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Archive for the ‘military’ category: Page 135

Jul 10, 2020

The Pentagon’s AI director talks killer robots, facial recognition, and China

Posted by in categories: military, robotics/AI

The Pentagon’s Joint AI Center is working on lethal “tactical edge AI,” but is not working on facial recognition, said JAIC director Nand Mulchandani.

Jul 9, 2020

US Army Lab finds safeguards for quantum communications

Posted by in categories: military, quantum physics

Researchers at the Army Research Laboratory have developed a new method to protect and safeguard quantum information, moving quantum networks a step closer to reality.

Quantum information science is a rapidly growing interdisciplinary field exploring new ways of storing, manipulating and communicating information. Researchers aim to create powerful computational capabilities using new hardware that operates on quantum physics principles.

For the army, these new quantum paradigms could potentially lead to transformational capabilities in fast, efficient and secure collecting, exchanging and processing vast amounts of information on dynamic battlefields in the future.

Jul 9, 2020

DARPA Program Seeks to Develop Novel Therapeutics for Combating Microbial Infections

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, military

Antibiotic resistance is on the rise and is recognized by both the CDC1 and the U.S. Military2 as a current – and formidable – global health threat. The U.S Department of Defense (DoD) has long documented the warfighter’s outsized risk of exposure to infectious disease, including the increasing number of multi-drug resistant (MDR) organisms that have challenged military wound care in Iraq and Afghanistan3. Despite this looming crisis, there has been a notable exodus of pharmaceutical companies from the antibiotic space, as well as several high-profile failures of biotechnology companies focused on antibiotic development4. Current therapeutics to combat microbial infections, including MDR microbes and bacterial biothreats, are insufficient to meet the growing need, and existing methods to develop new treatments are too slow and/or costly to combat emerging drug resistance in pathogenic microorganisms.

DARPA’s Harnessing Enzymatic Activity for Lifesaving Remedies (HEALR) program aims to utilize a new therapeutic design toolkit and novel strategies/modalities to effectively treat microbial infections. Specifically, HEALR seeks to develop new medical countermeasures (MCMs) by recruiting native cellular machinery to recognize and clear disease-related targets for treating these infections. These advances could result in host-driven degradation or deactivation of pathogen targets, which may not only inhibit but could stop the pathogen in its tracks.

“HEALR presents the opportunity to identify drugs that are safer, more effective, and better address drug resistance and bacterial infections than existing therapeutic modalities,” noted Seth M. Cohen, Ph.D., program manager for the DARPA HEALR program. “By harnessing innate cellular processes, such as those exploited by proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTACs) and similar approaches, HEALR intends to achieve superior outcomes over existing therapies.”

Jul 9, 2020

DoD must modernize infrastructure to support cutting-edge technology research

Posted by in category: military

The road to the next great scientific or technological advance starts with basic science and research. Basic research is central to the DoD’s long-term competitive strategy to create and maintain military superiority for the nation. The DoD has a long history of conducting and sponsoring basic research, focusing on understanding how and why things work at a fundamental scientific level.

Jul 9, 2020

Pentagon AI center shifts focus to joint warfighting operations

Posted by in categories: military, robotics/AI

The Pentagon’s artificial intelligence hub is shifting its focus to enabling joint warfighting operations, developing artificial intelligence tools that will be integrated into the Department of Defense’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control efforts.

“As we have matured, we are now devoting special focus on our joint warfighting operation and its mission initiative, which is focused on the priorities of the National Defense Strategy and its goal of preserving America’s military and technological advantages over our strategic competitors,” Nand Mulchandani, acting director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, told reporters July 8. “The AI capabilities JAIC is developing as part of the joint warfighting operations mission initiative will use mature AI technology to create a decisive advantage for the American war fighter.”

Jul 9, 2020

House defense spending bill would give the MQ-9 Reaper drone a second life

Posted by in categories: drones, military

Appropriators are also backing the purchase of a bunch of other aircraft across the services.

Jul 8, 2020

The U.S. Army Is Using Satellites for Artillery Shell Targeting

Posted by in categories: military, satellites

The U.S. Army now is pairing space-based sensors with artillery units to allow howitzer and rocket gunners to detect, identify, process, and engage enemy units faster than ever. In tests conducted in Germany, Army artillery units were able to use satellite data for the first time to hit targets beyond the line of sight.

Jul 6, 2020

Germany’s Supercavitating Torpedoes: The Super Weapon the U.S. Navy Doesn’t Have

Posted by in category: military

And America’s can’t compete.

Jul 6, 2020

Indie Comics Spotlight: Biohacking, transhumanism, and gender identity in ‘The Dark’

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, cyborgs, government, military, privacy, transhumanism

Sable co-created the story with artist Kristian Donaldson (Unthinkable, The Guild) and Mey Rude, a transgender woman who served as a consulting editor on the project. Sable took some time to talk to SYFY WIRE about biohacking, transhumanism, and how science fiction often predicts the future.


The Dark, by screenwriter and playwright Mark Sable (Unthinkable, Godkillers), is a graphic novel about a world plunged into chaos when a biotech virus pulls everything offline. The plot twists around government conspiracies, techno warfare, biohacking, and the unlikely pair out to stop it before another world war breaks loose. To make it all the scarier, Sable bases his fiction on fact. As a futurist who has consulted with think tanks and The Art of Future Warfare Project, he is well versed in techno warfare scenarios.

The Dark begins in 2035 and follows Master Sergeant Robert Carter, a N.E.O. (Networked Exoskeleton Operator) Marine whose power armor links him to the world’s technology, and whose implants mentally connect him to his unit. He feels what they feel, which proves torturous when his unit is attacked. The Dark takes on a double meaning as the experience leaves him both physically and technologically blind as the world’s tech crashes.

Continue reading “Indie Comics Spotlight: Biohacking, transhumanism, and gender identity in ‘The Dark’” »

Jul 4, 2020

The World’s Smallest Nuke- Detonation Clip

Posted by in categories: military, nuclear weapons

Many say that the Cold War didn’t accomplish anything but it did heat up the world of weapon development. The United States and Communist Russia went head to head in the race to develop the most powerful nuclear weapon. However, sometimes the most powerful weapon is not the most efficient one, so the United States took a different approach.

The result was the development of a small, powerful, portable nuclear warhead, the W54. The small nuke earned the nickname “Davey Crockett” was intended for by ground troops and operated via rocket launcher.

Continue reading “The World’s Smallest Nuke- Detonation Clip” »