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Infrastructure Resilience
Data centers consume enormous amounts of power, but their steady demand could make the grid more efficient — and lower costs for everyone.
A new generation of self-healing tools could make the U.S.'s aging power grid far more resilient against modern threats.
Can you travel by rail from Portugal all the way to Singapore? In theory, yes. In practice? Not so much.
The history of catastrophe shows that true resilience comes not from restoration, but from reinvention.
"Gyroscope-on-a-chip" technology could soon enable us to navigate over long distances without GPS.
New telescopes, radio dishes, and gravitational wave detectors are needed for next-generation science. Will the USA lead the way?
The best autonomous car may be one you don’t even need to own.
Electric vehicle sales are rising but public charging in cities is still lacking.
Australia's AAPowerLink boasts three global superlatives: largest solar farm, largest battery, and longest power cable.
The most iconic, longest-lived space telescope of all, NASA's Hubble, is experiencing orbital decay as the solar cycle peaks. Here's why.
Decades ago, a disaster left three million acres of land uninhabitable and killed between 85,600 and 240,000 people. Chernobyl? No. Banqiao dam in China.
Ironically, the company did so using technology perfected by the oil industry.
With U.S. infrastructure crumbling, an honor oath and iron ring remind engineers of their profession's ethical weight.
Old coal mines can be converted into "gravity batteries" by retrofitting them with equipment that raises and lowers giant piles of sand.
Recasting the iconic Carrington Event as just one of many superstorms in Earth’s past, scientists reveal the potential for even more massive eruptions from the sun.
Was it the enormous magnitude of the quake, or is the problem with the buildings?
Why can’t more rainwater be collected for the long, dry spring and summer when it’s needed?
A Carrington-magnitude event would kill millions, and cause trillions of dollars in damage. Sadly, it isn't even the worst-case scenario.
In the future, driving an app across a bridge could let engineers know how safe it is.
You might think it's impossible to run out of wind, but Europe's "wind drought" proves otherwise. And it's only going to get worse.
Most electric car charging is done at night. A grid powered mostly by renewable energy might not be able to meet demand, but there is a solution.
1859's Carrington event gave us a preview of how catastrophic the Sun could be for humanity. But it could get even worse than we imagined.
Best in class: Denmark and Uruguay. Worst in class: Papua New Guinea, Venezuela, and Russia.
At least 33 cities are sinking by more than 1 cm a year.
U.S. nuclear power plants are built to survive external attacks. Even missiles or a commercial aircraft strike would not cause a meltdown or radiation leak.
Forty Starlink satellites were destroyed earlier this year in a geomagnetic storm.
Can space ever be safe? What about the metaverse?
The NSF’s new, cutting-edge solar observatory shows us the Sun as never before. Here’s why we need to know. On December 12, 2019, the world’s most powerful solar observatory — the National Science […]
As individuals, we scientists are all flawed. But the enterprise of science rises above our individual shortcomings. The enterprise of science is perhaps the greatest achievement in all of human […]