Cybersecurity educationUtah State University’s Seth Manesse Wins First Individual CyberForce Competition Published 27 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 fuelNovel Chemical Process a First Step to Making Nuclear Fuel with Fire Published 27 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 27 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

Our picksHumanity’s Short-Term thinking | Cyberattack the Best form of Defense? | China’s ZTE Is a Security Threat, and more Published 27 November 2020 ·  Democracy Contains the Seeds of Its Own Recovery ·  Biden’s DHS Pick Was a “Quick Study” of Cybersecurity Issues as the Department’s Deputy ·  Did a University Use Facial Recognition to ID

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

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

The Russia connectionRussian Influence Peddlers Carving Out New Audiences on Fringes By Jeff Seldin Published 25 November 2020 After four years of warnings and preparations, the 2020 presidential election did not see a repeat of 2016, when intelligence officials concluded Russia meddled using a combination of cyberattacks and influence operations. But according to current and

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