indoctrination of more than 1 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities. But as Uighur attorney

Post-election tensionsFive Reasons Trump’s Challenge of the 2020 Election Will Not Lead to Civil War By Alexander Cohen Published 21 November 2020 Some Americans fear that the deep political divisions in the country and President Donald Trump’s determination to challenge the results of the election will cause civil war. Those who object to Trump’s tactics